City of L.A. Report Asks LA28 for Request to Re-Arrange Venues

A series of venue changes for the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles from the original plans remains under consideration by the Los Angeles City Council after a Monday report by the city’s chief administrative officer and chief legislative analyst.

As detailed by The Sports Examiner earlier this week, the report issued says in part “LA28 is required to obtain the City’s consent prior to implementing actions that move events out of the City and amend the current Venue Plan approved by Council.” The report asks city council to begin the process of discussion on venue shifts that have been previously announced this year.

LA28 plans to have softball and canoe slalom in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. That, plus the move of basketball from downtown Los Angeles to Inglewood’s Intuit Arena and other sports moving both out of and into Los Angeles, require written consent from the city council, which is reviewing the proposal.

LA28 said during the release of its proposed venue changes that it would lower costs by $162 million. The report this week to city council asks for it to consider and approve all amendments to the venue plan and request LA28 “to conduct an independent economic impact study to highlight the anticipated impacts of the 2028 Games on the City and the region, which incorporates the requested venue changes, added sport disciplines, and lessons learned from the 2024 Paris Games, and to submit the report to the City no later than June 30, 2025.”

The Sports Examiner said the disagreement on the venue approvals is after “LA28 stated in its June 2024 letter to the City that it is only required to seek City approval for venue changes where sports are moved out of the City from the 2017 bid plan. The CAO/CLA report insists that the City must approve any and all venue assignments which differ from the 2017 bid plan, including venue assignments for sports not part of the 2028 program at the time the Games was awarded to Los Angeles.”

The following sports for the 2028 Games do not have officially announced venues: 3×3 basketball, baseball, beach volleyball, coastal rowing, cricket, road cycling, flag football, lacrosse sixes, modern pentathlon, mountain bike, shooting, soccer, sport climbing, squash, surfing and volleyball.

In its original proposal to the IOC, LA28 had beach volleyball at Santa Monica Beach and indoor volleyball at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Road Cycling was proposed to be at Grand Park and L.A. City Hall while modern pentathlon would be in the South Bay Sports Park, Mountain Bike would be at LA County’s Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park and shooting would be at the Sepulveda basin.

L.A. City Council already voted to move the LA Convention Center Expansion and Modernization Project forward with plans to have the project finished before 2028, when it is scheduled to host fencing, judo, table tennis, taekwondo and wrestling.

Los Angeles will be hosting the Games for the third time in 2028, ending what will be a 32-year wait for another Summer Games in the U.S. by the time the torch is lit.