Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympic Games

Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympic Games, international athletic competition scheduled to be held in Los Angeles July 14–30, 2028. It will be the fifth Summer Olympics to be hosted by the United States, after St. Louis in 1904, Atlanta in 1996, and Los Angeles itself in 1932 and 1984; the United States has also hosted four Winter Olympics, in 1932, 1960, 1980, and 2002. Los Angeles will become the third city, after London (1908, 1948, and 2012) and Paris (1900, 1924, and 2024), to be a three-time host for the Summer Olympics. It will also be the first Summer Games to be held under the tenure of Kirsty Coventry, the first woman and the first African president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The 2028 Games will be held primarily in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and surrounding region. Two events—softball and canoe slalom—will take place in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In order to reduce costs, the Games are being planned with a minimum of new construction and will use existing venues for most competitions.

Bidding and host selection

Los Angeles was granted the 2028 Olympics through an unusual process that took place at a time of growing concerns about the cost of hosting the Olympics. The IOC began evaluating host bids for the 2024 Summer Olympics in 2015. Budapest, Hamburg, Rome, Paris, and Los Angeles were in the running, but by February 2017, the first three cities had withdrawn their candidacies. The IOC met in June that year to decide between the two remaining cities.

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Eventually, in an unprecedented move, the IOC decided to award both cities a Summer Olympic Games. Paris, eager to mark the centenary of the Paris 1924 Summer Olympics, was awarded the 2024 Summer Olympics. Los Angeles was awarded the 2028 Games. Olympic hosting rights are not typically awarded so far in advance; to cover the additional four years of operating the Los Angeles organizing committee, the IOC granted it special concessions, including the right to sell stadium naming rights and receive advance payments from the IOC. The Los Angeles City Council approved the bid in August 2017. In addition, Los Angeles will also host the 2028 Summer Paralympics from August 15 to 27, 2028.

Venues and infrastructure

The opening ceremony, scheduled for July 14, 2028, will be held in two locations: the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which was also used for the 1932 and 1984 Games and is known as the home stadium of the University of Southern California football team, and SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers of the NFL. It will be the first Games to have the opening ceremony take place across two stadiums. The closing ceremony will be held at the Coliseum on July 30.

Competitions at the Los Angeles 2028 Games will be held across numerous existing and temporary venues in the city of Los Angeles and in nearby communities in Southern California, including Inglewood, Long Beach, and Pasadena. Canoe slalom and softball competitions will be held in Oklahoma City at the Whitewater Center and Devon Park, respectively.

The full list of venues for the Los Angeles 2028 Games is provided in the table below:

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Los Angeles is infamous for its extensive highway system and crowded road traffic. To help mitigate congestion during the 2028 Games, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) initiated Twenty-Eight by ’28, a series of new investments to improve roads and public transportation, including extensions and improvements to subway lines, bus routes, and bike infrastructure. A similar initiative during the 1984 Olympics featured staggered working hours and additional buses during the Games to manage congestion.

Sports

The Los Angeles 2028 Olympics will feature a total of 351 medal events. Two new sports will make their Olympic debut in 2028, and four will return after absences:

• flag football: Olympic debut
• squash: Olympic debut
• baseball and softball: returning after being excluded in Paris in 2024
• cricket: last featured in Paris in 1900, where only two teams, England and France, played one game
• lacrosse (sixes): last included in St. Louis in 1904 and London in 1908

Breaking (break dancing) was included in 2024 but has been removed from the program for 2028. The modern pentathlon, which typically comprises fencing, swimming, horse riding, pistol shooting, and running, will replace horse riding with an obstacle course. Golf will feature a new mixed-gender team event, and athletics (track and field) will include a new 4 × 100 meters mixed-gender relay event.

Marketing

The Los Angeles 2028 Games will be the first event in Olympic history to sell naming rights to venues; historically, the IOC has not permitted brand names on Olympic venues. Honda and Comcast have already secured rights to the volleyball and squash venues, respectively.