How long will it take for the program to start? 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles? Casey Wasserman The answer comes immediately – “1,487 days” – no need to think about it.
“It’s on my phone,” he says. “And I look at it every morning.”
As chairman of the private group responsible for organising the Games, Wasserman also knows there is much to do before then. He says: “We cannot buy more time.”
Time is ticking fast for LA28, which will reach a crucial turning point next month. The initial embarrassment of being named host is over. Years of deliberation went into giving the Olympics a Southern California feel.
If every local organising committee has three lives – bidding, planning, delivery – now comes the third and most difficult one. 2024 Paris Olympics After the event wraps up in mid-August, it’s L.A.’s turn, which means organizers have to get serious about meeting deadlines, sticking to budget and making tough decisions.
“It’s a stark reality. They’re really at risk,” says Angela Schneider, a professor at the International Centre for Olympic Studies in Ontario, Canada.
The pressure at this time is compounded by the fact that, as the organising committee evolves, it has to move from one skill set to another.
Bidding requires people who can prepare a proposal and convince members of the International Olympic Committee of its merits. Schneider calls it: “selling the dream.” If selected, the bid committee turns into an organizing committee focused on planning and finance.
Architects draw up detailed, often ambitious blueprints for the Games, while marketers chase corporate money and government lobbyists help push through any infrastructure projects the host city needs or wants.
LA28 Chairwoman Casey Wasserman (center) speaks during a press conference in September 2022.
(J.C. Hong/Associated Press)
“It’s not something that’s going to happen all smooth sailing,” says Adrian Bouchet, who studies the Olympics as a business professor at the University of Central Florida. “Mega-events always go through these phases.”
The third – or delivery – stage officially begins when Mayor Karen Bass The Olympic flag will be accepted at the closing ceremony in Paris. LA28 is not waiting until then.
Though Wasserman remains in charge, several key staff members, including former chief executive Kathy Carter, a marketing specialist, have left because of a restructuring of the committee.
Carter has been replaced by Reynold Hoover, a retired lieutenant general who oversaw logistics for the U.S. military’s war in Afghanistan and served as deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“It was an interesting appointment,” says former IOC executive Michael Penn. “If you look at it in terms of what it takes, the sheer complexity of a large military is probably the closest we can get to Olympic delivery.”
Even though leadership changes are common at this time, they aren’t necessarily easy. Morale at LA28 “isn’t terrible, but it’s not great either,” says one employee who is not authorized to speak publicly about the organization. “The confidence level isn’t what it used to be.”
Wasserman replies: “I hope we never lose confidence, because I don’t want us to become complacent.”
His committee will face a particularly serious challenge in balancing its estimated $7 billion budget over the next four years.
LA28 vows to follow in the footsteps of 1984 Los Angeles Games By generating enough revenue – including an expected $2.5 billion from corporate sponsorships – to cover all costs.
After a series of deals with companies such as Nike and Delta Air Lines, the organizers have slowed down and recently separated with one of its key partners being Salesforce. A new agreement with technology giant Cisco was announced last month – no terms were disclosed – and additional deals are said to be on the way.
All of this is important because LA28 is still $1 billion behind its sponsorship goal. If that 35% gap can’t be bridged, if the bills can’t be paid, city and state legislators will likely settle any debt with hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money.
“We have to hit certain milestones,” Danny Koblin, LA28’s chief operating officer, said recently. “There’s always this sense of urgency.”
An artist’s rendering of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during the 2028 Summer Olympic Games.
(LA28)
The venue should not be that big a concern, as unlike previous hosts, LA28 is not building any stadiums or arenas,
Relying on existing venues instead, organizers recently announced a new lineup that includes SoFi Stadium for swimming, the new Intuit Dome for basketball, and the Crypto.com Arena for gymnastics. The Coliseum, which hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984, will be temporarily repurposed for track and field.
The task now is to finalize contracts with those facilities, and just as importantly, contracts with the cities where they are located.
LA28 has secured preliminary Games agreements with LA, Carson and Long Beach. Future negotiations will focus on whether the cities get reimbursed for additional policing, trash collection and other services during the Games.
“We’re taking it one step at a time in our negotiations with LA28,” says Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson. “Our goal is full cost recovery.”
Santa Monica and Pasadena have yet to sign on, partly because of concerns that L.A. would be first in line to recoup the expenses while everyone else would be left behind. An official from one of those cities, speaking on the condition of anonymity, complained that negotiations “went back and forth” over the past year with little progress.
David Sunkin, a lawyer representing Santa Monica and Pasadena, downplayed any confrontation, calling it “normal push-pull in negotiations.”
There is another issue that could prove troublesome: In the four years before the Games, organisers often have to make compromises, abandoning some plans because of budget or deadlines.
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1. A rendering of the dive site at Exposition Park. 2. An illustration of the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, which is scheduled to host several Olympic events. 3. A rendering of the canoe slalom venue in Oklahoma City. 4. An artist’s rendering of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic basketball competition at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood. (LA28)
For example, Paris officials had hoped to hold a grand opening ceremony for 600,000 spectators on the Seine River. They had to reduce the number of attendees by half due to security concerns.
Current plans for LA28 include a similarly ambitious opening that includes both SoFi and the Coliseum. In the San Fernando Valley, the Sepulveda Basin will get a cluster of temporary sites for skateboarding, BMX and archery. The UCLA campus will be transformed into a living and training complex for thousands of athletes.
The success of this vision depends on the committee’s ability to shift gears for the final step. Again, people inside the organization believe leadership will be key.
One employee said, “There are a lot of people talking about what we should do, but not enough people doing the work.” The person added that with an effective CEO, “we can get out of this situation and move forward.”
