When I saw controversial articles saying “500,000 Olympics tickets still left after second lottery sales ” here and there in Japan’s online media, I received an e-mail from United States Olympic Authorized Ticket Reseller, CoSport.
“New Tickets and Packages on Sale Thursday, January 16 at 3pm EST”
The email also mentions that they have received newly-allocated tickets from the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee” but the timing is perfectly matching with the announcement regarding the unsold tickets made by the Organizing Committee. I don’t know what it indicates 🙂
CoSport sent us the email on the afternoon of January 15, which is less than a day before the public sales starting January 16th. Why are they in such a hurry? There’s a reason behind. Or simply it was because of mis-communication made by the person in charge.
Putting my guess aside, this is the third “official” first-come-first-served sale on CoSport US website:
- 1st public sale： July
- 2nd public sale：October
- 3rd public sale： January（We are here）
Coincidentally or possibly intentionally, it has happened every three months.
I called it “official” because, as I continuously reported multiple times between the public sales, extra tickets went on sale without any announcement. I have greatly benefited from it.
Immediately after receiving this third public sales announcement, I visited CoSport website where I found the announcement of “New Olympic Ticket Sales Start” along with the scheduled start time of sales in each country / region,
All information about unsold tickets have also reset.
Before sales begin
The ticket sales on the next day starts on weekday. I am at work, and I am in meetings all day. 🙁
On the west coast where I live, sales start from 12:00 noon.
From my experiences to date, it is too late to access at 12 o’clock. Preparation is required.
When I visited CoSport website 3 hours before the sales started, there was already a queue!!
Looking at the page closely, I found it says “You are in queue for CoSport’s EU and the Middle East Sale”.
Yeah, it started earlier in other areas where CoSport has a deal. Needless to say, US residents like me cannot buy tickets.
I stand by again at 11:30 which is 30 minutes before sales on the West Coast of the United States.
I have two browsers on my laptop brought in to conference room and one browser on my mobile phone
I log in to CoSport sites on all the browsers. I remeber I wasted time logging in for last two public sales. I don’t want to make a same mistake here.
Ticket sale started on January 16th (Thursday) !
At 11:30 am, I access the CoSport top page on all browsers simultaneously and the sales start countdown begins.
A half hour later, at 12:00 pm, the number of people ahead of me is displayed in each browser.
It is 4,000 on mobile phone, and It’s similar on a browser on my laptop but another browser on the same PC did a good job! The queue started with 400 people . I never had such a small number of users in line ahead of me!
The number dropped down to 200 shortly, and in half a dozen minutes after the start of sales, the message changed to “It is your turn.”
The CoSport top page is displayed automatically and competition listing page becomes accessible.
Tickets for about 17 competitions still left 7-8 minutes after the start of sales.
Notable competions are swimming, badminton, baseball / soft, fencing, golf, shooting, surfing, and table tennis .
First of all, I check golf, but I can only find tickets for women’s that I have already purchased. No luck.
For Swimming, it was the first time for me to find tickets for “Men’s and Women’s Diving”. But schedule is a bit problem. The session is quite short. It is only one hour.
Softball tickets are on sale only for bronze medal game that was available before.I do not buy because the session conflicts with the one I already decided to go.
For badminton and table tennis, I am unlikely able to accommodate my schedule.
Fencing is a no go because Makuhari Messe is to far from my place in Tokyo. 🙁
I’m not so familiar with surfing …
For basketball, tickets are still on sale for women’s final and men’s semi-finals / bronze medal game , but no tickets are available for men’s final. No luck. I also have ones for a preliminary round.
Although it is not shown in the above screenshot, also tennis was also available. It is for men’s singles final and women’s doubles final, which are quite popular sessions including the session below!
Men’s Singles Gold Medal Match …. I tried to add category D tickets to shopping cart, but the page said “already sold out” … I saw a same message before. That’s a bummer.
Moving on to volleyball, I found most of the sessions for sale, and Women’s gold medal match was one of them!
However, when I tried to add tickets to shopping cart, I got an error message saying “Only 1 ticket can be purchased”, so I had to pass.
Am I a bit too picky?
Baseball!
Baseball is my second highest priority sport after golf. As you know, or it may be hard to believe, baseball is the most popular sport to play and watch in Japan.
Until yesterday I had never found even a single ticket for baseball. I thought I was totally out of luck.
But here it comes today!
It’s baseball gold medal game!
I don’t quite understand the only available tickets are for the gold medal match. Where are the ones for preliminary round?! People care more about knockout stage?!
I was a bit nervous when I was adding tickets to my shopping card. Cosport, please don’t say “Already sold out”. I got my fingers crossed, and I made it!. I was able to get there quickly because I already logged in with my account.
Wow, I got tickets for baseball final game! They must be premium tickets for people in Japan.
One problem is the baseball final game is completely conflicting with the one for soccer men’s final. I will find out how to deal with it. I got tickets for the soccer with my account and for the baseball with my kid’s account, respectively, so I believe I can manage the complexity.（I don’t know how yet though）
Ticket purchase history
In this third official public sale on CoSport website, I purchased tickets only for baseball gold medal game this time.
Here is a quick summary and history of Olympics tickets I’ve got so far:
| JUN | Lottery sale | None | 0 |
| JUL | Live sale | Equestrian | 1 |
| Extra live sale | Basketball, 3on3, Handball (x2), Hockey, Weight lifting | 6 | |
| Extra extra live sale | Golf (x4), Weightlifting | 5 | |
| OCT | 2nd live sale | None | 0 |
| Extra live sale | Golf, Volleyball (x2), Handball, Wrestling | 5 | |
| NOV | Extra extra live sale | Water polo, Soccer | 2 |
| Extra live sale again | Did not purchase | 0 | |
| Extra live sale continues | Soccer | 1 | |
| DEC | Extra sale – End of year | Artistic Swimming | 1 |
| JAN | Extra sale – New year | Golf (x2) | 2 |
| 3rd live sale | Baseball | 1 |
I got tickets for 24 sessions for 13 competitions under 13 sports in total.
I will complete my effort when I have added tickets for first round of men’s golf and softball games to be held in my hometown Fukushima. I am looking forward to additional purchase opportunities.
