Beyond city limits

Ready to hear something wild? The Games of the XXXIV Olympiad will begin on July 14, 2028. We are officially less than four years out; that's 1,458 days from today, but who's counting? (Casey Wasserman, actually, according to the opening of every single profile written about him.) I can think of no better way to commemorate this milestone than by reading between the lines of yet another LA28 venue announcement.

If you'll remember back to last month's announcement — Oklahoma City??? — the news that seven events were moving out of the city of LA prompted some councilmembers to publicly whine about LA's total event count. On the surface, Friday's announcement appeared similarly imbalanced, with eight events moving into LA and 11 events divvied up between Carson and Long Beach — even though most of these announcements were completely expected, with many of these venues already listed in the original 2017 bid.

Again, I really need everyone — including our councilmembers — to take a deep breath about events being held outside LA's borders. To reiterate what I said last time, this isn't out of the ordinary for any Olympics. 1984's venues were scattered across the region, LA28's original bid was similarly dispersed, and Paris's games will take place in 17 cities across France with some hundreds of miles away, like Marseilles and Nice. (Plus the aforementioned surfing in Tahiti.) We simply would not have been able to put together such an IOC-attractive bid in the first place if we hadn't relied on the many existing athletic venues located outside of the city of LA.

But more importantly, LA doesn't "win" by getting LA28 to stage more events inside city limits. If that was the goal, we'd be spending a lot of time, energy, and potentially more taxpayer money hustling to build pricey, ephemeral structures to stage various events with dubious benefits for the surrounding neighborhoods. For officials who claim they want to host fiscally responsible, "no-build" games, that's exactly what we don't want to happen? Right?

Besides, the events leaving the city of LA aren't a done deal until LA's city council votes to release them, as I mentioned in my last venue assessment. The tail end of LA28's Friday announcement contains some fine print that seems to have been added in response to Councilmember Traci Park's contentious comments at a June 24 meeting. "I want to be very clear," said Park, "that any decision to move an Olympic sport outside the city of Los Angeles will not be done via a press release, headline, or by another city." LA28 dutifully noted in its Friday announcement that the previous announcement was not final, and that LA's city council is "currently reviewing the proposal." Council is on recess until the end of July, so no vote will happen until then. I will alert you when it's time to prepare the popcorn.

In the meantime, to potentially assuage any friction this time around, LA28's chief athlete officer Janet Evans was deployed to assure everyone that the city of LA "will host more Olympic sports than anywhere else" which is repeated several times in Friday's venue announcement. This was always the case, and it remains true. For proof, the LA28 games plan page has been updated with all the information in one place. Anyone can search by venue to see who's getting what.

But I won't make you do that. We'll go through the new batch right here, one by one. Ready?

Most settled: Carson and Long Beach

Carson and Long Beach both signed their agreements with LA28 in May; this just makes it official. In Carson, the selections were obvious for another reason: Dignity Health Sports Park's facilities on the CSU Dominguez Hills campus already serve as Olympic training centers for various sports. Rugby will be in the LA Galaxy's soccer stadium, field hockey in an adjacent converted soccer field, and tennis at an 8,000-seat tennis stadium. Track cycling will be held the VELO Sports Center, an extremely nifty facility that's the modernized version of the original Olympic Velodrome — one of only three new venues to be built for the 1984 games.

Long Beach, on the other hand, is undergoing a major waterfront makeover to host multiple events, as part of Elevate '28, a five-year, $747 million capital plan to accelerate all sorts of legacy infrastructure ahead of 2028. Longbeachize has a fantastic guide to all the planned improvements. Handball will be at the Long Beach Arena. Marathon swimming and triathlon will be situated at Alamitos Beach; sailing is along Belmont Shore, where the Belmont Pier is slated for an upgrade. Rowing and canoe sprint were originally supposed to be at Lake Perris in Riverside County, but will now be held at a lightly refreshed Marine Stadium. Those changes required special exemptions from the World Rowing Congress, which explains its decisions in this 2023 Q&A.

Finally, LA28 will be building a pool in the parking lot of the Long Beach Convention Center that will host artistic swimming (this was announced last round) and water polo. With SoFi being converted to host the rest of the swimming events, this will be the second temporary pool built for the games, confirming that LA28 loves building new aquatic facilities, just not the ones where it teaches LA kids to swim.

Most up-in-the-air: Santa Monica and Pasadena

Two cities prominently included in the original bid have been conspicuously absent from LA28 announcements so far. Where is Santa Monica, which is supposed to host beach volleyball in a temporary facility north of the pier, or Pasadena, which is supposed to host the semifinal and final soccer matches at the Rose Bowl?

A lawyer representing Santa Monica and Pasadena in their games agreements negotiations with LA28 tried to tell the Los Angeles Times that the timeline of the ongoing conversations were normal. But in Santa Monica's case, the city council authorized negotiations for an agreement almost a year ago. Headlines seem to hint that Santa Monica negotiations might be held up by concerns about parking (OF COURSE THEY ARE), and I could see this line in particular being a sticking point: "Alternative parking and transportation options, as well as a communication plan for residents and visitors, will be developed during the negotiation of the Venue Use Agreement." Also, who's paying for all this? LA28 only pays for transportation for athletes and VIPs. Clearly the only answer here is to make the entire city of Santa Monica car-free for a few weeks.

Most expensive: Our $4.7 billion table tennis venue

In a total coincidence, just days after LA's city council approved $54.4 million to determine whether or not the convention center could be modernized in time for the Olympics, the Los Angeles Convention Center was officially confirmed as a venue for fencing, judo, taekwondo, wrestling, and table tennis. Should the convention center remodel move forward, this will cost the city a total of $1.4 billion, or an estimated $4.7 billion with interest — despite the pledge from those same councilmembers to not use any public dollars for venues.

To be clear, the convention center project is not for the Olympics. But it's also not not for the Olympics? Prior to the vote, LA28 officials were adamant that the convention center did not require updates to serve as a venue. The renovation is not mentioned in Friday's press release. But an LA/OC Building & Construction Trades Council tweet had a very different take on the whole situation: "@LA28⁩ wins! Convention Center Expansion steps up as ⁦@LACity⁩ Council overwhelmingly votes to start negotiations with ⁦@AEGworldwide⁩ at a ⚡ fast pace to complete before the #Olympics. Let’s Build!" LA28 wins?

Most hyped: Figueroa corridor

LA28's announcement repeatedly mentioned the density of activity planned for the Figueroa corridor, where a total of 10 events are slated for the 2.5-mile stretch between Olympic Boulevard and MLK Jr. Boulevard. In addition to the convention center events, badminton will be at USC's Galen Center and weightlifting will be at the LA Live theater that has changed names so many times I had no idea what it was currently called. (Peacock!) More events will be announced in this area, and expect some surprises; interestingly, LA28 has said that BMO Stadium, home of LAFC and Angel City FC, won't be hosting soccer matches.

Most equitable: Golf in Council District 11

At that same June 24 meeting where Councilmember Traci Park excoriated LA28 for moving events out of LA, she also complained that not enough events had moved into her westside district: "My council district... unfortunately, isn't going to have any Olympic-related events, despite our initial intent, I think, that we were going to try to be equitable about the distribution of Olympic programming."

This was a record scratch three times over. First, was Park, who is also the council's Olympics committee chair, inferring that there was some agreement made at a certain point in time that all 15 council districts would get an event? Second, that's pretty much impossible, seeing as most venues are clustered in just one district, 9, along — you guessed it — the Figueroa corridor. Third, the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, in Park's district, was part of the original 2017 bid plan, and hosts basically every golf megaevent that comes to town. The IOC had also specifically requested the Riviera over a Griffith Park municipal course option. This was one decision that didn't seem to ever be in play.

At any rate, Park's concerns were allayed. This latest batch of announcements confirmed golf will be played in Council District 11.

Over the weekend, Park may have been attempting to manifest another venue as well. She posted an Instagram reel letting everyone know that "beach volleyball ranks high on my list of favorite events." Should talks break down with Santa Monica, all LA28 would have to do is scoot the temporary beach volleyball facility a mile or so south into Park's district in Venice. 🔥