- Utah's 2034 Winter Olympics organizers plan to raise funds and finalize plans for the Games this year.
- As part of the preparations, a pilot K-12 Olympic values program will launch in six Utah districts.
- Organizers aim to engage all Utahns and secure private funding for the Games.
SALT LAKE CITY — Raise more money. Finalize a plan. Start reaching out to Utahns statewide.
Those are what organizers of Utah's 2034 Winter Games want to accomplish in the coming months, after spending much of the first part of the year focused on Italy's recently ended Olympics and Paralympics for athletes with disabilities.
"Really, this year our plan is to plan," said Brad Wilson, the CEO of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Much of the work will be done behind the scenes.
But not all. This fall, the organizing committee intends to launch a pilot program in at least six school districts in both urban and rural parts of Utah, Wilson said, to teach students about the values of the Olympics as well get them more involved in sports.
The K-12 program, being developed with one of the $20 million donors to the organizing committee's Podium34 fundraising effort, Ken Garff for Good, is still being put together, he said, but the pilot locations should be finalized by the end of next month.
The goal is not only to see the Olympic lessons taught in classrooms and school gyms statewide but also across the country, Wilson said. The national rollout likely won't be until after the next U.S. Olympics are over, the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
Starting an education initiative so far in advance of the 2034 Games "is remarkable," he said.
"We're still in our bonus years," Wilson said, because the International Olympic Committee awarded Utah a second Games in July 2024, well ahead of the typical seven years organizers have to get ready.
He announced the plans for the pilot program during Tuesday's virtual meeting of the steering committee for Utah's Games, telling the advisory group "it will evolve into a full-blown, Olympic values-based education program starting in 2027."
Engaging Utahns in the Games
Other aspects of what he described as driving Games impact are also coming. Wilson told the group that organizers are looking for help with a youth sports strategy that will assist not only Team USA but also other athletes from other countries.
Also on the list is creating a way "to engage every corner of the state. ... The idea being, we don't want anyone in the state of Utah to feel like they haven't had an opportunity to touch the Games prior to 2034 and, of course, in 2034 as well."
Wilson, a former Utah House speaker, previously held a monthslong "listening tour" of communities along the Wasatch Front and Wasatch Back where Olympic venues are located, meeting privately with local leaders.
While nearly all of those venues are the same as they were for Utah's first Olympics, in 2002, this time around it's the state, not Salt Lake City, that's the official host. Utah's capital city was dropped from the logo unveiled last year, to mixed reviews.
The organizing committee is relying on private funding to cover the $4 billion price tag for the Games, largely from the sale of broadcast rights, sponsorships and tickets. Donations are also key, since those revenue sources mostly won't be tapped until 2029 and beyond.
Wilson said current domestic sponsors may be approached in the coming year to renew for the 2034 Games, and a joint venture with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee that will detail the revenue split is in the works.
The organizing committee's first "roadmap" for putting on the Games since the thousands of pages of bid details submitted to the International Olympic Committee in February 2024 is nearing completion, Wilson said.
The plan outlining what's to come, expected to be done by Olympic Day on June 23, will be made public.
Planning — but for community impact
At a closed-door meeting of the organizing committee's board also held Tuesday, members voted to support the work underway on sponsors as well as on a technology initiative, Fraser Bullock, the Games' president and executive chair, told reporters during a virtual briefing.
Bullock said organizers are following the advice they received earlier this year from the IOC in Milan, Italy, to wait to start detailed planning for the Games. Just as suggested shortly before the 2026 Winter Games started, they're paying attention instead to what matters now, he said.
"We're leaving the bulk, the vast majority, of the planning of the Games, to start four to five years out," he said, adding there are key areas that can't wait to be addressed, including the education initiative and the youth sport program, which will rely on existing organizations.
"We don't waste these next eight years and just have an impact in 2034. We want to have an impact all the way along," Bullock said. "Those aren't elements of planning. Those are elements of having a great impact on our community."
Volunteer sign-ups could be coming soon, too. Bullock welcomed a suggestion from Utah County business executive Carin Clark, that Utahns who want to volunteer at the Games be allowed to start adding their names to some sort of database.
"Let's just start collecting," said Clark, a member of the steering committee. "I just think we should make it really easy. It doesn't have to be so complex."
