Cash has been pouring in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics for years now. . While the $14 billion facelift of LAX and a $20 billion Metro expansion isn't tied directly to the Olympics, those projects were certainly approved and streamlined with the games in mind.
But can L.A. make the Olympics profitable? Plenty of host cities have tried in the past, but few have succeeded.
KNX News Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman spoke to Barry Sanders (not that Barry Sanders), who served as chairman of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games and as a director of LA2028, the group that successfully bid to bring the Olympics to L.A.
“If you’re predicting four years in advance, you’re always speculating,” he said. “The fact, though, is that if done properly, and with putting aside major events like a COVID epidemic or something like that, or war, or cancellation of the games at the last minute, the Games, as we did them in L.A. in 1932 and 1984, and as we plan to do them in L.A. in 2028, should be able to have a surplus of funds.”
During the 1984 Olympics, L.A. turned an estimated $215 million profit, making it the only profitable Olympics in modern history. But less than half of that money actually stayed in Southern California.
“$100 million of it went to create a foundation for the U.S. Olympic Committee. Another $35 or $40 million went to the various sports federations,” Sanders explained. “The remaining $100 million was used to set up what was first called the Amateur Athletic Foundation, it’s now called the LA84 Foundation, and all these decades ever since, it's been spending between $8 and $10 million a year on youth sports in Southern California.”
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, there’s “little evidence” for a positive economic impact from hosting the Olympics, with revenues typically covering only a fraction of the multibillion-dollar costs. The impact on tourism has also been mixed, with several cities seeing decreases in tourism during the years they hosted the games.
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