Olympic museum attendance is rising, but latest filing shows $2.6 million deficit
Attendance was up 22% through May, but the museum’s latest Form 990 reported a $2.6 million deficit, underscoring its reliance on donors as it develops a sustainable business model.
The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum reported a $2.6 million deficit in 2024, even as attendance rose 22% through May 2026, according to figures its CEO presented to Colorado Springs City Council on July 13. The gap underscores the museum’s reliance on donors as it tries to build a sustainable business model.
The museum’s 2024 Form 990, filed in August 2025, reported $6.4 million in revenue and $9 million in expenses for the year ended Dec. 31, 2024. It listed $3.79 million in grants and contributions — about 59% of revenue — but did not distinguish private donations, foundation support and government funding.
CEO Marisa Wigglesworth told council members that the museum currently has about $6 million in annual expenses and $4.2 million in annual revenue, leaving a roughly $1.8 million gap covered by funders. The meeting record does not specify whether those are fiscal-year totals, annualized estimates or whether multiyear commitments are included in revenue.
Wigglesworth said the museum receives $500,000 every other year through the city’s Lodgers and Automobile Rental Tax program to produce the Hall of Fame Festival. She also said it applies annually for competitive LART funding and has a grant pending. The city’s 2024 budget describes LART as a tourism-funded program but does not independently confirm the museum’s reported allocation.
She identified two major philanthropic commitments: $1 million from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Endowment over four years for programming with Olympians and Paralympians, and $1.5 million from the David and Ula Winterman Foundation restricted to changing exhibits and new artifacts. The commitments illustrate the funding strategy but do not show how much private philanthropy the museum needs annually or how long donors will continue covering the gap.
Attendance was about 84,000 to 85,000 visitors in 2024 and 72,000 to 74,000 in 2025, Wigglesworth said. The museum now expects about 100,000 annual visitors, far below its early projection of 350,000. It also wants to increase school-group attendance from roughly 5,000 to 7,000 students a year, with a longer-term goal of four times that level.
The museum plans to use refreshed exhibits and Olympic-related programming to grow its audience. Wigglesworth said a U.S. decathlon exhibit was planned for September 2026, followed by updates to the Paralympic Games-origin exhibit later in the fall and the sports-science lab in 2027. Projects tied to Los Angeles 2028 and national content distribution remain under development; the meeting record includes no signed agreements, projected revenue or public performance measures. A museum board announcement also describes efforts to expand the institution’s national reach.
The museum has described the next several years as a period to build fundraising and earned-income capacity. Its unresolved financial questions are how “sustainable” will be measured, how much of the operating gap donors are expected to cover and how the city’s support will be evaluated.