A member of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee's executive board told The Wall Street Journal that the Olympics would most likely be postponed by one or two years if they could not go on as scheduled, due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Haruyuki Takahashi, who is one of the executive board's 25 members, told the newspaper in an article published Tuesday that other alternatives — such as holding the Games without spectators or canceling them altogether — would have significant financial ramifications, which makes a postponement the most likely alternative.

"I don’t think the Games could be canceled. It’d be a delay," Takahashi told The Wall Street Journal. "The International Olympic Committee would be in trouble if there’s a cancellation. American TV rights alone provide them with a huge amount."

In a statement provided to USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday, the organizing committee said it was aware of the article and had sought clarification from Takahashi about his remarks.

"He stated he had inadvertently given his personal opinion in response to a hypothetical question," Tokyo 2020 said in the statement. "Mr. Takahashi apologized for the problems these comments caused for the organizing committee.

"As IOC President (Thomas) Bach stated the other day, neither the IOC nor the organizing committee are considering postponing or cancelling the Tokyo 2020 Games."

The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to run from July 24 through August 9. Officials from both groups have avoided publicly discussing any possible contingency plans for the Games, to the point of claiming that a final decision on their status has already been made.

"And the decision is that the Games go ahead," IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said at a news conference in Lausanne, Switzerland last week. "That was made some time ago. We see no reason to change that decision."

The IOC would have the final say on any alterations to the Olympic schedule.

According to the World Health Organization, there were more than 109,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, across 104 countries as of Monday. More than 3,800 people have died from the virus, including at least seven people in Japan.

The spread of coronavirus has already had a significant impact on international sports around the world. In Italy, the government has suspended all sporting events through April 3 at the recommendation of the Italian Olympic Committee. In Japan, preseason baseball games have been played in empty stadiums. And in the United States, professional sports leagues have altered media access protocols and discouraged athletes from signing autographs with fans.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee also announced Monday that it has postponed a Team USA media summit that was scheduled for next week because of the coronavirus.

Any change to the Olympic Games, however, would have implications of a completely different magnitude.

A postponement of one or two years, as Takahashi mentioned, would cause massive ripple effects throughout the international sporting calendar. And any adjustment would have serious financial implications, as well.

NBC, which owns the Olympic broadcasting rights in the United States, announced last week that it has already secured $1.25 billion in advertising revenue ahead of this summer's Olympics. And Tokyo organizers have said they are spending $12.6 billion on the Games, though the final cost will likely be significantly higher.

SMBC Nikko Securities Inc., a Japanese securities firm, estimated in a report that canceling the Olympics would reduce Japan's annual gross domestic product growth by 1.4%.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.