Karen Bass, Mayor of Los Angeles, waves the Olympic flag as Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee, applauds during the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Stade de France on August 11, 2024 in Paris, France.
Carl Recine | Getty Images Sports | Getty Images
After the successful 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, the bar is set high for the next Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028 and key stakeholders in the event are confident the city will be ready.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin on Tuesday at the CNBC x Boardroom sports business event Game Plan that she is concerned about “what we need to do in our city to prepare for the 2028 Games.” But she said that, much like the last time Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1984, she believes the city will not only improve by hosting the Games, but will also benefit once they are over.
That includes improving public transportation. Bass said she hopes there will be “no cars to the venues” and that spectators will use public transportation to get to the games – a promise that will require investing in bus and subway infrastructure and working with other cities to loan buses.
Bass said the city is also doing “everything in its power to eliminate homelessness,” including building more than 18,000 new housing units for the homeless population.
Bass said there will also be discussions with Los Angeles companies about work schedules to transition employees to remote work during peak traffic times, and there will be opportunities to move truck deliveries to nighttime, as was done during the 1984 Games.
“I think there is a way to organize the region to reduce traffic and make it more manageable,” Bass said.
Casey Wasserman, president of LA 2028, attended the Paris Games. He told Ross Sorkin that the event “reminded people why they fall in love with the Olympics” and that he believes organizers want to build on that in Los Angeles.
While no new permanent venues will be built for the Los Angeles Games, the first in Olympic history, there are some challenges in using all of the city's landmarks, just as Paris was able to highlight famous sites like the Eiffel Tower by hosting beach volleyball nearby. Wasserman said Los Angeles got a taste of this at the Olympic torch handover ceremony, when Tom Cruise climbed the Hollywood sign and the Olympic rings replaced the “OO”s on the sign – which Wasserman said was done with CGI.
“It's obviously a longer and more complicated process,” Wasserman said of changing the Hollywood sign for the games. “But I think it would be a pretty spectacular opportunity if there was a way to do it.”
Actress Jessica Alba, who sits on the Los Angeles 2028 board, said the games would showcase all different aspects of the city's culture, from Hollywood to fashion to food, as “a global platform to showcase what they have to offer.”
“LA is a main character,” Alba said. “We want it to be a main character during the Olympics.”
Disclosure: CNBC parent company NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder for all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.
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