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LA28 - For seventeen days in July 2028 Los Angeles will be the beguiling story for billions of people around the world as it hosts the LA28 Olympic Games. And its pageantry will be more elaborate than the ceremonial grandeur often magically fashioned by its own Hollywood. As always, the city will gleam as it turns its celebrated face to the camera.
To do so, however, the Olympics must materialize and to do so the city must unravel its currently perplexing pathway to organization and money, and quickly—a pathway that today resembles the legendary labyrinth.
The mammoth Olympics consume mammoth budgets. To create such a massive budget is an Olympian task on its own. LA28 is estimated to cost $7.1 billion, and while organizers believe they are on track to meet or exceed their corporate fundraising goals, many do not agree, and the fear grows that public funding will be needed to ensure the Games.
Under an agreement between LA28 and the city, reimbursements must be made only for services that go beyond what the city would provide on a normal day. In two months, October 1, 2025, the two parties must agree on what enhanced services beyond the normal level will be needed for the Games, including the rates, repayment timelines, audit rights, as well as other processes.
This is not a simple task because the funds remain elusive, and the politics is enigmatic. The LA28 Games have been billed as a “no cost” event in a city with a perilous financial position. Any significant or unexpected costs would be disastrous. The city of Los Angeles is responsible for the first $270 million deficit.
Security, for example, is one of the major expenses with local, state and federal agencies working together to protect athletes and spectators. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” recently signed into law includes a one-billion-dollar allocation to support the U.S. hosting aspects of the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the holding of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. What exactly will be covered is not yet known.
For example, will this allocation provide help to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority for funding related to spectators’ transportation?
Olympic fiscal problems are not new. Stunned by Montreal’s enormous 1976 Olympic debt, Councilman Bob Ronka with the support of Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky authored Charter Amendment N forbidding Los Angeles from spending taxpayer monies on the games.
But it was Mayor Tom Bradley who saved the day. In July 1978, he threatened to withdraw the city’s bid unless it was given freedom for financial liability, with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee being the primary financial body responsible for the Games. The IOC reluctantly withdrew its objections and ratified the contract under Bradley’s terms. The 1984 Los Angeles Games made history.
I vividly recall the great concerns in 1984, and the innumerable anxieties that were present then and are recurring today. Many feared terminal gridlocks would develop, and thousands of athletes and fans would be stuck in traffic jams. The dreaded prospect was possible that world athletes would be required to perform in empty stadiums.
I had been appointed by Paul Ziffren to the Olympic Citizens Advisory Commission and subsequently as president of the Southern California Rapid District, I pulled together planners to devise a complex transportation plan. After years of planning and coordination, more than fifty federal, state, county and local agencies were coordinated to provide a comprehensive Olympic planning effort. No gridlocks ensued. The streets were not congested.
I doubt if such a planning effort and funding, so vitally imperative, are going on today.
Indeed, for every Olympics the funding issues will always be troubling. The question that will persist can only be answered when the Olympic Torch is extinguished on the final day of the Games: Will the warm and fuzzy feeling of the LA28 Games continue, or will the emotions of the day swiftly disappear when the bills are passed around?
(Nick Patsaouras directed the complex transportation plan as RTD President during the last Los Angeles Olympics. Parts of this article are drawn from his book "The Making of Modern Los Angeles.”)
