Two years from now, Los Angeles will become the center of the sporting world.
But the Olympics returning to Southern California in 2028 will not simply be another version of the Games Americans watched from Paris four years earlier.
There will be more medal events. New sports will make their Olympic debuts. Familiar Southern California landmarks will become competition venues. Millions of spectators will move throughout the region as Los Angeles becomes only the third city to host the Summer Olympics three times.
With preparations accelerating, LA28 Chairperson and President Casey Wasserman and the organizing committee are providing a much clearer picture of what spectators can expect.
More than six million Olympic tickets have already been sold, according to LA28, with another round of sales planned for 2027. Meanwhile, venue assignments and competition routes continue to transform a years-long Olympic plan into something increasingly tangible.
For Southern California residents, the Games are no longer a distant event on the calendar.
They are beginning to take shape in their own backyard.
LA28 Will Be the Biggest Olympic Program Yet
One number helps explain the scale of what is coming: 353.
That is how many medal events are scheduled for the Los Angeles Olympics, making LA28 the largest medal program in Olympic history. Paris hosted 329 medal events in 2024.
The expansion includes several sports likely to be particularly familiar to American audiences.
Flag football and squash will make their Olympic debuts. Baseball and softball will return to the Games, as will cricket and lacrosse.
The additions are part of an Olympic program that Wasserman and LA28 have worked to tailor in part to the interests and sporting culture of the host market.
Flag football could be one of the most closely watched additions in the United States, particularly with NFL players potentially eligible to represent their countries.
Baseball’s return will also have a distinctly Los Angeles setting.
Dodger Stadium Is Going Olympic
When baseball returns to the Olympic program, it will do so at one of the most recognizable ballparks in the country.
Dodger Stadium will host Olympic baseball in 2028, putting the sport in a venue that has been part of Los Angeles since 1962.
It will hardly be the only familiar Southern California sports venue taking on a different identity for the Games.
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will once again host Olympic competition, making it the first stadium to play a role in three separate Summer Games. The Coliseum previously served as the centerpiece of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics.
In Inglewood, one of the region’s newest stadiums will undergo an even more dramatic transformation.
The NFL venue will become an Olympic swimming facility with approximately 38,000 seats. LA28 has said the temporary configuration will create the largest swimming venue in Olympic history.
The contrast between the Coliseum and Inglewood captures something unusual about the 2028 Games. One connects LA28 directly to the city’s Olympic past. The other demonstrates just how much Southern California’s sports infrastructure has changed since the Olympics were last here.
Wasserman’s organizing committee intends to use both.
Some Olympic Events Will Look Like Postcards From California
Not everything will happen inside a stadium.
Some of LA28’s most memorable television images may come from events staged against familiar Southern California scenery.
Olympic triathlon is planned for Venice Beach. Surfing will take place at Trestles Beach in San Clemente, while beach volleyball will be contested at Alamitos Beach in Long Beach.
Cycling could provide some of the most recognizable Los Angeles backdrops of all.
The men’s and women’s road races are scheduled to begin at Venice Beach before traveling through the city and finishing near Griffith Observatory. The cycling time trials will start near the Los Angeles Zoo and also finish at the observatory.
Those choices mean Los Angeles itself will become part of the Olympic presentation.
For international viewers, the Games will provide an extended tour of Southern California. For residents, they will transform familiar beaches, streets and landmarks into Olympic competition sites.
The Olympics Will Stretch Far Beyond Downtown Los Angeles
Visitors expecting a single Olympic park may be surprised by the geography of LA28.
Competition will be spread across Southern California, taking advantage of facilities that already host professional sports, college athletics, concerts and major entertainment events.
Long Beach will host multiple sports. Carson will again become an important Olympic competition hub. Anaheim will host volleyball, while equestrian events are planned for Santa Anita Park in Arcadia. Squash will make its Olympic debut on the Universal Studios Lot.
Cricket will have a particularly unusual setting. The sport, which returns to the Olympics for the first time since 1900, is scheduled to be played at a temporary venue at the Fairgrounds in Pomona.
Even Olympic soccer will extend well beyond California.
Preliminary matches are planned for stadiums around the United States before the tournament’s final stages return to Southern California and the Rose Bowl.
The sprawling map is a consequence of one of the central ideas behind Wasserman’s LA28 plan: use existing facilities whenever possible instead of constructing a collection of permanent venues specifically for the Olympics.
Millions of Fans Have Already Bought In
The appetite to attend the Games appears substantial.
LA28 announced in August that Olympic ticket sales had surpassed six million following the first two major sales phases.
The milestone comes well before the Opening Ceremony and follows an early surge in interest when ticket registration began. LA28 said more than 1.5 million people from over 150 countries registered for the ticket draw during its first 24 hours.
Fans who have not yet secured seats will have another opportunity.
Additional Olympic tickets are scheduled to be released in 2027 on a first-come, first-served basis, rather than through the previous ticket draw system. Tickets for the 2028 Paralympic Games are also expected to go on sale.
For Wasserman and organizers, those figures provide an early indication that filling Southern California’s venues may not be the biggest challenge facing LA28.
Accommodating all those spectators will be another matter.
The Countdown Is Getting Real
Los Angeles was officially awarded the 2028 Games in 2017, giving organizers an unusually long runway to prepare.
For years, that made LA28 feel like an event perpetually sitting somewhere over the horizon.
That is changing quickly.
Venue plans are becoming competition schedules. Familiar stadiums are being assigned Olympic sports. Cycling routes now have starting lines and finish lines. Millions of spectators already have tickets.
The Opening Ceremony is scheduled for July 14, 2028, with the Olympic Games running through July 30. The Paralympic Games will follow from Aug. 15 through Aug. 27.
By then, Los Angeles will be hosting an Olympic program larger than any before it.
And for Southern California residents, the clearest sign that the Olympics are getting close may be the simplest one: the places they already know are starting to become Olympic venues.
