The Los Angeles 2028 Olympics return to the U.S in July of that year, making LA only the third city ever to host three Summer Games, after London and Paris. It’s the first Summer Olympics on American soil since Atlanta in 1996, and LA is staging it the way only LA could: swimming inside an NFL stadium, squash on a Universal Studios backlot, surfing at Trestles, and track and field in the same Coliseum that hosted the Games in 1932 and 1984. Not a single new permanent venue is being built, so the Olympics will run through buildings all Southern Californians already know, from Dodger Stadium to the Rose Bowl.
The honest reality is that this is a sprawling Games with no spectator parking at any venue, spread across a region the size of a small state, and the cheapest tickets from the first two sales are already gone. Here’s what’s settled, what’s still coming, and how to plan around it.
When Are the 2028 Olympics?
The Opening Ceremony is Friday, July 14, 2028, and the Closing Ceremony is Sunday, July 30, 2028. The opening is split between the LA Memorial Coliseum and SoFi Stadium, the first time an Olympics has opened in two stadiums at once. The closing belongs to the Coliseum alone.
Competition starts before the ceremony. Soccer kicks off Monday, July 10, four days early, to give teams two extra rest days, and cricket starts Wednesday, July 12. Everything else runs inside the July 14–30 window.
The schedule also breaks with tradition. Track and field takes the first week and swimming moves to the second, a switch that lets SoFi Stadium host the Opening Ceremony and then convert to a pool. The Games build to a “Super Saturday” on July 29, with gold medals decided in more than 20 sports that day, including athletics, basketball, soccer, swimming and tennis.
LA 2028 Paralympics Dates
The LA28 Paralympic Games run August 15–27, 2028. The Paralympic Opening Ceremony is at SoFi Stadium and the Closing Ceremony is at the Coliseum. It’s the first time Los Angeles has hosted the Paralympics.
Where Are the 2028 Olympics?
The 2028 Olympics are in Los Angeles, California, in the United States. “Los Angeles” here means the whole region: events spread from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach, and out to Inglewood, Carson, Pasadena, Anaheim, Pomona and San Clemente. LA28 has grouped more than 40 venues into zones, which is the language you’ll see on tickets and maps.
Two sports leave California entirely, and soccer goes national. Details on both are below.
Where Is the 2028 Olympic Village?
The Olympic Village is on the UCLA campus in Westwood, which also housed athletes in 1984. Around 15,000 athletes are expected across the Olympics and Paralympics, living in UCLA’s dorms and training in its facilities. Athletes competing in Oklahoma City stay at a satellite village at Oklahoma City University.
2028 Olympics Soccer Venues
Olympic soccer is a coast-to-coast tournament that moves east to west as it goes. Group games and quarterfinals start in New York, Columbus, Nashville and St. Louis, then shift to San Jose and San Diego, and the medal matches finish at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. For the first time, the women’s tournament (16 teams) is bigger than the men’s (12).
LA28 uses neutral names for these stadiums, and all six are MLS grounds. New York Stadium is Etihad Park, NYCFC’s new stadium in Queens, opening in 2027. Columbus Stadium is the Crew’s ScottsMiracle-Gro Field, Nashville Stadium is GEODIS Park, St. Louis Stadium is Energizer Park, San José Stadium is PayPal Park and San Diego Stadium is Snapdragon Stadium.
San Diego gets the most matches of any city, 11 in total, including both semifinal rounds and both bronze medal games. The men’s gold medal match is Friday, July 28, and the women’s is Saturday, July 29, both at the Rose Bowl.
Oklahoma City Olympic Venues
Softball and canoe slalom are in Oklahoma City, roughly 1,300 miles from LA. The reason is simple: Southern California has no softball stadium that seats more than about 2,000.
Softball is at Devon Park, officially Oklahoma Softball Park. It’s the home of the Women’s College World Series and the biggest softball stadium in the world. Canoe slalom is at RIVERSPORT (officially Oklahoma Whitewater Center), the whitewater course on the Oklahoma River. Oklahoma City residents got the same early ticket access as Southern Californians.
How to Get Tickets to the 2028 Olympics
Official tickets are sold only through LA28’s ticketing site, which runs on AXS and Eventim. To be notified of the next sale, set up an account there and sign up for LA28’s newsletter.
Over 6 million Olympic tickets have already sold. They went through a locals presale, a Visa cardholder presale and two public ticket drops, the second of which closed on August 20, 2026. There are no more public ticket draws in 2026.
When Do 2028 Olympics Tickets Go On Sale Again?
The next public sale is in 2027, on a date LA28 hasn’t announced yet. Unlike the earlier drops, it is first-come, first-served, with no random draw. The 12-ticket limit from the first two drops is gone, so you can buy as many tickets as you want. LA28 says more inventory across more sports will be released.
Paralympic tickets go on sale in 2027 through a separate Paralympic draw.
How Much Do LA 2028 Olympics Tickets Cost?
Tickets start at $28, and more than one million were priced at that level, about half of which sold in the locals presale. Across the whole Games, nearly half of Olympic tickets are under $200, more than 75% (including many finals) are under $400, and roughly 5% are over $1,000, mostly premium seats at the biggest events.
The average ticket costs under $200, and that price already includes a 24% service fee. The ceremonies sit at the top of the range: Opening Ceremony seats in the first sale ran from $329 to $5,519.
Demand is lopsided. Artistic gymnastics sold out fastest in the first drop, and flag football, lacrosse, softball and squash sold every available ticket in that same first round. If you want $28 seats, look at preliminary rounds and less crowded sports like badminton and judo.
LA28 Official Resale and Avoiding Fake Tickets
LA28’s official resale program opens in 2027. Verified resale will only happen on AXS and Eventim, Ticketmaster and Sports Illustrated Tickets. Any LA28 ticket listed for resale before that platform launches is unverified, and LA28 won’t honor it if it turns out to be bad.
Two more things to know before you buy: sales are final with no refunds, and current purchases lock in a seat category only. Your specific seat is assigned closer to the Games.
LA28 Hospitality Packages
If you’d rather pay more for certainty, On Location, LA28’s official hospitality provider, sells packages that bundle event tickets with things like hotel stays, transportation and premium seating. These are sold separately from the ticket drops and are on sale now.
2028 Olympics Sports
LA28 features 36 sports and 351 medal events, more medal events than Paris. It’s also billed as the first Olympics with more women than men competing. New mixed-gender events include the 4×100 mixed relay in athletics, mixed team events in golf, table tennis and artistic gymnastics, a compound archery mixed team, and a mixed coastal rowing beach sprint.
What Are the 5 New Sports for the 2028 Olympics?
The five sports LA28 added are flag football, cricket, lacrosse, squash and baseball/softball.
Flag football makes its Olympic debut at BMO Stadium in Exposition Park. Cricket returns for the first time since 1900, played in the short T20 format with six men’s and six women’s teams at the Fairplex in Pomona. Lacrosse is back as a medal sport for the first time in more than a century, in the fast six-a-side format. Squash debuts on the Universal Studios backlot, and baseball and softball return after missing Paris 2024.
What Sports Were Dropped From the 2028 Olympics?
Breaking (breakdancing), which debuted in Paris, is not on the 2028 program. Boxing was at real risk of being dropped, but the IOC reinstated it in 2025. Modern pentathlon stays but loses horse riding, which is replaced by an obstacle course.
2028 Olympics Baseball
Baseball is at Dodger Stadium, a six-team tournament from July 13 to 19. The US qualifies automatically as host. The big unanswered question is whether MLB players will take part. MLB has floated an extended All-Star break around the tournament, but as of summer 2026 the league and the players’ union still hadn’t agreed on terms. Softball is played separately in Oklahoma City.
2028 Olympics Basketball
Five-on-five basketball is at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, the Clippers’ arena, which opened in 2024. The gold medal game falls on Super Saturday, July 29. 3×3 basketball is played outdoors in the San Fernando Valley, at the Sepulveda Basin.
Los Angeles 2028 Olympics Schedule
LA28 has put out a full session-by-session schedule and has revised it several times already, so check the official version for exact start times before you plan a day around one. The overall shape is settled: week one belongs to track and field at the Coliseum, week two belongs to swimming at SoFi Stadium, the team sports build toward Super Saturday on July 29, and the marathons close out the final weekend.
2028 Olympics Athletics Schedule
Track and field opens Saturday, July 15, the day after the Opening Ceremony. The first headline event is the women’s 100 meters, with heats, semifinals and the final all run that same day. The marathons stay on the final weekend, start from the Venice Beach Boardwalk, and award their medals during the Closing Ceremony, so athletics runs the full length of the Games for the first time.
Los Angeles 2028 Olympics Venues
Olympic rules limit sponsor branding, so several venues carry generic names on tickets and official schedules. SoFi Stadium appears as “2028 Stadium,” Crypto.com Arena as “DTLA Arena,” and BMO Stadium as “Exposition Park Stadium.” Each venue below is listed by the name you already know, with the Olympic name alongside.
Exposition Park and Downtown LA
The LA Memorial Coliseum hosts track and field and both ceremonies. It becomes the first stadium to host track and field at three Olympics.
Right next door, BMO Stadium (Exposition Park Stadium), home of LAFC, hosts flag football and lacrosse. USC’s Galen Center hosts badminton and rhythmic gymnastics.
Downtown, Crypto.com Arena (DTLA Arena) takes artistic and trampoline gymnastics plus the boxing finals. Across the street, the Peacock Theater hosts boxing preliminaries and weightlifting. The LA Convention Center holds fencing, judo, taekwondo, wrestling and table tennis in three halls.
Dodger Stadium hosts baseball. The stadium held baseball as a demonstration sport in 1984; this time the medals are real.
Inglewood
SoFi Stadium (2028 Stadium) co-hosts the Opening Ceremony, then becomes the swimming venue for week two. The quick version of how that works: a temporary Olympic pool is built on the stadium floor, and the bowl is reconfigured to about 38,000 seats. That makes it the largest swimming venue in Olympic history.
A short walk away, Intuit Dome hosts basketball.
Pasadena
The Rose Bowl hosts the soccer finals and becomes the first venue to hold Olympic events at three different Games. It staged cycling in 1932 and the soccer tournament in 1984. Diving is next door at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center.
Long Beach
Long Beach hosts more of the Games than any city other than LA: 11 sports and more than 160 ticketed events, spread across 17 of the 19 competition days.
Beach volleyball is on the sand at Alamitos Beach Stadium, handball is at the Long Beach Arena, and artistic swimming and water polo are at the Long Beach Aquatics Center. Sport climbing gets its own Long Beach Climbing Theater, and shooting is in Long Beach too.
The water events are the draw. Rowing and canoe sprint are at Marine Stadium, the course originally built for the 1932 Olympic rowing regatta. Open water swimming, coastal rowing sprints and windsurfing and kite sailing use the water off Belmont Shore.
Carson
Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson is one complex under four Olympic names. Carson Stadium hosts rugby sevens and archery, Carson Field hosts hockey, Carson Courts hosts tennis, and Carson Velodrome, the complex’s VELO Sports Center, hosts track cycling.
The San Fernando Valley and Universal City
The Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area is split into four temporary sites labeled Valley Complex 1 through 4. Together they host BMX freestyle, BMX racing, skateboarding (park and street), modern pentathlon and 3×3 basketball. They are the first Olympic events ever held in the San Fernando Valley.
Squash makes its Olympic debut at the Comcast Squash Center on the Universal Studios lot, set in the backlot town square from Back to the Future.
Across Southern California
Volleyball is at Honda Center in Anaheim. Cricket is at the Fairgrounds Cricket Stadium at the Fairplex in Pomona, a new ground that opened in July 2026 as the home of the LA Knight Riders. Golf is at Riviera Country Club, equestrian is at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, and mountain biking is at Industry Hills.
The coast gets the postcard events. Surfing is at Trestles in San Clemente, about 60 miles south of downtown. Venice Beach hosts the triathlon and the starts of the marathons and cycling road race, and the road cycling time trial finishes at Griffith Observatory.
What Does a Car-Free Olympics Mean?
It means you cannot drive to and park at any Olympic venue as a spectator. Organizers have designed these as a transit-first Games: you get to events by Metro rail, dedicated shuttle buses, walking, biking or being dropped off. LA is borrowing roughly 3,000 buses from transit agencies around the country to run the shuttle network.
The roads get tighter too. Caltrans is building a 369-mile Games Route Network of freeway carpool lanes and local streets reserved for athletes, officials and other permitted vehicles. The lanes are marked with blue “LA28” signs, and driving in one without a permit can cost nearly $300.
The 2026 World Cup was the dress rehearsal, and it went well. For the Spain vs. Austria match at SoFi Stadium, fans took nearly 50,000 rail rides and more than 30,000 shuttle rides.
LA28 hasn’t published the full spectator transport plan yet, but the rail lines to know are clear. The E Line stops at Expo Park/USC for the Coliseum, BMO Stadium and the Galen Center, and runs west to Santa Monica. The K Line reaches Inglewood, where shuttles cover the last stretch to SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome. The A Line connects Long Beach, Downtown and Pasadena, but the Rose Bowl sits in the Arroyo Seco a couple of miles from the nearest station.
Plan for time, not distance. A 20-mile trip across LA in late July can easily eat most of a morning. Inland venues in the Valley, Pomona and Arcadia also run far hotter than the coast in summer.
Where to Stay for the LA 2028 Olympics
In a car-free Games, the neighborhood you stay in matters more than the hotel. Choose your base by where your tickets are, then book early with free cancellation.
Downtown LA is the most central base. You can walk to Crypto.com Arena, the Peacock Theater and the Convention Center, the E Line runs straight to Exposition Park, and Union Station links most of the rail network.
Inglewood and the LAX area put you closest to SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome, with the airport right there for arrivals and departures.
Long Beach makes sense if your tickets are for beach volleyball, water sports or climbing. It’s a self-contained Olympic zone with its own waterfront, and the A Line connects it to Downtown.
Pasadena is the pick for the soccer finals and diving, and it’s a pleasant, walkable base in its own right.
Santa Monica and Venice put you on the beach, near the triathlon and marathon starts and on the E Line to Exposition Park.
Hollywood and Universal City sit on the B Line, close to squash at Universal and about as central as you can be for reaching the Valley.
The Next Olympics After LA 2028
The next Winter Olympics are in the French Alps, February 1–17, 2030, following Milan Cortina earlier this year. The next Summer Olympics after Los Angeles are in Brisbane, Australia, in 2032. The Winter Games return to the US in 2034 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The 2036 Summer Olympics haven’t been awarded. The IOC restarted the selection process under president Kirsty Coventry and is aiming to choose a host in 2029. India and Qatar have both long been pursuing those Games.
Los Angeles Olympic History: 1932 and 1984
Los Angeles first hosted in 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, when many nations could barely afford to send teams. The city built the first true Olympic Village for male athletes in the Baldwin Hills, turned the Coliseum into the centerpiece, and built Marine Stadium in Long Beach for rowing. That same rowing course is back in service for 2028.
The 1984 Olympics changed how the Games are run. After Montreal’s debts in 1976, almost no city wanted to host, so LA ran the Games on private money and existing venues, and finished with a surplus of more than $200 million that still funds youth sports through the LA84 Foundation. The Soviet Union and more than a dozen allies boycotted, but 1984 still produced some of America’s favorite Olympic memories: Carl Lewis winning four golds to match Jesse Owens, Mary Lou Retton becoming the first American woman to win the gymnastics all-around, and a crowd of more than 100,000 at the Rose Bowl for the soccer final.
The 2028 plan is the 1984 playbook updated: no new permanent venues, and the city’s existing stadiums doing the work. When the flame comes back to the Coliseum’s peristyle in July 2028, it will be burning above the only stadium on earth to host the Olympics three times. The Pacific will be glittering off the beaches in Long Beach and Venice, and the whole region will be doing what it has always done best, putting on a show. Get your seats in the 2027 sale, find your base on the rail map, and plan to be in the Coliseum on the first night of track, when the fastest women in the world run for gold.
LA 2028 Olympics FAQ
Which country will host the 2028 Olympics?
The United States. The 2028 Summer Olympics are in Los Angeles, California, the first Summer Games in the US since Atlanta 1996. A handful of events are held elsewhere in the country: softball and canoe slalom in Oklahoma City, and early soccer rounds in six other cities.
Will LA still host the 2028 Olympics?
Yes. The venue plan is locked, the competition schedule is published, and more than 6 million tickets have been sold. Questions came up after the January 2025 wildfires, but LA28 and the city have kept the Games on track. Nothing about the hosting arrangement has changed.
Is there a 2028 Winter Olympics?
No. Summer and Winter Games alternate every two years. The most recent Winter Olympics were Milan Cortina in February 2026, and the next are the French Alps in February 2030. Paris 2024 was the most recent Summer Games, and Los Angeles 2028 is the next.
Will NFL players play flag football at the 2028 Olympics?
They can. In 2025, NFL owners voted to allow players to take part in flag football’s Olympic debut, and national teams will be selected closer to the Games. The timing works because Olympic flag football overlaps only the opening days of NFL training camp.
How can I watch the 2028 Olympics?
In the US, NBC and Peacock hold the broadcast rights. All events are on Pacific Time, so US viewers get live prime-time finals. Evening sessions in LA air overnight in Europe and in the early morning in Asia.
What will the weather be like at the 2028 Olympics?
July in Los Angeles is dry and sunny, with almost no rain. It’s mild along the coast, often in the 70s°F with marine clouds in the morning. Inland it gets much hotter: afternoons in the Valley, Pasadena and Pomona regularly reach the 90s°F or higher. Pack sunscreen and a refillable bottle, and plan on water for outdoor sessions.
How many times has Los Angeles hosted the Olympics?
Three times: 1932, 1984 and 2028. That puts LA with London (1908, 1948 and 2012) and Paris (1900, 1924 and 2024) as the only cities to host the Summer Games three times. 2028 is also LA’s first Paralympics.
Written by Brad Richards. Founder of Gameday Guides.