by SEBASTIAN POLONIS
SPORTS EDITOR
The 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles are approaching, with preparation, construction, and planning in full swing. LA28, the official organizing body led by sports business entrepreneur Casey Wasserman, aims to utilize existing sports venues across Los Angeles and Southern California.
The spectacle will likely begin at the historic L.A. Memorial Coliseum, which has hosted both the 1932 and 1984 Summer Games, making it the only venue to be part of three different Olympic Games. Around Southern California, BMX events will take place in the Sepulveda Basin, combat sports at the downtown L.A. Convention Center, swimming at SoFi Stadium, and basketball at the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, home of the NBA Clippers.
In a surprising decision, the LA28 planning team opted to hold the canoeing and softball competitions in Oklahoma City. Devon Park, an 11,000-seat stadium, hosted the first Olympic softball games in 1996 in Atlanta.
Chadwick Science Department Chair and Cross-Country Coach Tyson Sacco attended last summer’s Paris Olympics to witness world-class athletes compete. “Seeing people achieving at the highest level in all kinds of weird sports is a cool thing about the Olympics,” Sacco said. “You could be a fan of fencing even if you don’t know anything about fencing.”
The Olympics transform cities into hubs of athletics and cultural exchange. “It kind of takes over the city,” Sacco noted. “They closed down some parts of the city, and you could just walk through the streets. There were more international tourists, and fans from different countries were excited about how well their country was doing—that was different.”
Tickets for events at the Paris Games ranged from $120 for gymnastics to over $1,000 for the gold-medal basketball game between the USA and host France. The average hotel cost in Paris was $400 and up per night. In contrast, Southern Californians attending events in their hometown can enjoy priceless personal experiences without the expensive lodging.
“One of the things I noticed in Paris is that a home Olympics is thrilling for the athletes,” Sacco said. “The fan support for the French athletes was insane. Being in a stadium with 50,000 other Americans cheering for the U.S. would be really cool.”
Tickets for LA28 aren’t yet available, but updates can be found at LA28.org, which also lists job opportunities for those interested in working at the event.
Before the Olympics, the 2026 World Cup will be held in 11 U.S. cities and three countries, with SoFi Stadium hosting six matches, including one of the round of 32 games. This World Cup will feature a new 32-team, five-round bracket.
Both the Olympic experience and World Cup competition promise to revolutionize how the U.S. approaches mega sporting events, similar to the impact of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, which connected sports with corporate partnerships and sponsorships. With the post-COVID effects slowly fading, Olympic attendance and viewership may reach all-time highs in Los Angeles in 2028, just as they did in Paris.
When asked if in-person attendance is worth the effort, Sacco simply stated, “Yeah. Absolutely. I think anybody who has the opportunity to go to the Olympics should go. Seeing the Games in Paris made us excited about the Olympics coming to L.A. in four years.”
The Mainsheet 