The budget for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles anticipates $2.5 billion in revenue from ticket and hospitality sales. It became clearer with the opening of ticket sales this week that a hefty chunk of that revenue is coming from the whopping ticket prices for the Games’ marquee events.
Passes for the Opening Ceremonies will set you back between $329 and $5,519 for a single seat, though the first round of cheaper presale tickets had already sold out by Friday morning. If you wanted to see the world’s fastest man crowned in the 100-meter dash on July 17 at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, it would cost you from $104 on up to $2,461, though the cheaper tickets disappeared quickly.
Interested in a potential showdown between USA’s distance swim superstars Katie Ledecky and Canada’s Summer McIntosh in the 400-meter freestyle final? That evening session at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will cost you $186 to $1,860. Pre-sale tickets that went for less than $600 had disappeared by Friday afternoon.
The Opening Ceremony could set a family of four back $10,000
It’s fair to say all this caused a bit of sticker shock for some folks. TV Director Alberto Belli went on X to display an online shopping cart for what it would have cost him to take a family of four to the Opening Ceremony: $10,418. “The “LA Exodus” summarized in a single checkout cart,” he wrote. “For ‘OK’ seats. Guess I’m watching from the couch.”
LA28 officials opened this week’s “pre-sale” to residents of Southern California and Oklahoma, where a couple of events will also be held. The organizers said that about 5% of all tickets would be priced at more than $1,000 and that 75% would be under $400.
A spokesperson said that higher-end prices are simply the norm these days for big events in both sports and entertainment. Also worth noting: Tickets in the more affordable price ranges will be made available in future ticket drops, which will be open to those who don’t live in the counties closest to the Olympic venues.
A brisk scan around the ticket site Friday showed that, indeed, fans can see preliminary events and less popular sports for prices as low as $28. There are a total of 1 million tickets at that low threshold, LA28 has said.
Some Olympics fans got lucky
“The process was pretty painless but [I] will say the cheap tix for the presale are going quick,” screenwriter Daniel Kunka wrote on X. “Still scored a $28 ticket for [the] Women’s Soccer Semifinal. And considerably more for Women’s Gymnastics Preliminary. But gotta say [I] was pretty pumped.”
For comparison sake, here’s what the price chart for the last Summer Olympics, in Paris, showed for one high-profile sport, swimming: The top price for a ticket to a night of finals went for a maximum of 690 Euros. That’s $795 in current U.S. dollars.
A summer 2024 meeting in Paris includes a presentation for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
If the initial sticker shock of LA28 prices didn’t stun fans, the “service fee” of 24% might have. So if you splurged on four tickets, at $600 each, to be at the Coliseum the night that American Cole Hocker might be defending his 1,500-meter-run title, you would pay $2,400 plus an additional $577 service fee. Total: Just shy of $3,000 for your foursome. (LA28 told me the fee is “industry standard.”)
Rich Perelman, former vice president of press operations for the 1984 L.A. Olympic organizing committee, said via email that, given the $2.5-billion revenue target for the Games “they need to sell a lot of expensive tickets.”
“LA28 is a private, one-time nonprofit that will fold up in 2029. So no need to build up future-purchaser loyalty. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime company,” added Perelman, who runs the Sports Examiner, an online news site dedicated to Olympic sports. “The public statements are one million tix at $28 and two-thirds of the tickets under $200. If that’s true, then a case for reasonable access to the Games can be made.” (LA28 recently said that about half of the tickets would be sold for under $200.)
The LA28 ticket hustle is only beginning. Organizers have deals with several companies to manage future ticket resales. But the rules for resale won’t be announced until 2027.
Perelman said the “very high” pricing for some finals and popular events will “(a) maximize revenue and (b) collect a significant part of what resellers would make. And buying for resale for major events is a big business.”
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