L.A. 2028 Olympics: Everything we know so far about the next Summer Games

We’re all wrapped up in the Paris 2024 Olympics right now, which means we’re ugly crying over gymnastics, delighting in the viral shooting fashion and lusting over those Olympic Village muffins. But we’re also fixated on Los Angeles—or rather how these very same events will play out when the Summer Olympic Games come to L.A. in 2028.

Look, L.A. may not have monumental settings as romantic as the Eiffel Tower (the backdrop right now to beach volleyball), Versailles (host of equestrian events) or the Grand Palais (the dramatic home to fencing), but this city has its own storied venues and natural landmarks (and many, many logos) that should still make for an enviable Olympics host location.

As the competitions in Paris continue to pique our collective interest, we thought it was a good time to dive into the plans for L.A.’s turn at hosting the Olympics. With just under four years (and possibly one Tom Cruise skydiving stunt onto the Hollywood Sign) between us and the Games, here’s everything we know so far about the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A.

When are the Summer Olympics being held in L.A.?

Mark your calendar now and ready those PTO requests: The Olympics will take place from July 14 to 30, 2028, followed by the Paralympics from August 22 to September 3, 2028.

What 2028 Olympic venues are confirmed so far in L.A.?

Unlike most other host cities, L.A. won’t be building any new permanent venues, and only a handful of temporary ones. The competition will take place across more than 80 venues, and only about a quarter of those have been confirmed so far (for example, the Rose Bowl and BMO Stadium are likely to host soccer, per LA28’s initial bid book, however there haven’t been any recent updates). But here are the ones that we do know will be officially participating. (Also, a quick note: LA28 officially uses generic, unbranded names for all of its venues, but we’ll refer to them by their more familiar corporate names.)

The opening ceremony will likely be held at both the L.A. Memorial Coliseum and SoFi Stadium (referred to in the plans simply as “Stadium”), though we don’t know exactly how that’ll work quite yet. But we do know that later on in the Games, the Coliseum will host track and field while SoFi will host swimming. (You’re not imagining things: The football stadium doesn’t normally have a swimming pool, but a temporary one will be constructed.)

Exposition Park and USC will boast a couple of other venues, too, including diving at the LA84 Foundation/John C. Argue Swim Stadium and badminton at the Galen Center. And as for SoFi’s neighbors, Inglewood will see basketball at the just-about-to-open Intuit Dome.

Downtown L.A. will host a cluster of events, including weightlifting at the Peacock Theater, gymnastics at the Crypto.com Arena and fencing, judo, table tennis, taekwondo and wrestling at the L.A. Convention Center. Carson will be another hub of activity, with rugby sevens at Dignity Health Sports Park, field hockey on the adjacent fields, tennis at the Dignity Health Tennis Center and track cycling at the VELO Sports Center.

Long Beach just might be the busiest outside-of-L.A.-proper area, with handball at the Long Beach Arena, artistic swimming and water polo at the Long Beach Convention Center, canoe sprint and rowing at Marine Stadium, sailing along Belmont Shore and marathon swimming and the triathlon along the waterfront.

Golf will tee off at Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades, while over in the Valley the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area will host archery, BMX freestyle, BMX racing and skateboarding. A little farther from L.A., Temecula’s sprawling equestrian center will be the home of all equestrian events. And very far from L.A., you’ll find canoe slalom and softball in, uh, Oklahoma City. Though it’s more than 1,300 miles away, Oklahoma City is already equipped with enough fields to handle the Women’s College World Series, and as the L.A. Times explains, there are some financial and political motivations behind the move, too.

The original LA28 bid book offers some other hints of potential venues—beach volleyball and 3x3 basketball along the beachfront in Santa Monica and Venice, for example—but we’ll have to wait to find out for sure. Changes can certainly happen: After the massive success of this year’s USA Swimming Olympic Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium, LA28 quickly announced that swimming in L.A. would also get the football stadium treatment à la SoFi. So who knows, after the world has been wooed by the postcard-worthy, landmark-adjacent venues in Paris, maybe we’ll see some similar creativity in L.A.—iconic locales like Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Bowl would make for picture-perfect broadcast backdrops, if you ask us. (By the way, did you know Disneyland built a swimming pool on Main Street after the 2004 Athens Olympics?)

What do we know about tickets so far?

Honestly? Basically nothing. But we can look to Paris for some clues: A ticket lottery opened for registration about a year and a half before the Games, with some rolling ticket releases closer to the events. Similarly, Milano Cortina recently opened its ticket sales for the 2026 Winter Games in Italy. So for L.A., you’ll most likely need to sit tight until early 2027.

As far as pricing, we won’t even begin to speculate on precise numbers, but you can assume qualifiers and esoteric sports will have some surprisingly affordable tickets, while the blockbuster events are likely to demand much, much higher premiums. Thankfully, the couple of on-street events like the marathon should be free to watch.

How many times has L.A. hosted the Olympics?

2028 will mark the third time L.A. has hosted the Olympics: first in 1932 and again in 1984. (The next time you’re at the Coliseum, home of the opening ceremonies for both previous editions, look for the walls of gold medal winners by the peristyle plaza on the east end.) Thanks to the ’32 games, much of the infrastructure was already in place for the ’84 Games, and low construction costs for those helped turn them into what’s considered the most profitable modern Olympics. As far as construction goes, it’s a similar story for ’28, but we’ll still have to sit tight and see how the budget sorts out.