Organizers of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles have promised to have the most ambitious sports program and sell more tickets than any other Games.
Now they want to go bigger.
LA28, the organizing committee, announced Friday that the swimming competition at the 2028 Games will be held at SoFi Stadium, home of the Rams and Chargers, the city’s two NFL teams. There will be 38,000 seats for fans, double the size of the typical venue used for most Olympic swimming events – which, along with gymnastics and track and field, are one of the biggest draws for the Olympics.
“To put one of the big three Olympic sports in such an amazing place with such a capacity to show that it’s a great sport,” Casey Wasserman, chairman of the organizing committee, said in an interview.
The decision to move the swimming event to the glittering SoFi Stadium is a reflection of the economics of hosting the Olympics. Most are heavily funded by the government and inevitably incur billions in cost overruns. This year’s games, which begin in Paris in late July, could be a draw, officials said.
Organizers of Los Angeles do not receive direct public money, and instead plan to finance the $6.9 billion budget with private sources and sponsors, duplicating the structure since the last time the city hosted the Olympics in 1984. That year’s Games were also privately funded. sources and ended up with a profit of around $250 million.
So far, securing sponsorships for the 2028 Games has been slow, with only Comcast and Delta officially signing on as top-tier sponsors.
The key to financial success can be the event.
Organizers expect to generate about $1.2 billion in ticket revenue for the Olympics, with $56 million from swimming events, according to projections submitted as part of the bid to host the Games. Moving the swimming competition to SoFi Stadium from a temporary 17,500-capacity venue built at the University of Southern California baseball stadium could increase the dollar amount significantly.
“I have no doubt that it will be the greatest swim meet in the history of this country, and possibly the most spectacular swim meet,” Wasserman said.
The plan is not foolproof, and has a ripple effect in some other sports and places.
The competition and warm-up pool had to be closed so that the opening ceremony could be held at SoFi Stadium. It took several days to convert the stadium into a swimming venue, meaning the competition could not take place during the first week of the Olympics, when it normally takes place. However, track and field, which will be held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, will be held during the first week, and swimming will be contested during the second week.
In 2017, when Los Angeles was awarded to host the 2028 Olympics, SoFi Stadium was still several years away from completion, and the original plan for hosting called for the stadium to be used only for archery and the opening and closing ceremonies. Now the arrow will be in a new place.
Efforts to attract more and more people to swimming events have been made.
The US qualifying trials for the Paris Olympics were held at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, home of the Indianapolis Colts. USA Swimming, the sport’s national governing body, is considering bids from various current and former NFL stadiums for the trials, which have previously been held at the 14,000-capacity arena in Omaha, Neb., in anticipation of this year’s event as a test. open to what LA28 was planning behind, Wasserman said.
Tim Hinchey, the chief executive of USA Swimming, acknowledged the risk of moving the trials to a larger venue, but hoped to reap the benefits through ticket sales and increased interest and participation in the sport heading into the 2028 Olympics. , but the 22,209 people who attended Wednesday night’s finals were the largest ever to watch an indoor swimming meet, and the crowd for the early morning session also set an attendance record.
“It’s an energy that I haven’t felt in a meet like this, even an international meet,” said Katie Ledecky, who easily won the 1,500-meter freestyle final on Wednesday. A seven-time Olympic gold medalist, Ledecky serves on the board for LA28 and said he hopes to compete in his fifth Olympics in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles organizers are in Indianapolis to learn more about hosting a swim at a football stadium. Wasserman cautioned that larger venues may not become the standard for all future Olympic events.
“There are a lot of great stadiums in the world,” Wasserman said. “Only one city can have SoFi, it’s LA”
Several other venue changes announced Friday that organizers say will help generate more than $150 million in savings and revenue by 2028.
Basketball will move to the Intuit Dome, where the Clippers will play when they open this summer, from the Crypto.com Arena, where the Lakers play. Gymnastics will move to the Crypto.com Arena from the Kia Forum. And diving, synchronized swimming and Paralympic swimming all moved elsewhere in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Other sports will go outside of Southern California altogether. Softball and canoe slalom competitions will be held in Oklahoma City, 1,300 miles to the east. Organizers cited the reason for the move as a lack of acceptable facilities and a commitment to building as many new facilities as possible.
