After a successful 2024 Olympics and Paralympics in Paris, the bar has been set high for the next summer Games in Los Angeles in 2028, something that key stakeholders in that event say the city will be ready for.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at CNBC x Boardroom’s Game Plan sports business event on Tuesday that what is making her anxious is “all that we need to do in our city to prepare” for the 2028 Games. However, she said that much like the last time Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1984, she believes the city will not only improve to host the Games but will benefit once they are over.
That includes work on public transportation. Bass said she is hoping there will be “no cars to the venues,” and that viewers will take public transportation to the Games — a pledge that will require an investment in both bus and subway infrastructure, as well as collaboration with other cities to borrow buses.
Bass said the city is also doing “whatever we can to eliminate street homelessness,” including building more than 18,000 new units for the unhoused population.
Bass said there will also be discussions with companies in Los Angeles around work schedules to shift employees to remote work during periods of high traffic, as well as find ways to shift truck deliveries into the night, like what happened during the 1984 Games.
“I think there is a way we can organize the region so that traffic will be less and manageable,” Bass said.
LA 2028 President Casey Wasserman attended the Paris Games, an event that he told Ross Sorkin “reminded people why they fall in love with the Olympics,” and one he said organizers will look to build upon in Los Angeles.
While no new permanent venues will be built for the Los Angeles Games, the first time in Olympics history, there are some challenges in utilizing all the city’s landmarks in the way Paris was able to feature famous locations like the Eiffel Tower by hosting beach volleyball nearby. Wasserman said Los Angeles got a glimpse of that with the Olympic Torch handover ceremony, when Tom Cruise scaled the Hollywood Sign and the Olympic Rings replaced the “OO”‘s in the sign — which Wasserman noted was done with CGI.
“That’s obviously a longer, complicated conversation,” Wasserman said of altering the Hollywood Sign for the Games. “But I think it’s a pretty spectacular opportunity if there was a way to do it.”
Actress Jessica Alba, who is on the Los Angeles 2028 board of directors, said the Games will present all different aspects of the city’s culture, from Hollywood to fashion to food, as “a global platform to showcase what they got.”
“LA is a main character,” Alba said. “We want it to be a main character during the Olympics.”
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.