According to this Reuters article, it appears that the tickets sales for the Beijing Olympics are having further problems. Three-quarters of the tickets from the second round sales remain unsold. It seems like popular events were over-subscribed leaving the huge number of unsold tickets.

“It is believed that it resulted from the fact that some popular events were extremely over-subscribed while the rest of the events had much fewer bookings,” Xinhua said.

Earlier, an official in BOCOG’s ticket centre said demand had been “extremely high but too centralized on several hot events”, Xinhua reported.

The second round of ticket sales was done through a lottery system after experiencing a huge demand in domestic sales which brought done the system in its first two failed attempts at public sales. Beijing Olympic organizers have been criticized for not supplying enough tickets to international spectators.

Popular sports in China differ to that in the west, except for possibly the gymnastics. Shots of empty seats on television is something organizers would want to be broadcast around the world.