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≡ VENUE PLAN EMERGING ≡
The Los Angeles City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, meeting for the first time since June 2024, approved by a 5-0 vote, the requested venue changes from the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games organizing committee.
The 82-minute hearing on Wednesday morning was chaired by City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and included a 20-minute presentation by LA28 chief executive Reynold Hoover and chief operating officer John Harper.
The organizing committee requested, and received, approval of “material relocations” of sports that were at venues inside the City of Los Angeles during the bid phase in 2017, but are now planned to be elsewhere:
Olympic Games:
● Aquatics/Artistic Swimming: to Long Beach Sports Park
● Aquatics/Swimming: to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood
● Basketball: to Intuit Dome in Inglewood
● Canoe/Slalom: to RiverSportOKC in Oklahoma City
● Equestrian: to Galway Downs in Temecula
● Football: preliminaries to be held out of state
● Shooting: to an existing facility in Los Angeles County
Paralympic Games:
● Aquatics/Swimming: to Long Beach Sports Park
● Equestrian: to Galway Downs in Temecula
● Shooting: to an existing facility in Los Angeles County
● Volleyball/Sitting: to Long Beach Arena
In terms of Olympic programming, the swimming was to be at Dedeaux Field at USC, which is now being redeveloped by the university; gymnastics has replaced basketball at Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles and slalom canoeing, equestrian and shooting, planned for temporary facilities in the Sepulveda Canyon Recreation Area have all been moved.
Hoover and Harper offered some more detail of sports to be at the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, beyond what has been already announced:
● Archery
● Cycling/BMX Freestyle and BMX Racing
● Skateboarding
but also:
● Basketball/3×3
● Modern Pentathlon
It was also confirmed that the football preliminaries will be moved elsewhere and that Flag Football and Lacrosse (6s) will be played at BMO Stadium in downtown Los Angeles. The committee approval sends the motion on to the full City Council for a vote.
There was a brewing debate between LA28 and the City about not just moves of sports out of in-City venues, but all venue moves, under prior Ad Hoc committee Chair Traci Park, but as her 11th District includes the devastated Palisades area from the January wildfires, she has moved on to chairing the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on LA Recovery. Discussion on Wednesday was limited only to the moves out of the City, as preferred by LA28.
A fairly complete venue plan is due to the International Olympic Committee for approval at its 9 April Executive Board meeting.
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There were additional, interesting comments from Hoover and Harper to questions from the five Council members present:
● Hoover said that the LA28 volunteer program would begin in early summer, with an ultimate goal of looking for about 75,000 volunteers in all. “We will start slow, but I want to start this year, because – to me – the fires became a wake-up call for us, that we need to be seen not just as an OCOG [organizing committee of the Olympic Games], but as a civic organization, in which we’re giving back to our community, and helping our neighbors.”
● On transportation, Council member Katy Yaroslavsky – also a Board member of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority – asked about transportation:
“Are you thinking about adding some sort of a surcharge to the tickets to help cover the cost for Metro moving everybody around? Is there a back-up plan if the Feds don’t come through?”
Harper explained: “That’s not currently in our plans, but we’re actively working with L.A. Metro about what the different contingencies would look like, based on different levels of Federal funding that would come through, to be able to move the spectators and the workforce around.
“So, yes, those plans are being actively worked on with Metro, depending on what that will look like, and that’s a full-court press.”
Yaroslavsky countered, “I think it’s important to build in some contingencies into whatever that agreement looks like, so that they’re not left holding the bag if the Federal government doesn’t come through.”
● Council member Curren Price Jr. asked about “legacy investments,” probing beyond the $160 million Youth Sports Partnership agreement for something LA28 might build, even though the organizing committee is committed to not building any new, permanent sites. Hoover explained:
“We’re very fortunate of what the LA84 Foundation has done and for what ‘84 did for the city as whole. That to us is a role model for how we can go forward. As you know, we’ve committed $160 million already to PlayLA … we’re not really waiting for the Games to happen to leave a legacy.”
The LA84 Foundation has used a $93 million portion of the surplus from the 1984 Games to support youth in sports across Southern California and has touched more than four million kids throughout the state since 1985. The Games Agreement for 2028 with the City and LA28 foresees a joint legacy entity to use a hoped-for similar surplus, but this was not mentioned on Wednesday.
Other Council members asked for more current information from LA28 as plans are firmed up.
This was the first meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Olympic and Paralympic Games since last June, with Harris-Dawson promising to meet monthly from now on.
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