The 2028 Olympics are a ways off, however, the Los Angeles County region is busy making plans to expand rail lines and bring more hotels online as they prepare to host the games for two weeks from Fri, Jul 14, 2028 – Sun, Jul 30, 2028.
The biggest expenditure, in my opinion, is the [anticipated] construction of the 1.6 mile transit connector that is not only costing Inglewood taxpayers upwards of $10 million annually for maintenance and operation costs but also the anticipated loss of nearly four dozen small businesses that lie along the proposed route.
The transit connector is expected to connect riders from the Crenshaw/LAX rail line, rebranded as the K-Line, to the Inglewood Sports and Entertainment District, which is set to host opening and closing ceremonies at the multi-billion SoFi Stadium and events at the Intuit Dome, which is under construction.
The K-line was expected to travel down the heart of South LA, along Crenshaw Blvd, and traverse through Inglewood with its final destination being the LAX Airport. The rail line opened [severely behind schedule] and doesn’t reach the airport. It displaced countless small, black-owned businesses in the process.
The Los Angeles Times ran a piece earlier this week Opinion: Will the Olympic Games be as costly for L.A. as they are for Paris? that looked at the cost of next years Olympics in Paris as a benchmark for the anticipated costs and subsequent cost overruns that residents will be expected to shoulder in 2028.
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A lot of Angelenos remember the 1984 L.A. Games, when the Olympics actually ended with a surplus, the only Summer Games to do so in the last 60 years. Local politicians and voters changed the city charter to ensure that no L.A. taxpayer dollars would go to backstopping the Games.
LA28 ignored that lesson. Instead, the City Council and the state Legislature agreed to financially step up should any cost overruns accrue. Los Angeles is pledged to cover the first $270 million, and the state will cover the next $270 million. After that, the city is responsible for additional costs.
It’s a not inconsiderable commitment. Researchers at Oxford studying the Games from 1960 through 2016, estimated the cost overruns “at an average of 172 percent in real terms, the highest overrun on record for any type of megaproject,” such as highways and dams. Even the ’84 Games busted its initial budget.
BY JULES BOYKOFF AND DAVE ZIRIN
Organizers for the 2028 games believe “sponsors are going to come back because it’s in the U.S. You can already feel the capitalistic lift” said Rick Burton, a former chief marketing officer for the U.S. Olympic Committee, but in a July report, the website Sportico noted that LA28 is “slightly behind compared to previous Olympic Games in terms of sponsor count, with only 35% of its $2.5 billion goal met.”
Los Angeles City and County, and Inglewood, are grappling with a massive homeless problem that could impede progress in endearing sponsors to invest in the games.
Are the financial risks of hosting the Olympics worth the dismal rewards?
Read the full LA Times article here.
