L.A. City Council Approves Updated LA28 Venue Plan

Flag football and lacrosse will be played at BMO Stadium near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the relocation of canoe slalom and softball to Oklahoma City was approved by the Los Angeles City Council as LA28 announced additional venue assignments on Friday afternoon.

LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover and Chief Operating Officer John Harper were in front of the Los Angeles City Council’s ad hoc committee for the Games on Wednesday and revealed the BMO venue assignments while also getting approval for multiple sports that were planned in 2017 to be within the city limits but will instead be elsewhere.

The venue changes that had been previously announced, including plans to have softball and canoe slalom in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 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 required written consent from the city council.

The canoe slalom approval comes as Riversport OKC is hosting the ICF Canoe Slalom World Ranking event with several Olympians from the 2024 Games in Paris participating.

“The Los Angeles City Council voted today to approve LA28’s venues proposal and we are incredibly grateful to the Council for its consideration and approval,” said Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt. “We accept this opportunity with the highest sense of obligation. With that final approval today, it is now official. Two sports from the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles – softball and canoe slalom – will be staged in their entirety in America’s 20th-largest city. This is really happening.  The Olympics are coming to OKC.”

The Oklahoma City Council will vote on a resolution next month outlining the city’s commitments to the effort and set the stage for the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber to serve as the local host organization.

The officially updated venue plan relocates basketball to Inglewood, canoe slalom to Oklahoma City plus shooting to a different facility in Los Angeles County, artistic swimming to Long Beach Sports Park, swimming to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, equestrian to Galway Downs in Temecula and soccer preliminaries to sites out of California.

In addition to BMX Freestyle, BMX Racing, Skateboarding Park and Skateboarding Street, the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area will gain Modern Pentathlon and 3×3 Basketball. These additions are made possible by relocating Olympic and Paralympic Archery to Carson, which will also host Track Cycling, Hockey, Rugby Sevens and Tennis.

Sports that have not had venues announced include the new sports of cricket, squash and baseball, although that is expected to be at Dodger Stadium. Other Olympic sports not having a venue assignment yet include mountain bike and road cycling, sport climbing, surfing and both beach volleyball and indoor volleyball.

During the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, soccer preliminary games were held as far away as Boston, Annapolis, Maryland, and Stanford, California. The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that the city of Pasadena announced the Rose Bowl is hosting men’s and women’s semifinal and final soccer matches.

Four Paralympic site changes were also approved with aquatics at Long Beach State Park, equestrian to Galway Downs in Temecula, shooting to a different facility in Los Angeles County and sitting volleyball at Long Beach Arena.

BMO Stadium is home to MLS’s LAFC and the NWSL’s Angel City FC. It opened in 2018 and is on the site of the former Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena next to the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, which will host athletics competition during LA28. BMO Stadium has been almost exclusively a soccer stadium both for LAFC, Angel City and international friendlies and tournaments such as the Concacaf Gold Cup in 2019.

Fencing, judo, table tennis, taekwondo and wrestling are scheduled to be at the Los Angeles Convention Center with an expansion and modernization project scheduled to be finished before 2028; those plans are in doubt because of the wildfires, the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year, but those sports are still scheduled for the Convention Center.

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.