SPRINGER BRIEFS IN GEOGRAPHY

Eva Kassens Noor

Los Angeles andthe Summer
Olympic Games
Planning Legacies

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Eva Kassens Noor

Los Angeles and the Summer
Olympic Games
Planning Legacies

Eva Kassens Noor
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, USA

ISSN 2211-4165
ISSN 2211-4173 (electronic)
SpringerBriefs in Geography
ISBN 978-3-030-38552-1
ISBN 978-3-030-38553-8 (eBook)
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, SwitzerlandTo the city of dreams—you can still change
your futureAcknowledgements

I thank Los Angeles’ planners for their perceptions on the current Olympic climate.
I also am grateful to the 2024 US applicant cities’, LA84 foundation, LA24/28, andIOC staff for providing documents and insights into the planning process for the LA
Games. My thanks also belong to the many reviewers of my book drafts, including
the anonymous reviewers as well as Professors Greg Andranovich and Mark
Wilson, all of whom provided wonderful suggestions that made the book what it is.
I also thank MSU for funding the open access publication of this book and mystudents (thanks to Travis Decaminada and Jake Parcell), who helped create maps
and searched for relevant literatures. Finally, I am grateful to my husband and mythree kids who allowed me to dedicate time to a book that I hope will help
Angelenos in understanding its Olympic history and changing LA’s future.

vii

Contents

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.1 The Summer Olympic Games and LA’s Hosting
History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.2 Planning Olympic Legacies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 The Los Angeles Olympics 1932 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2.1 Contextualizing the Olympic Bidding Climate
for the 1932 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2.2 Planning for the 1932 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2.3 Legacies of the 1932 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3 The Los Angeles Olympics 1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3.1 Contextualizing the Olympic Bidding Climate
for the 1984 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3.2 Planning for the 1984 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3.3 Legacies from the 1984 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4.1 Contextualizing the Olympic Bidding Climate
for the 2024/2028 Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4.2 The Political Process of Bidding in Los Angeles . . . . . . . .
1.4.3 LA’s Initial Bid for the 2024 Olympic Games(August 17, 2012–January 8, 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4.4 LA’s USOC Nomination (July 27, 2015–September 15,2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4.5 LA’s Candidature for the 2024 Olympics(September 16, 2015–September 13, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4.6 LA’s IOC Nomination for the 2028 Olympic Games(July 11, 2017–September 13, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1
1
2
4
5
5
6
8
11
12
13
16
19
19
21
23
32
34
37

ix

x

Contents

1.4.7 LA Perceptions: Results from a 2017 Bid Survey
to Planners in Los Angeles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4.8 LA’s Games Plan as of June 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.5 Discussion on Planning and Legacies of LA’s 2028
Olympics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.5.1 Comparing the Three Los Angeles Olympics . . . . . . . . . .
1.5.2 Why LA is Hosting the 2028 Olympic Games . . . . . . . . .
1.5.3 Why LA Might Face Problematic Legacies . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39
43
45
45
49
51
53
54

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1

Word cloud of planners impressions of the Los Angeles 2028
Olympic Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

xi

List of Tables

Table 1.1
Table 1.2
Table 1.3
Table 1.4

Timeline of Los Angeles third Olympics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Assessment of the LA28 bid impact on Los Angeles
Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Exemplary differences between Los Angeles’ bids
for 2024/2028 Olympics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Overview of Los Angeles planning approaches
and legacies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24
42
46
47

xiii

List of Maps

Map 1.1

Map 1.2

Map 1.3

Main Olympic venues during the 1932 Games. Source Createdby T. Decaminada adapted from Zimerman (1984),
NAD 1983 map projection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Main Olympic venues during the 1984 Games.
Source Created by T. Decaminada adapted from LA84
archives, NAD 1983 map projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Main Olympic venues during the 2028 Games.
Source Created by T. Decaminada adapted from LA28,
NAD 1983 map projection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9

15

27

xv

Chapter 1

The Los Angeles Olympic Games:
Planning Legacies

Abstract The purpose of this book is to identify legacies arising from the bidding
and planning process for Los Angeles’ 2028 Summer Olympic Games. Providing abrief historical account of the bidding processes and legacies for the 1932 and 1984
Olympics, the book answers the question of why LA won the 2028 Olympic bid.
LA’s Olympic bidding process is the story of a city hosting the Games in which
the process of bidding in an adversarial anti-Olympic bid climate was custom madefor LA. The focus of the book lies on testing the premise whether and why the bid
boosters’ claim “we have done it before, we can do it again” may or may not hold for
LA’s 2028 legacies. Four elements challenge similar legacies from previous Games:
the proposed dual opening and closing ceremony, the under-construction gigantic
NFL stadium, and the vast planned transport expansion of LA challenge similar
legacies from previous LA Games. No matter the legacy outcomes, the future two
Olympic hosts including LA 2028 will determine the fate of the International Olympic
Committee, the Olympics brand, and the Olympic Games.
Keywords Olympic Games · Los Angeles · Legacy · Planning

1.1 Introduction
Goal of the section: overview of the book’s main argument, content, and structure
while introducing the reader to the basic concepts of Olympic planning and hosting.
LA’s 2028 Olympic mantra and bid premise “We have done it before, we cando it again” promises Angelenos beneficial Games’ legacies. Legacies are tangible
or intangible, positive or negative, short-or long-term impacts the Games have on
Olympic host cities. The requirements the International Olympic Committee (IOC),
the owner of the Olympic Games, sets on host cities makes the Games agents ofchange; thus, hosting the Games has economic, social, and environmental implications for urban development that local governments can harness or mitigate (KassensNoor 2012). I argue in this book that while LA’s bid promises for staging the Olympics
remained similar for the three Olympics, the global Olympic and local LA contexts
have changed to the extent that for the 2028 Olympics, Los Angeles might receive
different legacies than planned.
© The Author(s) 2020
E. Kassens Noor, Los Angeles and the Summer Olympic Games,
SpringerBriefs in Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38553-8_1

1

2

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Although the LA Olympic Games offer many stories and anecdotes, this bookfocuses on three aspects that have made LA an exceptional Olympic host. LA2028,
the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, plans to repeat these three legacies for the upcoming 2028 LA Olympics (LA24 2014): (1) transforming the Olympic
and Los Angeles brand, (2) creating an unparalleled athlete experience, and (3)making the Games fit Los Angeles by minimizing urban changes.
This book first characterizes LA’s Olympic planning processes and legacies given
the city’s history with the Olympics. Using existing scholarship, Sect. 1.2 introduces readers to the 1932 Olympics and Sect. 1.3 introduces readers to the 1984
Olympics. Section 1.4 describes the bidding process for LA’s third and upcoming
2028 Olympics. This book compares the three LA Olympics in Sect. 1.5 and argues
why LA won its bid (confirming LA’s mantra) and why LA faces problematic legacies(challenging LA’s mantra). Section 1.6 concludes with planning recommendations
for legacies.

1.1.1 The Summer Olympic Games and LA’s Hosting History
The Summer Olympic Games are a global sporting giga-event, attracting thousandsof athletes, millions of visitors, and billions of spectators. The International Olympic
Committee (IOC), founded by Pierre de Coubertin in 1894, elects a host city every
four years that meets certain requirements to stage the Games. The IOC prefers aglobal rotation of the Games to enhance the Olympic movement. Bidding for the
Olympic Games is usually a competitive process, in which interested cities make anattractive pitch to the IOC. Over two years, the IOC evaluates bid cities and awards
the Games usually seven years ahead of time. Preceding the IOC selection, National
Olympic Committees (NOCs), national stewards of the Olympic and Paralympic
movement, usually stage their own selection process to put forward their contender
for the Games, because the IOC only allows one city per country to compete at
the IOC stage. The USA’s NOC is called the United States Olympic Committee(USOC), which was founded in the same year as the IOC. USOC selects candidate
cities for the IOC’s bidding processes and trains and funds US teams for international
competitions.
Brief History of Olympic Hosting in the United States
Since the start of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, American cities have bid 40
times for a Summer Olympic Games (SOG) and 19 times for the Winter Games. The
2028 Summer Olympic Games will be the 9th Games hosted in the USA, after St.
Louis 1904, Lake Placid 1932, Los Angeles 1932, Squaw Valley 1960, Lake Placid
1980, Los Angeles 1984, Atlanta 1996, and Salt Lake City 2002.
One political condition makes American bids particularly challenging: US
bidders typically have only one chance to mount a bid because they must bid withlittle to no public funding. Public funds are difficult to obtain from national andlocal sources, so bidding in the USA depends upon private funds. In contrast, recent

1.1 Introduction

3

bidding history shows that aspiring Olympic hosts often need several bid attempts
to succeed. Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro, for example, bid twice and Pyeongchangbid three times before winning their respective bids for the 2020, 2016, and 2018
Games; all of these bids received significant public funding.
The privately financed American Summer Games were based on the mega-event
strategy that is consumption based (Burbank et al. 2001). Atlanta 1996 reportedly
raised a surplus of US$10M and had US$1.8B of domestic commercial sponsorship. Salt Lake City 2002 generated 53 domestic sponsorships totalling more than
US$300M with a surplus of US$56M. LA2028 pursues the same funding strategy.
While American hosts also received intangible benefits (e.g., place brand value),urban development impacts were meagre (Andranovich and Burbank 2011).
Los Angeles as a Unique Olympic City
Olympic cities are accustomed to mega-events with facilities and amenities that
other cities do not have, such as large stadia and many hotels. Even among Olympic
cities, Los Angeles (LA) is unique. First, with Hollywood and Disney, LA is theentertainment capital of the world. As the maker of telegenics, pageantry, and showmanship—all of which relate to the Olympics as a spectacle—the city is accustomed
to remake itself through show business. Second, LA is frequently described as an
athlete’s Eden. Los Angeles offers not only superior local training conditions, butalso has a myriad of professional sport teams that generate consistently big local
audiences for sports. Third, LA has a successful history with the Olympic Games.
Every Olympics, LA has maximized the use of existing venues and thus minimized
the need for costly new infrastructure and avoided the risk of underused stadia. Every
Games, LA has revived its imagery as an athlete powerhouse and tourism paradise.
Every time, LA has commercialized the Games turning a profit for the IOC and thecity. LA will have hosted the Olympic Games three times by the end of the coming decade, making it the first American city and the third global city after London
and Paris to do so. Unlike the latter two Olympic hosts, LA intends to repeat its
unique Olympic legacies despite the long list of new IOC requirements and the city’s
explosive population growth approaching 18 million residents in LA’s metro area
(2019).
It seems striking that local resistance to the upcoming LA Games has been
marginal to nearly non-existent despite the current anti-Olympic climate. 13 cities
since the 2020 Olympic bidding cycle have either withdrawn their bids due to local
protest or negative referenda. Two LA traits may explain the weak resistance against
LA’s third Olympic bid. First, the Olympics have become an intrinsic part of Los
Angeles. LA’s unique sport-broadcasting blend, fostering of athletic excellence, andsuccessful history with the Games created a popular acceptance of the mega-event.
Second, the sociopolitical context of Los Angeles numbed the local Olympic-protest
movement. Los Angeles residents are notorious for their disengagement in local politics that has earned LA the reputation as a bastion of voter apathy. For example,
former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was reelected in 2009 with an 18% voter
turnout for the mayoral race. Similarly disengaged, the massive urban problems
like LA’s notorious police brutality, housing crisis, and homelessness have caused

4

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

comparatively little public outrage. Urban planners are expected to solve these rapidly
growing problems while planning the Olympics that tend to exacerbate rather than
improve these urban conditions.

1.1.2 Planning Olympic Legacies
Planning cities in preparation for the Games entails many major tasks. First, Olympic
venues have to be readied for world-class competitions. Second, the well-being of
more than 10,000 athletes must be ensured in the stadia, in the Olympic Village(s),and across the city. All athletes, tens of thousands of volunteers, workforce, hundredsof thousands of spectators, and regular work commuters must be transported timely
and reliably. Fourth, the Olympics must be staged in a manner that engages the world
with LA watching the spectacle as if viewers were there. Olympic preparations arethus intrinsically linked to urban planning, because the requirements of the Olympics
set forth constraints of how cities can develop during and after the Games.
Over the past decade, urban planners, geographers, sociologists, economists, political scientists, and many more have slowly unraveled urban implications of staging
the Olympic Games. They concluded that when cities stage the Games, residents
usually experience detrimental impacts. These impacts manifest in an unequal distribution of benefits, increased gentrification pressures, and many more disadvantages
for the poor (Gaffney 2016; Horne 2018; Kassens-Noor and Ladd 2019; Zimbalist
2015). Understanding perceptions of the Olympics from LA planners, who have ahistory of experiencing the benefits the Olympics can bring, is thus, a critical component when predicting LA2028 Olympic legacies (more on that later in Sect. 1.4,
in which LA’s urban planners describe their perceptions about the upcoming LA
Olympics).
Despite predictive negative impacts, the IOC continues to find cities willing tostage the Games but at a rapidly diminishing rate. LA 2028 and Paris 2024 will determine the future of the Olympics (Hiller 2020). The attractiveness of the Olympics
lies in the idealism that sport should be in the service of all mankind; however,the Olympics have grown to such a massive scale that local impacts begin overshadowing the global idealism. While bid boosters continue to expect a profit frominvestments into the Games (and thus finance the bids) and the general perceptionof the Games remains positive on a global scale, local residents have started learning Olympic wisdom challenging the decision-making process of elites (KassensNoor et al. 2019). The goal for cities remains to receive valuable legacies, which
are distinct and context-driven to the host city (Preuss 2015). Governments envision the Olympic Games as grande opportunities for local development projects thatcan quickly remove administrative hurdles (Kassens-Noor 2019). In essence, many
governments still view the Games as a catalyst for urban change that removes political barriers and fast-tracks political decisions toward implementation (Essex andChalkley 1998; Lenskyj 2008).

1.1 Introduction

5

Three times, Los Angeles will have saved the Olympic brand and three times will
Los Angeles have evolved as a renewed metropolis—or will it? The legacies thisbook predicts given current planning affairs are challenging LA’s successful history
with Olympic legacies.

1.2 The Los Angeles Olympics 1932
Goal of this section: briefly introduce the reader to 1932 Olympics with existing
scholarship by focusing on the three aspects (shaper of brands, athlete Eden, andmaking the physical demands of the Games fit LA’s urban system) that made LA an
exceptional host. Recommended readings:• Los Angeles the Olympic City (Zimmerman 1984).
• Power without Authority: Los Angeles’ elites and the Construction of the Coliseum(Riess 1981).
• Los Angeles is the Olympic City: Legacies of the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games(Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008).

1.2.1 Contextualizing the Olympic Bidding Climate
for the 1932 Games
Cities vying for the modern Olympics in the early 1900’s traditionally were European
capitals. The first and only exception before LA began its bidding process was theaward of the Games to St. Louis, USA. These 1904 Games were a dismal failure
due to low participation (Riess 1981). American cities were remote and awarding the
Olympics to them—such was the belief at the time LA considered bidding—would
seriously inhibit athletes from participating in the Games because of the strenuous
journeys and high travel costs (Zimmerman 1984). Los Angeles had bid twice for
the Summer Olympics. After World War I, Los Angeles considered its third bid; thistime for the 1932 Olympics.
LA’s wealthy power brokers, including publishers, sports leaders, and real estatetycoons, formed a coalition called the Community Development Association (CDA)
to promote Los Angeles as a tourism destination (Riess 1981). In the CDA’s firstmeeting, boosters suggested Los Angeles to apply again to stage the Games, because“holding such a spectacle would direct a lot of attention to the city, improve its
prestige, and bring a great deal of free publicity” (Riess 1981, p. 53). The 1932 bid
boosters held tremendous power over local politics. Because of the power brokers’
vigorous pursuit of putting Los Angeles on the world map, Los Angeles submitted an
Olympic bid despite the American IOC members’ discouragement and the perceived
impossibility of getting the 1932 Games.

6

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

The International Olympic Committee awarded Los Angeles the 1932 Olympic
Games in April 1923. At that time, Los Angeles won the bid as the only city bidding
when many countries were struggling with the post-World War I economic slump.
Awarding the Games to LA remained risky as the city was not known widely and its
remote location posed serious participation challenges for athletes (SCCOG 2019;
Zimmerman 1984). In fact, Los Angeles was still struggling to become a destination
for Americans at the time.
What defined the city’s preparations to host the Games the most was the effectsof the Great Depression. Amid preparations for the Games, the US stock market
collapsed in late October 1929, sparking the Great Depression. Los Angeles’ Olympic
organizers continued preparing the major international mega-event, but with lessmoney and fewer resources as originally planned (Gold and Gold 2016). These
circumstances specific to LA created legacies that LA (and other US cities) would
inherit for future Olympic bids: shaping the Olympic brand, branding its own image,creating an unparalleled athlete experience, and inaugurating urban changes as a
sophisticated beautification process.
Planning the LA Olympics focused on branding LA’s and Southern California’s
imagery globally and drawing attention away from the Great Depression: Broadcasting the Olympic Games as a spectacle emulating a movie set with athletes as
actors and spectacular views of Southern California as the idea and imagery of theMediterranean paradise on the Pacific. Goldblatt (2016) brilliantly summarized thelegacy of the 1932 LA Olympics in arguing that these LA Olympics were the Games
commerce and money most directly shaped, setting a standard that would take therest of the Olympic movement 50 years to catch up.

1.2.2 Planning for the 1932 Games
Olympic boosters had nine years to plan for the Olympic Games. William May
Garland, a real estate tycoon and IOC member at the time, lead a powerful networkof movie stars, realtors, and oil company owners to fund, plan, and organize theGames. The federal government did not support the Games monetarily. Instead, thestate of California ensured the Games through a 1927 US$1M bond voters approved
with 73% (LAO 2016). But, the bid boosters never ended up using the voter-approved
bond (Xth Olympiad Committee 1933). The movie industry, led by Louis Mayer,
was the Games strongest and most popular booster. To attract athletes to California,
movie stars and film industry icons traveled across the world (Goldblatt 2016).
Shape the Olympic and LA Brand
The 1932 Summer Olympics were to promote LA’s global reputation and change
the city’s, the state’s, and the country’s image. Two years before the Games, America had entered the Great Depression. California’s demographics included many
homeless and unemployed, thus creating necessary services like soup kitchens. This
new poverty-stricken view of LA did not fit the “sunny Cali” imagery Los Angelesorganizers were determined to broadcast (Barney 1996). In unity with California’s

1.2 The Los Angeles Olympics 19327

spirit, its Governor at the time advertised LA as the city and state of frictionlessracial unity and guaranteed that everyone was welcome regardless of race, color, andcreed (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008). Olympic boosters thus saw the Olympics as achance to brand the city and use it to catalyze construction of modern LA (Dyresonand Llewellyn 2008).
The talent of LA to stage a great spectacle boosted the Olympic brand significantly.
Medal ceremonies were held after each event: athletes were honored on a threetiered podium, the respective country flags were raised while the national anthem of
the gold-medal athlete was played. Honoring the athletes became a celebration ofhuman performance that branded the medal ceremonies for all future Games. The
Los Angeles Games inaugurated many new TV-made ceremonies that were to shape
future Olympic hosts. Three famous examples are listed below (please refer to thereferences for holistic overview):• The 1932 LA Games started the Olympic movement on the path to becoming
an attractive commodity in the international entertainment industry (Dyreson andLlewellyn 2008).
• The Olympic Village, housing male athletes together, exemplified Coubertin’s
Olympic vision by creating an atmosphere of friendship and sportsmanship(Barney 1996).
• The world press corps and Olympic organizers in LA agreed that for future
Olympics the Olympic Village and the Olympic cauldron monumental flame,
would become permanent fixtures of future Games (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008).
Create Athlete Experiences
The LA and California Olympic Committees both intended to showcase California
and LA as an athletic Eden and the center of American sports. At the same time, theGreat Depression put athlete attendance in jeopardy as few countries could afford
to pay for athlete travel and accommodations. As such, the plan arose to build thefirst-ever Olympic Village. Baldwin Hills in South Los Angeles was chosen to accommodate male athletes in 550 two-bedroom portable bungalows. In contrast, women
were housed far away from the Olympic Village in the Chapman hotel in Wilshire
when the International Olympic Committee finally decided in late April 1931 to noteliminate women from the event (Pieroth 1996). On 321 acres, the Olympic Village
also was to feature a hospital for all athlete care, a fire department for emergencies,
post and telegraph offices as communication centers, an amphitheater for entertainment, and a bank. The city covered the costs of constructing the Olympic Village
and arranged discount fares for travel (Barney 1996). Above the Olympic Village, 36
flags representing equal opportunity and democratic unity among 36 countries represented LA’s cosmopolitan lifestyle (Goldblatt 2016). The press compared Baldwin
Hills with Mount Olympus to showcase LA’s diversity and adaptability.
Implement Urban Changes (Stadia/Olympic Village/Transport)
After two failed bids, Los Angeles approached bidding for the Olympic Gamesstrategically. William Garland advocated for LA as the next Olympic host in-person,

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1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

networking among IOC members as early as 1920. He was advised that the IOC
would only consider LA if the city was to feature a new Olympic stadium. Returning
home, Garland advocated for a new stadium, which resulted in the developmentof the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (SCCOG 2019). The Coliseum, originallycommissioned as a memorial to veterans of World War I in 1921, became possibly
the most famous icon for LA’s Olympics as the venue was slated to become thehost of all three future Opening and Closing ceremonies (Gold and Gold 2016).
Los Angeles architects John and Donald Parkinson designed the Coliseum. It was
built in 1923 and refurbished five years later to seat Olympic visitors (Riess 1981). In
preparation for the Olympics, the newly renovated Coliseum was renamed as the Los
Angeles Olympic Stadium. The bid boosters running the Community Development
Association (CDA) funded the US$1M reconstruction of the Coliseum to expand it
to 100,000 seats. LA’s 1932 Olympic Organizing Committee ultimately became a
CDA spin-off (SCCOG 2019; Wassong 2015).
Map 1.1 provides an overview of Olympic-relevant location. As can be seen, theOlympic Village and the Coliseum in the heart of Los Angeles became the center forthe global stage. The map also depicts all 1932 stadia to show that new venue construction was minimal and that the existing road infrastructure in LA was sufficient
to transport athletes and visitors. Thus, no major transportation constructions took
place, and multimodal transportation was advertised with low rates locally, nationally, and internationally (Wassong 2015). To prepare for visitors, LA reworked its
standard urban marketing program to woo IOC members during the 1932 bidding
process (Short 2004; Ferrand et al. 2012). The city was to emulate unity, prosperity, and beauty. In a Olympic-driven beautification process, 30,000 palm trees wereplanted along avenues to emulate a Mediterranean paradise on the Pacific for athletes
and visitors. Olympic boosters persuaded the city to spend $100,000 on these palms
in 1932 (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008).

1.2.3 Legacies of the 1932 GamesThe Games of the X Olympiad took place from July 30 to August 14, 1932 withmore than 1300 athletes. The 1932 Olympics featured 14 sports with 117 events. LA
32 Games motto “Sun, Sea, Sand, and Sport” represented the good life of Southern
California (Goldblatt 2016). This laid-back attitude, Hollywood’s capability to stagea great show, and USA’s Great Depression, inaugurated LA 1932 legacies and determined how cities would host consecutive Games. The 1932 Games created manyfirsts, e.g., the medal ceremony on podiums and the Olympic Village.
Shape the Olympic Brand and LA Brand
The 1932 Games placed Los Angeles on the world map (Zimmerman 1984) at atime when Los Angeles was still trying to become a popular destination for Americans. The American movie industry used the Games to attract global attention, when
Hollywood-based broadcasters delivered a global Olympic spectacle that made a1.2 The Los Angeles Olympics 19329

Map 1.1 Main Olympic venues during the 1932 Games. Source Created by T. Decaminada adaptedfrom Zimerman (1984), NAD 1983 map projection

10

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

US$1.5M profit (Keys 2006; Llewellyn et al. 2015). For example, Walt Disney featured Mickey Mouse at the Olympics and streamed the Barnyard Olympics in 1932.
The media press box, located in the LA Memorial Coliseum, allowed prime access tocover the Games and news reporters could freely access other venues including the
Olympic Village (Barney 1996). The Games boosters’ goals to reshape LA’s brandworked well (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008; Wassong 2015). Staging the Gamesearned Los Angeles an international reputation as a hip, upcoming, and burgeoning city establishing itself firmly as the global center of sport, fashion, and showbusiness. LA successfully marketed the American culture and showcased the city
as one of commerce, industry, and high quality of life. Locally, the impressions as
the Mediterranean paradise manifested themselves through the newly planted palm
trees. They remained in LA and became a permanent reminder for Angelenos of the1932 Games. For visitors, they are viewed as the iconic representations of Southern
California (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008).
Create Athlete Experiences
1503 athletes participated in the Games in front of 1.25 million spectators globally.
102,000 spectators attended the opening ceremony in the newly refurbished Coliseum. The Games were remembered for their brilliant athletic performances when 16
world and 33 Olympic records were broken. In particular, LA athletes’ performanceswere superior, as American athletes won 103 medals. To honor these accomplishments, LA organizers introduced elevated platforms for winners, photo-finish cameras, and the two-week format for celebrating the Games as a first in Olympic Gameshistory (Barney 1996). At the same time, LA managed to showcase global sportsmanship and racial diversity to attract a global crowd to the stadia and to print the imageryof global Games. Japanese Americans and Japanese athletes were visibly present at
the Games (Yamamoto 2000). Japanese athletes received strong support throughout
the Games, and Japanese community organizations cheered, hosted the team, andheld receptions (Yamamoto 2000). The press emphasized the meticulous nature ofJapanese preparation and the strong national support in funding Japanese athletesreceived (Goldblatt 2016). The American press enabled the display of frictionlessracial unity that California’s governor had promised (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008).
Carefully navigating the imagery of African American athletes, the press comparedthem with traditional white male athletes as black streaks of lightning or black bolts
when African American athletes broke several world records and won gold medals.
Implement Urban Changes (Stadia/Olympic Village/Transport)
To stage the 1932 Olympics, Los Angeles prepared 15 venues. Repurposing many
venues such as the Grand Olympic Auditorium and the Rose Bowl, erecting temporary structures like the Olympic Village with portable houses, and building anew
only the aquatics stadium, the 1932 Games highlighted LA’s innovative approach totemporarily transform a city to showcase athlete competitions (Gold and Gold 2016).
Venues included public highways and streets—one of which, 10th Street as it was
the Games of the Tenth Olympiad, was renamed Olympic Boulevard.

1.2 The Los Angeles Olympics 193211

One of the lasting urban legacies from the LA Games in 1932 was the conceptof an Olympic Village, which eased concerns that housing accommodations were
too expensive. Los Angeles organizers established precedent for an Olympic Village
to house the athletes, which the IOC adopted as a requirement for future Olympic
Games (Zimmerman 1984). Housing the male athletes in close proximity no matter
race, ethnicity, or origin created the feeling of Olympism (Barney 1996). Cowboys
and rodeo riders on horseback patrolling the wire fence provided security for the
Olympic Village (Goldblatt 2016).
Once the Olympic Games ended, the prefabricated bungalows were offered forsale. Two of them had been kept empty as showcases for journalists and prospective
buyers during the Games (Goldblatt 2016).
1932 Legacies that Enabled Winning the IOC Nomination to Host the 2028 Olympics
With the Olympics in 1932, the USA had laid claim to the leadership of the modern
sporting movement (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008). While American athletes staked
this claim with their superior performances during the Games, LA’s print, radio, andnews media enabled it. Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games
invented new press-worthy and attractive Olympic features and broadcasted theseimages through a massive public relations campaign to global audiences. Thus, theHollywood-made Games created the recipe for an attractive media spectacle thatenabled Coubertin’s vision of a global Games.
At the same time, the bid boosters and power brokers of LA had put the Cityof Angels on the world map. Broadcasting images of a thriving Los Angeles in the
midst of the Great Depression, producing the first profit in Olympic history, anddrawing record number of spectators, provided proof of concept that the Games
could become a globally attractive event spreading far from its European origins.
Emulating the spirit of the Olympic movement, the physical setup of the city showcased that sport can unite by transcending from the athletes to the city, country, andthe world, when spectacularly showcasing winning performances of different genders, races, and countries. With the success of the first LA Olympics, bid booster
founded the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games in 1939 as a
non-profit organization (SCCOG 2019). To this day, SCCOG has been and likely
will be involved in every single bid Los Angeles or other Californian cities propose.
To this day, SCCOG’s primary mission remains to promote the Olympic movement.
In summary, LA did not only save the 1932 Olympics as the only bidder at thetime, but also through its legacies. Los Angeles made the Games attractive again
for future bidders at a time when the global recession had diminished interest in the
Games.

1.3 The Los Angeles Olympics 1984
Goal of the section: briefly introduce the reader to 1984 Olympics with existing
scholarship by focusing on the three aspects (shaper of brands, athlete Eden, andmaking the physical demands of the Games fit LA’s urban system) that made LA an
exceptional host. Recommended readings:

12

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies• The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games: Assessing the 30-Year Legacy (Llewellyn
et al. 2015).
• Olympic dreams: the impact of mega-events on local politics (Burbank et al. 2001).

1.3.1 Contextualizing the Olympic Bidding Climate
for the 1984 GamesThe Cold War, racial politics, and violent massacres set the pretext of bidding during
the mid-1970s. The Olympic Games became a platform upon which two superpowers(USA & Russia) played out their geopolitical tension: this tension is visible throughboycotts, athletes demonstrating opposition to decades of racial discrimination andanti-apartheid, and nations violently suppressing calls for democracy and independence. At the time Los Angeles considered a bid for the 1984 Olympics, the Games
had lost their appeal to many cities as the three preceding Games had diminished the
Olympic brand, reflecting the global discourse of world politics. In addition, the ban
on professional athletes at a time when sports was becoming a career and a business,meant that the Olympics was not presenting the world’s best to a rapidly growing
television market.
The Mexico City Games in 1968 and the Munich Games in 1972 made history
as the deadliest Olympics in history. Days before the Olympic opening ceremony in
Mexico, government forces gunned down students whose peaceful protest opposed
the authoritarian control of Mexico’s government in the massacre at Tlatelolco. The
students’ bravery inaugurated Mexico’s decades-long transition to democracy. Germany did not prevent a terrorist attack when a Palestinian terrorist group took hostageand eventually killed Israeli Olympic team members in a decades-old dispute rooted
in Palestine’s and Israel’s claim over land.
Montreal in 1976 became the most debt-ridden Games in Olympic history. Initiallybudgeted at ~US$125M, Montreal spent six billion dollars on the Games (Edwards
1984b). Leaving Montrealers with ~US$1.6B in Olympic debt that was largely due
to the construction cost of the Olympic stadium, known as the Big “Owe;” it took
more than 30 years to payoff. The Montreal Games also saw the first anti-Apartheid
boycott when 22 African nations refused to participate, because the IOC president
Samaranch allowed New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team to participate, despite arecent tour of apartheid-ridden South Africa (Llewellyn 2015).
The Moscow 1980 Games cost nine billion dollars and were boycotted by 65
Western nations (Edwards 1984b). The US led the boycott over the Soviet Union’s
invasion of Afghanistan and Communist nations were expected to retaliate with aboycott of the Los Angeles Games. It so happened that nineteen nations declined theinvitation to take part in the 1984 Games (Belam 2012).
Los Angeles was the only applicant for the Olympics of 1984, when Tehran
withdrew its candidacy in 1977. Thus, the IOC lost its leveraging power (as had
happened in 1932) once more, when the IOC declined Montreal’s offer to host again

1.3 The Los Angeles Olympics 198413

(Sarantakes 2009). At the time, the struggling IOC had 20 staff members, assets of
US$2M, and US$200,000 in cash reserves. The IOC was hoping the financially prudent and inclusivity-focused Games would save the Olympic brand when it awarded
the Games to Los Angeles in May 1978.
Similar to 1932, the USA entered the deepest post-World War II recession during
the planning for the Olympic Games. In early 1980, a short recession signaled asustained recession that lasted from July 1981 to November 1982. Unemployment
rose continuously, peaking slightly above 10% nationwide (NOlympics LA 2019).

1.3.2 Planning for the 1984 Games
LA’s submission to the USOC for the 1984 Games was its 8th consecutive bid for
the Summer Olympic Games. The Southern California Committee for the Olympic
Games (SCCOG 2019), a legacy from LA’s 1932 Games, had institutionalized
the Olympic bidding process. SCCOG describes bidding as a “Los Angeles civic
ritual.” As the only American bidder, SCCOG President John Argue secured LA’s
USOC nomination in 1977. The Los Angeles Olympic bid emphasized remedying
the failures that had diminished the Olympic brand.
Local opposition to the Games’ arose due to potential environmental damages,
financial liabilities, and the disruption to everyday life. Only 35% of Angelenos
were supportive of an Olympic bid if the taxpayers were to guarantee for financial
deficits. LA’s residents guaranteed to keep Olympic cost in check through denying Los Angeles a signature on the IOC’s host city contract. Los Angeles votersconsequently approved a measure, Proposition N, in 1978 prohibiting city capital
expenditures for the Games. This resulted in an agreement between the city and the
IOC in which the host committee was awarded the Games, and USOC served as thefinancial guarantor (Yaroslavsky et al. 2015). The Chairman of the 1984 Los Angeles
Organising Committee (LAOOC), Peter Ueberroth, thus, had to come up with a plan
for a viable private sector-funded Games.
Shape the Olympic and LA Brand
Peter Ueberroth’s strategy to stage financially solvent Games relied on local wealthand LA’s home to the movie industry. 25 donors emerged quickly eager to securenaming and television rights associated with the Olympic Games. Ueberroth calculated the Games would not only cost ~US$500M but also turn a profit (Edwards
1984). The Games were made for TV and commercialized (Dyreson 2015), which
Giovannini (1985), dubbed “television urbanism.”
The Games also became a platform for anti-racist policies and for Western ideals
of independence. For example, in the run-up to the 1984 Los Angeles Games, theUS anti-apartheid movement emerged, opposing then-President Ronald Reagan’s
conciliatory foreign policy (Llewellyn 2015).

14

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Create Athlete Experiences
The focus on preparing for the Olympics lay on city rather than athlete experience.
The athlete experience focused on ensuring their security, safety, and televisability.
The LA84 Organizing Committee thus set significant funds aside for staffing andtechnology to protect the Games from terrorism (IOC 2019). Security around the
UCLA campus remained very tight before and during the Games (UCLA 2017). The
organizers enabled fair competitions and thus tested extensively for performanceenhancing drugs (Edwards 1984b). Similar to 1932, the IOC and local organizers
granted the press access to the Olympic Villages to report on, televise, and ultimately
idolize Olympic athletes. The all-present television crews brought the athletes closer
to local and global spectators of the Games.
Implement Urban Changes (Stadia/Olympic Village/Transport)
In 1984, Los Angeles repeated its skill of planning the Olympics with existing venues
and few permanent urban changes. Thus, LA84 altered Los Angeles little. The organizers followed the mantra: use what you have and televise the experience. As a
privately financed Games, LA84 maximized the use of existing facilities. The 1932
Olympic experience had provided valuable lessons and precedence in staging theGames on a low budget during a financial crisis. Instead of building anew, which had
led Montreal to seriously overrun costs, the organizers used most and modernizedclose to 70% of the stadia used in the 1932 Games. Only three sports—swimming,shooting, and cycling—required new facilities (Wenn 2015).
Similar to the reuse of stadia, the Olympic Village became the existing student
dormitories at the University of Southern California (USC), the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)(Chalkley and Essex 1999; Wenn 2015). The IOC reluctantly had accepted LA84’s
Village concept succumbing to LA’s leverage as the only bidder, even though IOC
members had judged the student dormitories as inadequate for athlete housing andthought it unacceptable to have multiple villages instead of one (Luna 2016).
Given the athletes’ accommodations and venues spread across a comparatively
wide geographical area at the time, a reliable transportation system was necessary.
Angelenos especially feared gridlock apocalypse because the most popular events—
swimming, gymnastics, and track and field—were located in densely populated,heavily traveled areas (Edwards 1984a). Peter Ueberroth, who owned the second
largest travel company in North America, was well suited to solve LA’s transportchallenge. Aligned with the mindset to use existing infrastructure, transportation
relied on LA’s expansive highway network. The challenge then was to entice spectators to use busses and prevent them from using their cars. To do so, the LA84 Organizing Committee placed a hefty price tag on limited event-site parking (Edwards
1984a).
Map 1.2 shows Olympic-relevant location. As can be seen, the Coliseum remained
the center for the Olympic stage. In contrast to 1932, three (instead of one) Olympic
Villages housed the athletes (due to scale Map 1.2 shows two). Similar to the 1932
urban structure as shown in Map 1.1, new venue construction was minimal and theexisting road infrastructure in LA was sufficient to transport athletes and visitors.

1.3 The Los Angeles Olympics 198415

Map 1.2 Main Olympic venues during the 1984 Games. Source Created by T. Decaminada adaptedfrom LA84 archives, NAD 1983 map projection

16

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

The extensive bus network transported athletes and visitors, and aggressive anticar policies kept the general public from congesting LA’s roads during Games time
(Giuliano 1988).

1.3.3 Legacies from the 1984 Games
The Los Angeles Games commercialized the Olympic brand, which Burbank et al.
(2001) famously dubbed the “mega-event strategy:” one that relied on private investments to pursue, secure, and stage the Olympic Games. In discovering “the telegenic
appeal of the Olympics, the Los Angeles Games altered the economic, political andcultural calculus of the Olympic movement” (Dyreson 2015, p. 174). Similar to how
the 1932 Games produced SCCOG as a lasting legacy ensuring the ability to bid,
the 1984 Games produced LA84 Foundation (2019) as a lasting legacy to produce
top-tier athletes and remained living proof for LA28 organizers to point to a sustained
positive legacy from the Games.
Shape the Olympic Brand and LA Brand
The Olympic Games refreshed Los Angeles imagery from the 1932 Games as ayoung, hip, and energetic city. The broadcasted festivities and visuals of the city wereintended to attract future tourists to Los Angeles (Pyo et al. 1988). Broadcasting thelook of the Games, each venue’s field of play featured colorful graphics (SCCOG
2019). To tie the venues together, a city-wide imagery of festive federalism had
to be created, which Giovannini (1985) labeled “television urbanism.” This citywide imagery was the brainchild of a partnership between two private firms, thedesign firm Sussman/Prejza and the architectural firm Jerde. Deborah Sussman and
Jon Jerde picked a muted color scheme without red, white, and blue to avoid thesmacking display of nationalism. Focusing on aesthetics, the urban color scheme
united the city and venues, allowing broadcasters to gloss over serious urban issues
such as substandard housing. The urban beautification during the Games had beena tradition for previous Games, but LA84 took it beyond venue-only to a city-wide
scheme. Finally, the palms that had gilded the 1932 Games were replanted for the
1984 Games to revitalize the appearance of LA as the Mediterranean paradise on the
Pacific (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008).
The run-up to the Games, however, also marked the beginning of an era of local
injustice. Police brutality increased against the poor, people of color, and the homeless. Even though complaints arose, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)
stopped investigating and prosecuting their own officers. NOlympics LA (2019) andZirin (2012) claim the Games enabled the 1992 Uprising of social unrest and violent
riots.
The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics shaped the Olympic brand with at least three
revolutionary concepts. First, the Olympic Games could be profitable, as the Games
brought in an estimated US$232.5M (Llewellyn et al. 2015). LA84 estimated the1.3 The Los Angeles Olympics 198417

economic impact of the Games to be US$3.29B, while the value-added tourist expenditures accounted for US$417M alone (Pyo et al. 1988). However, Olympic room
occupancy remained well below expectations, while restaurants and other businesses
reported a 20–40% drop in revenue (Pyo et al. 1988). Second, televising the Olympics
allowed room for a new financial model (Dyreson 2015) that hinged upon selling
television contracts, auctioning off naming rights for venues in lieu of construction
costs, and scoring corporate sponsorship deals (Llewellyn et al. 2015). For example,
ABC paid US$225M to broadcast the Games (Essex and Chalkley 1998). Third,
as the Games were broadcasted globally, they had important political implications:they slowly eroded the power of boycotts that had marked the staging of previous
Games, because they could be watched in countries that had boycotted the Games(Dyreson 2015) and thus, could display the free life in Western societies (Brownell
2015; Llewellyn et al. 2015).
Create Athlete Experiences
Athlete experiences centered on medical support, heat management, and healthcare
options—all of which Los Angeles organizers ensured. In contrast, the literature provides little indication about how athletes experienced the Olympic Village. One paperclassified the hype of the event and the Olympic Village as a distraction that could
potentially inhibit athletes’ success (Orlick and Partington 1988, p. 123). Accounts
from the time describe the buzz and festive atmosphere on UCLA’s campus, one of thetemporary homes for the 7800 athletes. The James West Alumni Center served as theentrance to the Olympic Village where visitors awaited the athletes’ for autographs.
ABC TV, owning the exclusive television rights for the 1984 Games, produced muchof the Olympic experience on campus, while the Ackerman Student Union housed
the press corps (UCLA 2017). 7 million spectators cheered the athletes to unprecedented world records (Zimmerman 1984). LA’s relaxed lifestyle claimed two new
Olympic sports: synchronized swimming and windsurfing (Dyreson 2015). Even
with the addition of the women’s marathon (and several other events), women madeup only 1700 of the 7800 Olympians (Schultz 2015).
Implement Urban Changes (Stadia/Olympic Village/Transport)
The Los Angeles Games of 1984 inaugurated very limited physical development andmade little to no contribution to local communities. The Games were about athletics.
LA’s sports infrastructure legacy included a new swim stadium at the University ofSouthern California (USC), a shooting range in San Bernardino County, and a velodrome at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). The velodrome
remained a poorly used legacy despite its conversion to a multipurpose site for entertainment. Noise complaints and public nuisances suites ensued upon every concert.
Despite the velodrome’s poor usage, Anshutz Entertainment Group (AEG) built a
new velodrome just to the south of its old location in 2003. This new velodrome isthe largest indoor velodrome, and the only one that meets international standards in
the United States (Wilson 2015). The old velodrome was demolished to make room
for a soccer-only stadium for the LA Galaxy, an American professional soccer team.

18

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Given Olympic spectators would use the same highway network as Angelenos,
LA84 implemented sophisticated transportation system management (TSM). Expecting 1.2 million people, each venue had access, circulation, and parking plans, including park and ride lots, shuttle services, and bus facilities (Giuliano 1988). The execution of the TSM went well, because 45% of Coliseum spectators took public transit
to reach events; however, when the feared LA gridlock did not occur, Angelenos
started to drive more (Giuliano 1988).
Sixty percent of LA84’s operating surplus was invested in the United States
Olympic Endowment that was set aside for USOC and national governing bodies.
40% of the surplus funded the predecessors of the LA84 foundation (Wilson 2015).
Both still use the funds in service of the Olympic movement to develop elite athletes
and support youth sports. Further, LA established a Sports Council in 1987 and 1988,
whose mission it was and still is to promote economic development through sport.
1984 Legacies that Enabled Winning the IOC Nomination to Host the 2028 Olympics
With the Olympics in 1984, the Los Angeles Organizing Committee firmly established the image of Los Angeles as a global city. LA strengthened its position as theglobal entertainment and tourist hub showcasing and fostering the popular acceptance of the Olympics for decades to come. Broadcasting Los Angeles as a movie set
and cutting the IOC out of sponsorship deals turned Los Angeles an unprecedented
Olympic profit. LA1984 is widely considered a financial success story as these privately financed Games created a ~US$232.5M surplus by selling television rights.
This LA model, which became the blueprint to commercialize the Olympic Games
successfully, emerged as the mega-event strategy, when local elites use large scale
external events like the Olympic Games to pursue local growth (Burbank et al. 2001).
With the creation of the LA84 Foundation, bid boosters ensured a continuinglegacy and proof of viability for the Olympic movement even until today. Since
1985, the LA84 Foundation manages Southern California’s share of the 1984 profits, originally endowed with US$93M. LA84 hosts a library, provides youth sports
coaches’ clinics, and serves more than 3 million young people and 1100 organizations
in Southern California through its granting program (LA84 2019).
A legacy that now takes a stronghold in Olympic bidding and staging was theIOC’s establishment of the Olympic partner program, called the TOP program, ayear after LA84’s closing ceremony. Just as the LA84 Organizing Committee had
granted category-exclusive marketing rights, the IOC does the same through its TOP
program with a small group of global well-known companies.
The LA Olympics also showed that local entrepreneurs willing to take risks hosting
the Olympics can reap personal benefits and fame from the Games. For example,
Peter Ueberroth was named man of the year for his work on the Olympics by Timemagazine in 1984.
In summary, LA did not only save the 1984 Olympics as the only bidder at thetime, but also through its legacies. The invention of a new funding model and proofing the model’s viability immediately erased the fear over debt that the Montreal
and Moscow Games had spiked. The possible financial gain for local governments
renewed interest in the Games as a local economic and tourism booster from cities

1.3 The Los Angeles Olympics 1984

19

around the globe. Transferring LA’s funding model to the IOC also ensured a continuing cash flow to the organization that had been struggling with finances. Because ofLA’s minimalistic investment in urban infrastructure to stage the Olympics, the LA
Games also dispersed worries over unused stadia post-Games. Staging the Games
without any terrorism attacks further reduced fears that had built with the Games in
Mexico City and Munich. Thus, the powerful legacies of the 1984 Games signaled
to the IOC a second time, that LA can save the Olympics.

1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028
Goal of the section: describe the bidding process for the 2024/2028 Olympics
focusing on legacy promises and perceptions of Los Angles planners.

1.4.1 Contextualizing the Olympic Bidding Climate
for the 2024/2028 Games
Before the last decade, cities vied for the Games as the benefits of hosting were
widely accepted (Andranovich et al. 2001; Cashman and Hughes 1999; Chalkley andEssex 1999). American bidders have historically been motivated by a “mega-event
strategy” when local elites pursue a pro-growth, consumption-based urban agendaaround tourism and local boosterism through the Olympic Games (Andranovich et al.
2001). The IOC, USOC, and Olympic boosters sell neoliberal dreams and utopian
visions of economic growth, world-class imageries, and iconic infrastructures togovernments and urban residents alike (Gaffney 2010; Kassens-Noor 2016).
The mega-event strategy has been widely criticized with respect to access,accountability, and transparency in the policy-making process (Boykoff 2014;
Lenskyj 2008; Zimbalist 2015). Pursuing the Games has violated human rights(Horne 2018), provided the environment for corruption (Hover et al. 2016), andchanged urban development priorities (Kassens-Noor 2012). Most notably, Müller
(2015, p. 7) identifies a “mega-event syndrome”: a “set of symptoms that occur
together…and have shared underlying causes”: overpromising benefits, underestimating costs, taking public risks, hijacking of public policy, suspending of laws
temporarily, elite capturing of the plans, and over-reliance on temporary initiatives.
These bidding symptoms have left cities with harsh realities:• Underused stadia remain in cities as white elephant infrastructures and accrue
high-maintenance costs after the Olympic Games are over; Athens stands out as
the poster child for venue mismanagement.
• The Olympics cause (un)expected debts for local taxpayers; all Summer Olympics
since 1960 have run over budget (Flyvbjerg and Stewart 2012; Zimbalist 2015).
McBride (2016) lists the common causes of debt: (a) the IOC and National Olympic

20

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Committees face considerable pressure to sell decision-makers and the public on
the Games and thus “low ball the cost estimates with a bare–bones plan;” (b)the long duration of the competitive Olympic bid process increases pressure on
bidders to develop “ever more elaborate and expensive plans;” (c) the long lag time
between bidding and hosting the Games can inflate local costs; (d) the tendency ofmega-projects to fall behind construction schedules, can lead to higher costs when
decision-makers ensure mega-projects are finished prior to the event (McBride
2016).
• Host cities gain distorted global imageries when benefits accrue to the rich, while
the burdens and financial risks are born by local taxpayers (Gaffney 2016; KassensNoor et al. 2018). In addition, long-term economic growth and tourism gains
are negligible (Flyvbjerg and Stewart 2012; Zimbalist 2015) while the Olympic
brand rather than cities reap the positive imagery impacts (Kassens-Noor et al.
2019).
Public participation has historically been tokenistic, and only a handful of bids since1980 have been subject to referenda (Oliver and Lauermann 2017). Anti-Olympic
movements are founded on the principle that hosting the Games should be a democratically accountable achievement. While there are historical examples of bid-stage
opposition, anti-Olympic activists historically have mobilized later in the planning
process after contracts have been signed and construction has begun (Boykoff 2014;
Cottrell and Nelson 2011). Likewise, voters and local officials have tended to pay
attention relatively late in the planning process, often after the bid has been awarded
and the original sponsors have left public office. In contrast, bidders in recent years
face serious political challenges in response to anti-Olympic campaigns, skeptical
voters, and local officials (Lauermann and Vogelpohl 2017). Knowledge about negative impacts of the Olympic Games has spread worldwide as social media hasenabled the transfer of knowledge on negative Olympic legacies (Oliver and Lauermann 2017). Before then, Olympic knowledge was largely constrained to the IOC’s
very own Olympic knowledge program that fostered the transfer of positive lessons
while ignoring many negative legacies (Kassens-Noor 2019b).
Mounting evidence that Olympic bidders regularly overpromise and underdeliver
has scarred the Olympic brand. Applicant and candidate cities have been withdrawing
their bids to host the Olympics since the 2002 Games (Kassens-Noor and Lauermann
2018; Lauermann 2019). To counteract the negative trend in bidding, the IOC enacted
Agenda 2020 in December 2014 and added three initiatives in the New Norm four
years later (IOC 2014, 2018). The former encouraged bidders to reduce the cost of
bidding, achieve sustainable legacies, and view the bidding stage as an invitation
for cities to explore the concept of bidding. The latter set explicit goals for a new
candidature procedure (three submissions instead of one), proposed 100 measures totransform the organization and delivery of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, andenacted a new strategic legacy approach to enable positive legacies from the Games.
Essentially all three initiatives were to change the Olympic value proposition fororganizing (not hosting) the Games. Agenda 2020s mission, thus, was not simply to1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

21

trigger or reinvigorate the bidding process, but to reassert the values of the Olympic
Movement (MacAloon 2016).
Los Angeles bid for the Olympic Games at a time when the Olympic Games had
lost their appeal as successful remakers of cities, as boosters of the economy, as
stimulators of tourism, and as chances to claim the world stage in a positive light.
In particular, the Sochi 2014 Olympics with an estimated cost of US$52B, Athens’
empty stadia post-Games, and Rio’s violence toward local resistance to suppress
opposition to the Games became deterrents to bid. LA bid when even Agenda 2020s
hopeful promise to reinvigorate the Games had largely diminished, because the IOC
chose Beijing as the Olympic winter host (MacAloon 2016), and because Boston’s
resistance movements forced Boston’s mayor to withdraw a bid that was widely
considered the front runner for the 2024 Games (Dempsey and Zimbalist 2017;
Kassens-Noor and Lauermann 2018). The Games were at the brink of an abyss whenthe IOC was hard pressed to find cities willing to host the Games (Hiller 2020;
Hiller and Wanner 2019). The Olympic bidding climate had significantly changed:
decision-makers once were able to make an executive decision to host; locals now
hold power over the decision to bid (Giesen and Hallmann 2018; Hiller 2020).
However, Los Angeles boosters did not win a battle over public opinion but won
on the bid premise “We have done it before, we can do it again.” As the previous
sections summarized, bid boosters bid with a strong history of Olympic staging. The
previous LA Games had saved the Olympic brand twice and had created local proof of
long-term Olympic legacies with SCCOG and LA84 Foundation that are dedicatedto the Olympic movement. As this section shows, LA’s bid boosters aligned with
global elites leveraging the wealth of local supporters at the right time, e.g., in 2014,
NBC signed a US$7.75B extension to retain US Olympic TV rights through 2032.
Realizing concepts of Agenda 2020 and the New Norm much better than Boston did,LA’s bid boosters promised minimalistic urban changes in their initial bid. They also
found ways to make important concessions over the course of the bid to enable enoughlocal support, while exploring legal loopholes that satisfied the IOC’s mandate for ahost city guarantee. Bid boosters benefited from LA’s unique sociopolitical context
of voter apathy manifested as cocoon citizenship, which Fulton (2001) describes as
the mindset of inhabitants to view LA as 72 suburbs instead of one metropolis. LA’s
Olympic bidding process, as presented, is the story of a city hosting the Games inwhich the process of bidding in an adversarial anti-Olympic bid climate was custom
made for LA.

1.4.2 The Political Process of Bidding in Los Angeles
Three reasons rooted in LA’s Olympic past allowed political and business elites tosecure USOC’s nomination for the 2024 Olympic Games: (1) opacity in planning theGames, (2) the institutionalization of the bidding process, and (3) the powerful argument of having successfully staged two Olympic Games in the past. Combined, thesethree reasons efficiently enabled boosters to meet IOC deadlines under extremely

22

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

short notice and hindered opposition groups from building a grassroots movement
strong enough to stop the bid in its tracks.
In 2012, when Los Angeles began to bid for the third time in its recent history, thistime for the 2024 Olympics, LA bidders had two recent bids from which to learn: thebidding process from 1997 to 2002 for the 2012 Olympics and the bidding processfrom ~2002 to 2005 for the 2016 Olympics. Both times the Southern California
Committee for the Olympic Games (SCCOG) had led early bid efforts modelingthe 1984 Olympic Games with private financing and existing facilities (SCCOG
2013b). SCCOG became the embodiment of the institutionalization of the earlybidding process, in which knowledge, networks, and experience stayed centralized
at SCCOG. USOC similarly learned from both failed bids at the international level
when first New York (2012) and then Chicago (2016) failed to bring the Games backto the USA.
The third bidding process from which LA learned was Boston’s infamous 2024
bid failure in 2015. Watching Boston’s bid go down in flames when Boston’s bidding
committee tried to remedy declining public support while handling public demands
for transparency, taught LA’s bid boosters and USOC to remain opaque about theirdecision-making process. Boston’s lessons transferred quickly via highly skilled
Games gypsies, such as the IOC consultant Doug Arnot, who traveled from city tocity to support USOC’s top contender in the bidding process. LA continued to plan
its bid in secrecy to avoid issues that had made Boston’s bid fail, such as public
engagement. This secrecy led to the immediate removal of LA’s initial bid fromSCCOG’s website, to the redaction of the legacy portion of LA’s initial bid, and to
the denial of public records requests by invoking Section 6255 California legislation.
Questions related to legacy were quickly squashed with one powerful argument:
We have done it before, we can do it again. Frequently, bid boosters pointed to
the facts that (1) given LA’s current venue infrastructure there would be no whiteelephants (empty or underused stadia post-Games) and (2) the LA84 foundation was
an Olympic legacy that still benefits Angelenos.
LA’s boosters greatly capitalized on their experience, offering a compelling story
firmly rooted in its past, to secure the Olympic nomination for the 2028 Games.
The mayor labeled that experience “DNA” and efficiently disabled counter-Olympic
history arguments with those of LA’s history in public meetings, which had become
famous blindspots for bid boosters around the world. One LA24/28 bid committee
member explains, “in many ways, it is a city built to host the Games.” Los Angeles
bid boosters believe that the Olympics are an important part of what makes up LA,
and justifies the premise, “We have done it before, we can do it again,” as the LA
2028s director of venues & infrastructure explains. Public officials, such as Councilman Gil Cedillo share this sentiment: “We are the only city that has two successful
Olympics—that’s what I look to. You can tell me other cities haven’t been successful.
That’s not us” (Wharton 2017b). LA’s political elites supported LA’s Olympic bid
because they were awaiting the Olympic catalytic effect, which removes implementation barriers for new legislation and public works projects. Bid supporters mentioned
the analogy of “the perfect storm” in conversations and discussions. For example, an
LA planner describes the advent of the Olympics as igniting “a fire under the city to1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

23

get things done that need to get done and the city had been dragging its feet on for
decades.” Just like the 1984 Games were the catalyst for the construction of the modern LA (Dyreson and Llewellyn 2008), the third LA Games are envisioned to enable
important legislations to solve LA’s housing crisis, to reduce LA’s homelessness, andto build new transport infrastructures supporting an ever-growing population.
At the same time, local planners reiterate that they have learned lessons fromthe 1984 Olympics that will not be repeated for the upcoming Olympics. Planners
pointed in particular to policing tactics like street sweeps to remove the homeless. Bidboosters proactively disarmed this well known, frequently used argument from bid
opposition, e.g., Mayor Eric Garcetti pledged to end veteran homelessness aroundthe same time USOC chose LA as one of the four finalists for the nomination to
become the next US candidate for the 2024 IOC Olympic bid.
Bid boosters essentially gained the right to stage the Games on the premise,
we have done it before, we can do it again. Thus, the remainder of the section
describes Los Angeles’ bidding process and bid content focusing on that premise,and concluding with expectations local planners have for the Olympic bid and theirexperiences in LA because of LA winning the bid. Table 1.1 summarizes the timelineof LA’s bidding process, which is marked by three waves of bidding activity: LA’s
initial bid, LA’s bid for the USOC nomination, and LA’s bid for the IOC nomination.
Over the course of five years (from 17 August 2012–13 September 2017), LA’s
bid brought new ideas to the table, revived long-standing knowledge about Olympic
staging, and displayed superiority as an American bidder through powerful networks.

1.4.3 LA’s Initial Bid for the 2024 Olympic Games (August17, 2012–January 8, 2015)
The Los Angeles Olympic 2028 Olympics originally began with a bid for the 2024
Olympic Games on 17 August 2012. Members of LA’s City Council proposed a
motion to task SCCOG (Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games) to
examine the feasibility for the city to submit an Olympic bid. Among those proposing
the motion were the then-President of the City Council and soon-to-be Mayor Eric
Garcetti and Councilman of the 10th district and soon-to-be LA City Council President Herb J Wesson (LA City Council 2012). By the end of January 2013, SCCOG’s
strategy team had assembled a powerful coalition of Los Angeles business, sport,
and community elites who backed the bid. CEO’s of the entertainment business andprivate corporations (e.g., AEG), political leaders of LA’s Chamber of Commerce,
LA’s Mayor, actors, and Olympians signed a letter to USOC expressing their “deepinterest in bidding for and hosting the 2024 Olympic Games” (SCCOG 2013a). Thisletter arrived at USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs just three weeks before

24

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Table 1.1 Timeline of Los Angeles third Olympics
Initial bid

USOC nomination

IOC candidature

IOC nomination

Date

Event/incident

August 17, 2012

LA City Council tasks SCCOG to assess
feasibility of 2024 Olympic bid

February 19, 2013

USOC invites 35 US cities to bid for 2024
Olympics

July 1, 2013

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti elected

August 13, 2013

LA City Council affirms unanimously to USOC
that LA should be the 2024 Candidate City

January 12, 2014

LA24 submits initial bid to USOC

June 13, 2014

USOC selects LA as one of four finalists tonational nomination for bid

January 8, 2015

USOC nominates Boston as the candidate for the2024 Olympics

July 27, 2015

Boston and USOC jointly withdraw from the 2024
Olympic Games

August 31, 2015

LA24 submits modified initial bid to USOC

September 1, 2015

Los Angeles City Council votes anonymously for
Olympic 2024 bid
Los Angeles 2024 and USOC sign bid city
agreement and hold joint press conference
announcing LA to represent the nation’s bid for the2024 Olympics

September 16, 2015

IOC announces five candidate cities for the 2024
Olympics, incl. Los Angeles

September 16, 2015

IOC announces Candidature process for the 2024
Olympic Games

October 6, 2015

LA24 and LA City sign first memorandum of
understanding (MOU) to bid

February 17, 2016

Stage 1 (vision, concept, strategy) due to IOC

October 7, 2016

Stage 2 (governance, legal issues, venue funding)due to IOC

February 3, 2017

Stage 3 (Games delivery, experience, venue
legacy) due to IOC

March 7, 2017

Mayor Garcetti reelected

July 11, 2017

IOC votes to elect 2024 and 2028 hostsimultaneously

July 31, 2017

Los Angeles announces its intention to be a
candidate for the Olympic Games 2028
LA signs deal with IOC to be the sole bidder for
2028

August 11, 2017

Los Angeles City council approved LA’s 2028 bid
and founds LA28

September 11, 2017

IOC evaluation commission approves LA(continued)

1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

25

Table 1.1 (continued)
Date

Event/incident

September 13, 2017

IOC awards the 2028 Games to LA

October 23, 2017

LA28 and LA City sign second memorandum of
understanding (MOU) to bid

September 13, 2018

LA28 transitions from Bidding to Organizing
Committee of the Olympic Games

July 21, 2028–August 6, 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games

Scott Blackmun, CEO of USOC, would officially invite 35 American cities1 to vie
for the 2024 Olympic bid (USOC 2013a).
USOC’s priorities in narrowing down the US candidate field can be grouped into
three categories (USOC 2013a, b): (1) the city’s financial ability to host the Games,(2) the city’s infrastructure to stage the Games, and (3) the bid leaders’ politicalsavvy to network locally and among USOC and IOC members.
(1) LA’s initial budget for the Games
USOC set several deadlines in the fall 2014 for US candidate cities to submit draft
budgets. In the initial applicant city seminar, USOC provided host cities with estimates from previously successful bids, including London (host of the 2012 Games),
Rio (host of the 2016 Games), Chicago (candidate of the 2016 Games), as well asTokyo, Madrid, and Istanbul (candidates of the 2020 Games). USOC (and the IOC)
distinguish between two types of budgets:• The non-OCOG budget is for financing construction of venues and infrastructure
required for the Olympic Games. USOC estimates the non-Organizing Committee expenses to be US$3–5B depending on existing city and sport infrastructure,including permanent venues, athlete and media village, transport, and security(USOC 2013b). None of these budget items are supported by the IOC or USOC,
as “all major capital investments related to hosting the Games must be covered bya budget outside the operations budget for the Games” (USOC 2013b, p. 9).
• The OCOG budget constitutes the operations budget for the organization of the
Olympic Games. USOC estimates these project expenses of the Organizing Committee to be US$3–4B). USOC historical games-financing data lists projected
ticketing revenues of −$US2–2.25B (USOC 2013b).
USOC’s focus throughout the bidding process was and remained on the OCOG budget, promising IOC contributions of US$800M and TOP sponsorships of US$400M;
notably, US$180M more than what USOC had promised Chicago and US$100M
more than what any other city had received in the past (PRR 2015). In the following months, several visits to applicant cities refined the budget estimates through1 Despite the few American cities that have the capability to bid, 60% of the contacted cities invested

some type of resources or money to inquire about the feasibility of an Olympic bid based on USOC
criteria.

26

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

experienced USOC and IOC consultants like David Beery, Panos Protopsaltis, Chris
Sullivan, and Doug Arnot. At the time, these consultants estimated LA would be
able to raise close to US$1.5B in domestic sponsorships. USOC advised to estimate
ticketing revenues at US$1.12B during fall 2014 (LA24 2014), a notable US$1B
drop-off from the originally listed discussion items (USOC 2013b). Support for LA
came from one of Boston’s most vocal bid opponents, Andrew Zimbalist, who validated LA’s Olympic budget (Marshall 2017; Wharton 2017a): if all goes according
to plan, LA could close the Games with an operating surplus of $400–$500 million.
LA’s initial budget for the Games proposed revenues of US$4.67B, including a
US$153.8M surplus. Revenues came from US$1.487B in domestic sponsorships,
US$1.12B from sports ticketing revenue, US$850M from IOC contributions andbroadcast fees, and US$488M from TOP sponsorships. To note here is that the lattertwo revenue streams had increased nearly US$150M by August 2015, when LA24
had to submit its bid to USOC after Boston withdrew. In contrast, the original bid
book expenses (December 2014) were listed as US$4.5B (LA24 2014). The LA
Exploratory Committee estimated venue costs at US$1.23B in the OCOG budget.
Notably, transportation—an aspect that USOC had honed in on in preparation for the
Games, is not listed as a budget item under key services. Technology is US$412M,
Games services including sport US$326.3M, workforce US$426M, and support services US$702M on city operations. The non-OCOG budget, the only time this budget
would ever appear in official bid books, totalled merely US$1.7B. In later budgets,the exclusion of the non-OCOG budget was justified with the deletion of the new
Olympic Village idea.
(2) LA’s infrastructure to stage the Games
USOC laid out the scope of the Olympic and Paralympic Games through email
conversations and working sessions in LA and Colorado Springs, providing detailed
technical requirements on accommodation and transportation needs, venue sizes,
broadcasting and media centers, and workforce training and qualifications.
The earliest indication of how LA was planning to stage the Olympic Games camefrom Mayor Garcetti in a letter to USOC on 25 July 2014, promising that LA would
deliver “the most successful, sustainable, and technological Olympic and Paralympic
Games in history” (PRR 2015). SCCOG (2019) developed the very first version of
how Los Angeles should plan to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
However, Mayor Garcetti enlisted Casey Wasserman, CEO of a leading sports andentertainment agency, to spearhead the bid and instructed SCCOG to remove its bid
book from its website the very same day (Andranovich 2017). The official initial bid
book proposed five Olympic areas, including all venues, of which 80% would be
new since 1984 (LA24 2014, p. 173): the Downtown Cluster (50% of all venues), theHollywood Cluster (was removed in following bid version due to single venue), theValley Cluster, the Coastal Cluster, and the South Bay Cluster (Map 1.3). Notable are
the extensive transport projects that will span Los Angeles and its adjacent counties
by 2028. Comparing Map 1.3 thus with Map 1.1 (1932 Games) and Map 1.2 (1984Games) visualizes the similar local spread of venues across LA’s famous locations,1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

27

Map 1.3 Main Olympic venues during the 2028 Games. Source Created by T. Decaminada adaptedfrom LA28, NAD 1983 map projection

28

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

but also shows the stark contrast between the limited transport expansions necessary
for the two previous LA Games and LA’s grand opportunity plans for 2028.
In selling LA’s case to USOC, first and foremost stood the athlete experience
with two features. First, “every athlete will have a home field advantage” given LA’s
internationality, diversity, and love for sports. Second, a new, purpose-built Olympic
athletes’ Village on the locally known Union Pacific’s “Piggyback Yard.” Locatedadjacent to the Los Angeles River and close to downtown, the Olympic Village would
be developed on a 125-acre rail yard, cost US$1B (US$925M city cost and US$75M
LA24 cost), and minimize travel times. However, “the development cost, including
acquisition, remediation, and construction, may significantly exceed the projected
US$1B. Relocation and remediation costs alone may account for over 55% of theestimated project costs” and no plans for reuse existed at the time (Santana and Tso
2015, p. 3). Post-Olympics, this site promised to be a major legacy of the Gamesremaining as a residential neighborhood for Angelenos. The Village essentially was
to serve as a catalyst for the “revitalization of Downtown and restoration of the
LA River.” The mayor’s letter further detailed LA24’s plans for the city’s Olympic
legacy by promising to build more parks with playing fields, to develop individual
youth sports, and to promote active lifestyle for adults and seniors to combat obesityand other diseases (PRR 2015). However, the initial bid book withheld any legacy
promises from the public (LA24 2014, p. 28).
As the global leader in storytelling and capturing people’s imagination, LA24
leveraged its media advantage. Mayor Garcetti advertised that his city “can create
the buzz unlike any other place and tell the story of a new Olympics in a new Los
Angeles” (PRR 2015), hinting toward LA’s ability to rebrand the Olympics once
again; for example, beach volleyball at Santa Monica Pier, where the sport wasconceived, biking in front of the Hollywood sign, and marathoning on the Walkof Fame. In the spectacle, a “reimagined” Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum would
host the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the third time through over US$500M
University of Southern California investment in the Coliseum. Also, the bid promised
to turn a 2.4 km stretch of Figueroa Street, from Exposition Park north to Downtown’s
LA Live, into the new “Olympic Way.”
Last but not least, the LA bid sold its newness through the extensive construction
program stating LA was already heavily “investing in the future with the biggest
public works project in the country” (LA24 2014, p. 8). LA24 especially emphasizedinvestments of US$88B over the next 10 years in its transit system, given USOC
emphasized that “Transportation is always one of the most difficult challenges for
the Games” (PRR 2015). Notably though, LA’s initial OCOG budget was completely
silent on the issue of transportation with no budget line item to accommodate Olympic
transport, e.g., athletes and other Olympic transport groups (Kassens-Noor 2012;
Odoni et al. 2009). Instead, the bid detailed the planned expansion of the regional masstransit network through investment in subway, light rail, commuter rail, bus rapidtransit (BRT) and HOV/Express lanes connecting venue clusters, the modernizedLA airport (LAX), Downtown and every corner of the city (LA24 2014, p. 25). Los
Angeles County had long planned to fund these infrastructure improvements throughtemporary and permanent incremental tax increases, locally known as Measure R and1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

29

Measure M. The Olympic Games would catalyze these projects and bring benefits
to the community earlier, the bid boosters argued.
“We have done it before, we can do it again.” The powerful slogan echoes throughout LA28 bid books that promise to revitalize the Olympic brand, to deliver theultimate experience for athletes, to use almost exclusively existing and temporary
stadia, and to tell inspiring stories about the Games to refresh the Olympic brand. The
first bid book essentially sold the LA narrative of diversity and inclusion, newness(highlighting planned construction projects), and historic/famous/iconic moments
LA wanted to share worldwide.
(3) Bid leaders political savvy
USOC’s main interest, so the bid guidelines state, is finding a partner to “enhance theOlympic and Paralympic movement globally and within the USA” (PRR 2015). The
then-new Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti immediately set the tone for a productive
partnership. He took office on 1 July 2013 and wrote the USOC the very sameday (Garcetti 2013). In support for the city’s bid, he confirmed his enthusiastic
interest in bidding for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games that his predecessor
Villaraigosa (2013) had enthusiastically expressed less than a month after receiving
USOC’s invitation letter, stating Los Angeles’ intention to bid with the SCCOG on 4
March 2013. In the following months and years, three essential objectives emerged inLA’s process, bid leaders had to master: (a) ensuring the host city contract would besigned and backed by governmental guarantees, (b) garnering overwhelming public
support, and (c) ensuring the staging of the Games if they were awarded. Thoughthese tasks are not necessarily new, they came at a time when the IOC with Agenda
2020 and the New Norm intended to remedy global perceptions of decision-making
opaqueness and dwindling public interest in hosting the Games. LA’s bid boosters
excelled in these three political challenges.
(a) Securing governmental guarantees to enable the mayor to sign the host city
contract.
In preparation for the first meeting in LA in fall 2013, USOC sent the host city
contracts for 2010 and 2012. In the enclosed letter, USOC emphasized that the mayor
must sign a similar host city contract. A bid made in the USA needs powerful elites
in politics and in business to navigate the political minefield and ensure the financial
viability of the bid. Mayor Eric Garcetti and the executive Casey Wasserman, who
was to become the Chairman of LA24 Exploratory Committee2 and CEO of LA’s
Olympic Organizing Committee co-led LA’s bid. Herb Wesson, the president of Los
Angeles City Council, supported the duo. Notably, all of them held fond memoriesof the previous LA Olympics, while their ancestors had participated in planning,organizing, or staging them. In preparation of USOC’s first visit to Los Angeles,
Herb Wesson lead the City Council in reaffirming the city’s support to USOC’s and
2 The State of California incorporated Los Angeles 2024 Exploratory Committee on 12 August

2014. LA24 was set up as a non-profit public benefit corporation with the purpose to enhance thequality of life of residents of Los Angeles and California through the promotion and sponsorshipof Los Angeles as the site of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

30

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

emphasizing that LA should be chosen as the USA’s candidate city; the vote wasunanimous (15-0) on 13 August 2013 (LA24 2014). Experience for bidding camefrom SCCOG, who had prepared bids over the past two decades (bids for 2012 and2016). Combining political savvy, business pull, and experience, the LA team was
well-equipped to bid.
In the meetings in early 2014, USOC focused on getting to know LA’s bid leaders.
These meetings ensured leaders had an executive presence to communicate with IOC
members, political skills to assemble city assets and galvanize city support, and a“huge commitment of time” to devote to the bid (PRR 2015). To test the viabilityof these skills, bid leaders had to prove they could mount the US$75M for thebid and ensure financial support from state and city if LA was to host the Games.
LA’s bid leaders and those of three other US cities successfully convinced USOC
to narrow the list of US applicants to four (San Francisco, Washington DC, Los
Angeles, and Boston) in early June 2014. USOC convened them on 25 July 2014 for
USOC’s applicant city workshop to detail bid requirements, especially those related
to financing, budgeting, and transportation.
Budgets remained at the forefront and of utter importance for the remainder of
2014. In early August, LA and San Francisco bid leaders strategized on how to best
work with California’s legislature and the governor’s office to secure a financial
guarantee in case either city was chosen to host the Games. They emphasized that
then-California Governor Gray Davis had signed a similar guarantee in 2002 andagain in 2012 (PRR 2015). Early on, California’s Governor Jerry Brown conveyed
his support to Mayor Garcetti and USOC, fondly recalling memories and his efforts
in helping secure LA’s 1984 Olympics. He saw little concern in passing successfully a State financial guarantee to support the 2024 Games given similar ones had
passed in 2002 and 2007 (LA24 2014, p. 158). In the last months of 2014, Governor
Brown officially promised the bid “will have the full support of the entire state.”
Further, elected legislative leaders of the California state senate and the California
state assembly promised LA24 to introduce legislation ensuring the financial andpolitical support and assured to USOC that they were “thrilled at the prospect ofwelcoming the best athletes” (PRR 2015).
In a similar manner, LA24 secured support letters across LA’s metropolitan region
for venues, owned by municipalities and universities in preparation for submission of
its initial bid. Many of these letters had been sent to LA’s bidding committees several
times over the previous two decades. LA24 was asking in a “business as usual” wayto reissue those (PRR, 2015). As the bid neared USOC’s submission due date in
December 2014, LA24 had checked all boxes for a successful political process. The
City Council and Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to support Los Angeles’
Bid. All municipalities and governmental entities had committed their venues for the
Games. California’s legislature was in support of a financial guarantee for the Games(LA24 2014, p. 155). What happened in LA to this point was an institutionalizationof the bidding process that centered around political savvy. “It’s politics, right? And
the mayor is unbelievably talented at it,” says LA24 bid chief Casey Wasserman(quoted in Ford and Drehs 2017).

1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

31(b) Securing governmental guarantees to enable the mayor to sign the host city
contract.
From the very beginning, USOC communicated its modus operandi during the bidding process and instructed that “cities must not comment publicly on the USOC’s
evaluation process and must, instead, direct all questions regarding the process to
the USOC communications division” (USOC 2013b, p. 2). Following suit, the Los
Angeles bid developed in secrecy, budget details and the bid in general are unknown,
and in response to standard public records requests withholding materials from public view is allowable. According to Government Statute Section 6255 (in effect since
January 2001) and the relevant case law, LA’s city government is allowed discretionover “records for which the public interest served by withholding the records clearly
outweighs the public interest served by disclosure and thus may be withheld including draft, notes, and inter/intra agency memoranda.” Numerous calls and emails to
the Mayor’s Office remained unanswered. Even SCCOG has capped its news stream
since 1 September 2015 (SCCOG 2019), deleting comments to previous LA bids,
and disabling the wayback machine for insights into the initial 2024 Olympic bid.
The general argument of boosters to withhold information about the bid is either
that disclosure would jeopardize the chances of a city winning the bid (before thebid argument) or that disclosure would hinder negotiations for land and venues as it
would increase costs for the bidding committee (after the bid). LA24’s opaquenesswas never challenged during its initial bid. The opposition groups were waiting onwhether LA was to win the initial bid, while most Angelenos were unaware LA was
bidding (NOlympics LA 2019) and if they were, they viewed the bid as business as
usual.
(c) Proving the city’s ability to stage the Games if they were awarded by ensuring
public support and disabling any arising resistance against the Olympics.
USOC’s instructions stipulated “strong public support by public opinion poll” wasnecessary to be considered a viable candidate (USOC 2013b). Hart Research Associated showed through a phone poll that Angelenos strongly supported hosting the
Olympic and Paralympic Games (77–83%), an even stronger indication of people
willing to attend the Games (85%), and a solid indication that LA could raise enoughvolunteers to support operations of the Games (LA24 2014, p. 160; Yang and Millman 2014). The director of venues and operations says he believes the LA84 legacy
was essential in securing public support: “Most people in LA have fond memoriesof those Games and it has helped in gaining public support for our bid.”
In December 2014, four cities including Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, andWashington, DC each submitted an initial bid to the USOC. A month later, USOC
chose Boston over Los Angeles as the US candidate for the 2024 Olympic Gameson 8 January 2015. USOC members believed that “the IOC would prefer something
new. LA invoked the feeling of been there, done that,” explained an IOC consultant.

32

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

1.4.4 LA’s USOC Nomination (July 27, 2015–September 15,
2015)
For Los Angeles, Bid 2.0 started well before Boston’s bid failed. One LA24/28 bid
committee member explains, “Casey [Wasserman] and the Mayor got a phone callasking whether LA would still be interested in bidding” when public support for
Boston’s bid plummeted as details about Boston’s bid were released. At the end of
March 2015, the news was spreading to Boston when Boston’s bidding committee
for the Olympic Games heard rumors that LA24 was the runner-up if Boston’s bid
was to fail (Kassens-Noor and Lauermann 2017). The USOC conducted independent
polling in Boston after public support had dropped and spoke with San Francisco and
Los Angeles about the possibility of reviving their bids (Futterman 2015). Zimbalist(cited in Gurley 2015), a long-time critic of Olympic cost overruns, endorsed Los
Angeles over any city in the USA: “If Boston pulls out, the USOC is left empty handed
unless they go to Los Angeles. Frankly, it would have to be Los Angeles, because
Los Angeles is the one that could step in at the last minute.” As LA24 watched
Boston’s bid go up in flames over declining public support, calls for referenda, cost
overruns, and changes in leadership, LA24 and USOC developed a new strategy,
which was assuring to the IOC, that what happened in Boston could never happen
in Los Angeles.
Ensuring the Viability of the Bid
Officially, LA24’s efforts to secure the bid started on 27 July 2015, when Boston
withdrew its candidature for the 2024 Olympics due to local resistance and anti-bid
activist activity, which forced USOC to reconsider the three rejected bids (Axon
2015). In the last week of August, the LA City Council hastily reconfirmed its
commitment to bid and authorized Mayor Garcetti and LA City Council President toapprove a “Joinder Agreement” as a condition of selecting Los Angeles as the bid city
for the 2024 Olympic Games (PRR 2019). This joinder agreement explicitly disabledpublic referenda relating to the Games. On 27 August 2015, the city administrative
officer, Miguel Santana, and the chief legislative analyst, Sharon Tso, raised serious
concerns from which it is evident that no communication had taken place between theCity Council and LA24: “Our Offices cannot verify, validate, or further explain thebudget beyond what is presented in the [initial] LA24 Bid” (Santana and Tso 2015,p. 3). Despite the concerns, only few clauses were added to the joinder agreementthat allowed them to keep informed, but the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
ultimately signed between LA24 and the City Council after the bid’s submission in
October 2015 that promised to keep city officials informed and engage the public was
non-binding (PRR 2019). Notably, in the short time horizon that remained between
Boston’s withdrawal and the IOC’s due date, there was neither time, but more so “nonecessity” from the bid booster perspective, to discuss the bid, which had changed
since the initial bid submission in January 2015.
Between January 2015 and August 2015, the bid budget between LA’s initial bid
and the one LA’s Exploratory committee submitted to USOC as part of LA’s official

1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

33

bid in fall 2015 changed slightly, increasing the estimated revenues to US$4.83B
and the non-OCOG costs to US$4.67B. The surplus expected from the Games wasraised to ~US$161M, an increase of US$7.3M from the initial budget. The revenue
increased by US$157.3M, 97% of which stems from increases of the IOC contribution
and TOP sponsorship now totalling US$1.5B. The costs simultaneously increased
between the initial and submitted bid as an insurance premium of US$150M wasadded (LA24 2014, 2016a).
The bid focused now more on reusability, in which 85% of the venues alreadywere in place or planned anyways in short travel distance from the Olympic Village:
31 venues and locations, organized in five clusters around the region, would be used
for all sporting events. However, the athlete experience firmly stood in the centerof the bid, promising a home atmosphere, excellent competitions environment, andbeautiful scenery in a new LA.
Unanswered calls for transparency, unanswered questions, and unanswered
euphoria for LA’s bid from various council members and the public were the trademark, when LA announced its intention to bid again on the mostly empty steps ofLA’s City hall. In the hastily modified initial bid books, LA24 (2016a, p. 159) showed
LA’s viability of the bid in:• that there was no opposition to the bid locally as “there is no public campaign,
nominal or organized, to oppose Los Angeles’ efforts to Bid for the 2024 Games,”• that if opposition was to arise, it could be extinguished, “as the deadlines for any
opponents of the Games to place an initiative on the ballot for these elections haveelapsed” and, “The City of Los Angeles is not required by law to carry out any
referendum to bid, organize, or host the 2024 Games,”• that LA24 would enjoy continuous support from the Mayor and the City Council
in a stable political climate as, “There is no possibility that any upcoming election
before December 2015 could result in any restrictions on Los Angeles’ ability tobid, organize, or host the Games.”
On 1 September 2015, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously for LA’s
Olympic 2024 bid. At this meeting, the council “debated” the bid for only 20 min. In
practice the democratic and predominantly male council members realized a longstanding dream of SCCOG and LA’s Olympics boosters they had talked about for
years: if there is ever a glitch, LA can host the Games on short notice. Exemplarily,
LA24 and USOC signed the bid agreement only within the hour before the official
press conference in Santa Monica was held announcing LA’s bid. The legacies of LA’s
two previous Summer Games buoyed enthusiasm across LA’s government leaders
to play host once again. Fond of his childhood memories, Mayor Garcetti (cited in
KPCC 2015) announced that “the Olympics is in our DNA. The Olympics loves L.A.
and L.A. loves the Olympics. We hope to return those Games back home.” Casey
Wasserman, echoed that sentiment: “Olympism is deeply rooted in the culture here
and it is part of our DNA” (cited in USOC & LA 2024 2015), stepping into thefootsteps of his grandfather Lew Wasserman, who was one of LA’s power brokers
during the previous Games.

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1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Los Angeles was selected because there was no due process to seek permissions,no public engagement, and effective overriding of city laws, when the public, city
government were asked to comprehend in a manner of five days what LA24 had prepared over years. Olympic-opposed city officials were strong-armed into succumbing
their checks-and-balances on the bidding process. As one planner (#15) comments,“The lack of public input and disregard for public concern has been staggering andsets a truly terrifying tone for the future of Los Angeles.” The next stage of bidding
was to become even more opaque: in the joinder agreement, the City of Los Angeles
signed off on USOC’s demands that no further communication be shared with the
public related to any and all USOC materials (USOC 2015).
Two weeks later, the IOC announced Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Budapest, andHamburg as the five candidate cities for the 2024 Games. The latter three would
withdraw their candidature due to local resistance to the Olympic bids.

1.4.5 LA’s Candidature for the 2024 Olympics (September 16,
2015–September 13, 2017)
The IOC announcement to select LA as one of five candidates for the Olympic
Games, stipulated that LA24 must meet three IOC-imposed deadlines over the next
two years (IOC 2015):• Stage 1 (17 February 2016): LA24 developed the vision, concept, and strategy
for the Olympic Games. Among other requirements, Stage 1 tasked candidate
cities to conduct an opinion poll by an independent marketing company. LA24
hired Loyola Marymount University in January and February 2016 to conduct a
telephone poll of 2,425 Angelenos (1,225 LA and LA County 1,200 residents).
88.3% supported LA hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics (LA24 2016a, p. 14).
• Stage 2 (7 October 2016): LA24 clarified the bids’ governance, legal issues, andvenue funding to the IOC. When LA24 released their bid books to the public, however, they withheld any budgetary information from the bid to “protect LA24 proprietary information.” LA24 instead promised that information from this section
would be part of the Games budget submitted with Candidature File Part 3 inFebruary 2017” (LA24 2016a, p. 15).
• Stage 3 (3 February 2017): LA24 explains plan implementations for staging theGames, the Games experience, promises to leave a positive sustainable legacy(LA24 2017).
Over the course of the LA24 candidature, the bid evolved to align more with Agenda
2020 (IOC 2014) and the IOC’s new candidature procedure (IOC 2015). One LA24
bid committee member explains LA’s IOC pitch: “We were able to show that hosting
the Games did not alter the city’s path to transformation into a modern metropolis thatis focused on sustainability and not necessarily dominated by cars. The strength of ournarrative focused on those three components; nothing new; no homes or businesses
being moved or relocated, and funding already committed to public infrastructure1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

35

improvements.” While LA24 implemented a variety of changes over the course of its
bidding process, many could warrant discussion as they relate to planning legacies
in comparison to the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games. Exemplifying three changes,
it is important to examine implications to LA’s expected Olympic legacies on the
backdrop of the current Olympic climate.
Changes to LA24’s Bid Budget 2017
By the end of 2016 (Taylor 2016; LA24 2016b), LA’s original bid budget was balanced and had increased to US$5.3B. Shortly before submission to the IOC, LA24
added another US$50M for athlete innovation (LA24 2017). Comparing line items of
the budgets between 2015 and 2017 is difficult as the budget’s line items have beenaligned with opaque IOC demands, e.g. “other costs" exceededUS$800M (LA242017). Expected domestic sponsorship (now estimated close to US$1.93B) and ticketing revenue (above US$1.5B)3 have significantly increased while the IOC and TOP
sponsor contributions to revenue have decreased by close to US$400M. The insurance premium has been folded into the contingency line item, which in the summerof 2017 was US$488M. This contingency fund is covered with US$250M from Los
Angeles and Senate Bill 1465 authorizing a state guarantee to cover Games shortfalls
up to US$250M (Taylor 2017).
Changes to Games’ Operations
LA24 proposed a new concept for the Olympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Instead of celebrating in one stadium, keeping the LA32 and LA84 traditionin the heritage Memorial Coliseum, the ceremonies would be staged in two stadia:
the Coliseum and the new Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park in Inglewood,
locally known as the “SoFi Stadium.” The Inglewood City Council approved planning for the site surrounding the NFL SoFi Stadium in 2009, which was to open in2019 (deferred to August 2020 as of September 2019 due to heavy rainfall). The privately financed stadium, owned by the Los Angeles Rams’ owner Stan Kroenke, willremain in LA as the new home for two American football teams—the Los Angeles
Rams and San Diego Chargers (City Council Inglewood 2015). The new stadiumis expected to cost US$4.96B instead of the originally estimated US$2.6B (Brinson 2018), with the capacity to accommodate temporarily 100,000 people insteadof originally planned 80,000 seats (Schrotenboer 2019). Stan Kroenke has soughtsignificant tax breaks from the city of Inglewood to recoup some of his investment.
The SoFi Stadium will host the “new” Opening Ceremony while the LA Memorial
Coliseum will host a Hollywood-produced celebration showcasing the history of the
Olympic Games. The Coliseum and SoFi Stadium will reverse roles during the Closing Ceremony (Taylor 2017). LA24 justified changes to their plans in the Opening
and Closing Ceremonies based upon athlete feedback. However, celebrating in two
stadia makes for great television and additional prime marketing opportunities.

3 Estimates were based on 97% of available seats being sold (KPMG 2016, p. 5).

36

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Changes to Infrastructure
On 25 January 2016, LA24 relocated the Olympic Village (initially planned along the
LA River) to the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Thischange in plans for the Olympic Villages reduced significantly the bid’s financial
risk. Thus, the non-OCOG budget disappeared from the bid books, most notably the$US1B line item for the new Olympic Village along LA’s river (Taylor 2016). The
University of Southern California (USC) residential facilities would host the Media
Village. Both ideas were recycled from the LA 2012 bid in which Olympic Village
sites were proposed as residence halls in local universities.
The Games will further catalyze 9 out of 28 transport infrastructure projects.
Mayor Garcetti titled the Olympic accelerated initiative Twenty-eight by ’28 (Metro2017) while Los Angeles would invest up to US$300B in its transport infrastructure
projects over 30 years as a result of local initiatives, Measure M and Measure R (IOC2017b).
Shortly after LA24 submitted its final bid book, Mayor Garcetti was reelected on
7 March 2017 with 81% of the vote. However, the bid books and Olympic boosters
remained silent on the fact that voter turnout was the second lowest ever in a mayoral
race, at 20%. The strong support for the Mayor was paralleled with Angelenos
support for the Olympic Games, as the director of venue and infrastructure planningelaborates: “With this level of support, I think there was just a sense that you don’t
have to complicate the process.” At the same time, an IOC-appointed evaluationcommission working group evaluated—and the IOC Executive board subsequently
confirmed—that LA could continue its bid, concluding that LA24 and the City of
Los Angeles had “proven their ability to host exceptional Olympic Games.” The
Committee (IOC 2017a) characterized LA’s bid as “forward-looking”, “innovative,
vibrant,” “cool,” “dynamic,” and “futuristic” and lauded LA’s ability with storytelling skills, creative energy, and cutting-edge technologies.
Opposing the LA Olympic Bid
NOlympics LA launched its opposition campaign on 16 May 2017, roughly threemonths after LA had submitted its final bid book. Led by the Democratic Socialistsof America Los Angeles section, which assembled a coalition of 25 community
organizations, NOlympics LA advocated for the betterment of life of all Angelenos
and warned of police brutality, extortion of the poor in favor of benefits to the rich,and the diversion of resources for the Games away from day-to-day operations. The
essence of Olympic opposition is based on an utilitarian argument (the very unevennature of financing the Games) and a human rights argument (the whitewashing of
LA in the name of the Olympics). Planner (#12) echoes the root cause of Olympic
opposition, stating there exists a “High, likely risk of having to ‘bail out’ the IOC
when our city barely has the resources for affordable housing, education, social
services, and additional, much-needed priorities that serve vulnerable Angelenos.”
The grassroots movement started comparatively late in LA’s bidding process andpublished its own poll showing that 13% of LA County residents strongly supported,
24% were neutral, and 45% of LA County residents oppose the city’s Olympic bid

1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

37

after LA had secured the IOC’s nomination as the 2028 Olympic host (NOlympics
LA 2019). Ignoring these damning results, the IOC instead praised the July 2017 pollfrom Loyola Marymount University showing as it did in early 2016 strong support(83.1%) from Angelenos for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles (Guerra et al. 2017).
The strong disparity between the polling results suggests that perhaps additional
polling ought to be conducted.
To fathom why LA’s bid continued despite the political resistance elsewhere may
be explained with the perceived success of the two previous Games, the opaquenessof the bid, and the stop & go bidding process. But, this explanation wouldn’t be comprehensive without mentioning LA’s sociopolitical contexts that effectively disabled
a local public outcry against the Olympic bid. LA has a long history of politicians
who traded political and financial gains over livability. This has resulted in LA being
what it is today: a vast urban region on the brink of disaster (Fulton 2001; Sloane2017). The sprawling megalopolis has created “72 suburbs in search of a city” as
Dorothy Parker described; this LA phenomenon that persists today creates a confusing patchwork of place names in which many Angelenos lack a sense of communityand civic culture (Davis 2006). Thus, LA firmly holds the reputation as a bastion of
voter apathy. Endemic to the city is a disengagement with local affairs, demonstrated
by the residents’ persistently low voter turnout, e.g., Mayor Eric Garcetti won his
reelection with 20%, the former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa with 18% of the votes(Finnegan 2017). Mayor Garcetti, further, had set a very different political tone in
LA’s City Hall that made him popular (he won his election with 81%). His new
open-door policy, the care for the environment, and new tax initiatives to tackle LA’s
biggest problems had Angelenos trust the new Mayor in his decision-making capability. Combined, LA’s sociopolitical environment may have prevented the virulent
Olympic resistance against the bid that was so common in other cities around theglobe.

1.4.6 LA’s IOC Nomination for the 2028 Olympic Games(July 11, 2017–September 13, 2017)
LA’s IOC nomination was to go down in the Olympic history books as the first time
the IOC awarded two Games simultaneously: Paris 2024 and LA 2028. At the endof 2016, IOC president Thomas Bach floated the idea of a dual award, summarizingthat there were “too many losers” in the Olympic bidding process (Wharton 2016).
Over the next several months, the IOC met with both candidate cities to discuss theterms if two cities were to be selected. The IOC Executive Board endorsed a dual bid
award vote of the full IOC membership, which it granted on 11 June after hearing thetwo bid presentations in Lausanne, Switzerland (Ford and Drehs 2017). Six weeks
later (31 July 2017), the IOC announced Los Angeles as the sole candidate for the2028 Games. The dual award avoided the risk of disinterest in the 2028 Games andwas a quick fix for the bad publicity the IOC had endured over the past five years

38

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

during which 15 cities either withdrew from consideration or had referenda in which
the Olympics lost to local concerns (Calgary 2026, Graubunden 2022, Graubunden
2026, Graz 2026, Hamburg 2024, Krakow 2022, Innsbruck 2026, Munich 2022, Sion
2026; local protests but no referendum: Boston 2024, Budapest 2024, Rome 2020,
Rome 2024; withdrawn for other reasons: Oslo 2022, Stockholm 2022). LA 2028
and Paris 2024 were awarded in a manner to “buy time” for the IOC to figure out
how to reinvigorate the bidding process.
The Los Angeles City Council approved LA 2028’s bid unanimously on 11 August
2017 (PRR 2019; Wharton 2017b), despite some vocal protest from NOlympics
LA and citizens. Elitist decision-makers dominated the hastily called hearing toallow residents to speak, in which Councilman Joe Buscaino aired his anger: “I’mtired of hearing these people coming to us and questioning our decision-making.”
The resident called back: “It’s called democracy.” Planners believe LA won thebid because of business and political elites who pursue neoliberal fame and wealth.
For example, planner (#12) said, “The conception of L.A.’s Olympic bid is rooted
in deaf-tone politicians and wealthy stakeholders’ pursuit of having this feather intheir proverbial hat.” Protesters critiqued the opaqueness of the bidding process,inadequate priorities, and financial risks Angelenos would be taking without theirconsent. The hastily drawn-up Memorandum of Understanding between the Triparti(LA, Paris, and the IOC) that was to safeguard LA from cost overruns, specifies thefinancial responsibility (PRR 2019, p. 9):
None of the City, the State of California, the IOC, the International Paralympic Committee,
the USOC or any of their respective representatives, nor any representative of the [OCOG](all of the foregoing, collectively, “Unrelated Parties”) shall incur any financial responsibility
or liability of any kind or nature whatsoever in connection with or arising out of this [Venue
Agreement] or any subsequent agreement between the parties relating to the subject matterhereof.

The wordiness of the legal jargon essentially leaves the option open for LA’s
Organizing Committee (LA28) to bear financial responsibility. However, this entity
will be dissolved right after the Closing Ceremony of the 2028 Games. In signing thehost city contract, the City Council thereby guaranteed, similar to all other Olympic
Cities before, that it would cover any and all cost overruns (IOC 2017b).
In the 11 days between the 2028 candidacy and the IOC’s due date, there wasneither time, but more so no necessity to revise the budget from the bid boosters’
perspective given “the fact that there are no changes to the Games plan presented
for 2024” (IOC 2017b, p. 10; Wharton 2017b). The budget was not updated forthe 2028 bid, but instead LA promised to provide “an updated 2028 Games Budget
and the KPMG report … to the City by the end of the first quarter of 2019 aspart of the OCOG’s annual report covering activities of the OCOG in 2018” (PRR
2019). Despite the fact that the bid incurred four additional years of operationalcosts, the risks of inflation loomed, or any further changes that may be in reports,
the print media reported that the IOC would waive tens of million in fees, provide
a US$180M advance, and surrender its 20% share of any surplus generated by theGames (Wharton 2017c). The LA28 bid was sold publicly as a great deal as the IOC
agreed to increase its contribution to the Games “ to as much as $2 billion” (IOC1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

39

2017c). News coverage frequently refers back to the 1984 Olympic, when Olympic
organizers turned a profit and were able to keep any surplus from the Games (Wharton
2017b). The LA city council endorsed the bid without updated financial numbers(these numbers were based on LA’s 2024 bid), and left many issues unresolved infavor of meeting the 18 August deadline the IOC had set.
One month after the LA City Council meeting, the IOC evaluation commission
judged LA to be a suitable 2028 Olympic host: “the Commission equally concludes
that the many opportunities presented by an Olympic Games 2028 in Los Angeles
would far outweigh any potential risks of awarding the Games 11 years in advanceinstead of 7 years” (IOC 2017b, p. 13). Two days later, the IOC officially confirmed
the selection announcing LA as the 2028 Olympic host (13 September 2017).

1.4.7 LA Perceptions: Results from a 2017 Bid Survey
to Planners in Los Angeles
Polls measuring Angelenos support of a third Olympic Games differed greatly, as
the previous section has shown. To get a sense of whether the city would change
for the better as boosters have reiterated or more toward the worse as opponents
expect, planners in the City of Los Angeles were surveyed at the end of 2017,
the year LA won the bid. The LA Section of the American Planning Association
administered the survey, which contained questions about experiences planners have
had in and with their communities, thoughts they have about the upcoming Olympic
Games, and perceived impacts the Olympic bid had on Angelenos and themselves.
The survey covered several major issues important for planners, such as housing,transport, public space, health, environment, community development, and so forth.
74 planners responded to the survey, but 42 planners provided valid responses as they
filled out the survey completely. NVIVO Plus, a qualitative research software tool,
detected a coding pattern. Every sentence was then verified based upon its code, anemergent coding pattern was developed, and the sentences were manually recoded
if necessary.
Planners’ Positive or Negative Feeling Toward LA2028
Planners perceive the upcoming Olympics more negatively than positively. Out of the
42 planners who relayed their feelings about LA’s 2028 Olympics only seven (#1, 2,
5, 9, 11, 13, 49) expect the Games to have a positive impact. And those who primarily
relayed positive sentiments referred to the positive impacts the 1984 Olympics hadon Los Angeles. For example, one planner (#13) wrote his enthusiasm: “It’s a greatthing! The ’84 Olympics were great for the city: It’s been a long time and looking
forward to another opportunity to be a host city.” This personal statement endorses
Olympic booster’s catalyzing argument in a sense that planners would support the
Olympics if they saw it as a way to use public interest to do things not otherwise
possible.

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1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

In order to test whether the planners’ demographics influence whether they perceive the Games positively or negatively, the Fisher’s exact test was applied. The
Fisher’s exact test can identify relationships for low sample sizes and is similar tothe chi-square test of association. When the Fisher’s exact test showed no significance, the Cramer’s test was used to examine whether the sample size was too small
to provide valid results.
The age group of respondents was the only time the Fisher’s exact test was significant: the older the populations, the more people supported the Olympic Games.
Notably, the fond experiences and memories of the 1984 Games also played a majorrole in Mayor Garcetti’s and Casey Wasserman’s motivation to bring the Games backto Los Angeles. The age group 55–65—those who were young adults during the 1984
Games—were very supportive of the bid. For employment and household income,the Fisher’s exact test showed no relationship, but the Cramer’s test suggested theplanners with more income support the upcoming LA2028 Games more than thosewith lower incomes. Cramer’s test also suggested that if planners have a job, they are
more likely to support the Games. Results did not indicate a relationship of people
supporting or opposing the Games based on gender or race.
Planners Impact Assessment of LA2028 on Los Angeles
Planners’ primary concerns were the exacerbation of inequality among Angelenos(Fig. 1.1). In particular, planners expect violence against minorities to increase andhousing affordability to decrease. As Planner (#68) describes the impact on Los
Angeles, “The 2028 Olympics will be a disaster for LA, exacerbating its alreadyhorrific housing crisis and further empowering the most murderous police departmentin the country under the aegis of national security.” Among increasing rents, theylisted new platforms, such as Airbnb to allow price hikes during the Olympics, andeviction of long-term, low-income tenants.
Many planners further feared the deviation of resources from local priorities infavor of the Olympic agenda. For example, Planner (#19) believes the Games, “willFig. 1.1 Word cloud of planners impressions of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

41

divert resources from all manner of city offices away from where the true crises are:affordable housing, homelessness, police shooting civilians.” These resources, they
believe, will land in the hands of rich investors, while taxpayers bear the risk of
cost overruns. For example, Planner (#71) comments, “it will be a massive giveawayof public money to already rich investors, while offering crappy temp jobs.” And
Planner (#24) adds, “We agreed to cover millions of dollars in cost overages, andthose are highly likely. The trickle-down economic benefits for Angelenos will be of
an extremely limited nature.”
Survey Results
Planners were asked to rate their perceptions of their working environment (usinga scale ranging from very good/good/OK/bad/very bad) during the course of 2017
based on their community, sport, housing, transportation, cultural, and public spaceexperiences. They were subsequently asked whether they believe that impact wasdue to Los Angeles winning the bid for the 2028 Olympic Games. If responses
were not normally distributed or observed responses were not up to five categories,
the Mann-Whitney U test was used to decide whether the difference in responses
between those who responded YES to the evaluation and those who responded NO
was significant. If the test showed statistical significance, the raw data were analyzed
to decide whether the difference was more or less positive. The median of the YES
group was used to determine whether the experiences were better or worse. For the
responses that had up to five categories and were normally distributed, the Levene’s
Test for Equality of Variances was applied to decide whether the variance in the group
who responded YES to the evaluation of their experiences differed significantly than
the group who responded NO to the evaluation of their experiences. Second, theordinary t-test or Welch t-test of the equality of means (depending on the resultof the Levene’s test) was used to decide whether the difference between the twogroups was significant. If the tests showed statistical significance, the raw data werecompared to decide whether the difference was more or less positive. The mean of
the YES group determined whether the experiences were better or worse (Table 1.2).
What remains among planners is the skepticism about what the Olympics would
bring to LA. While they observe the bid’s development, they have “yet to be convincedof any benefits that the Olympics would bring to a city like LA. Out of the statedgoals, only one of them spoke of any real benefit to the city and its residents.” Whencities win bids, news outlets globally broadcast crowds cheering joyfully across thehome nation and especially in the soon-to-be host city; however, if this mini survey
on experts in planning LA is any indication, this enthusiasm might fade over time.
Simply securing the bid immediately launched changes for the future hosting city
LA that are perceived poorly.

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1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Table 1.2 Assessment of the LA28 bid impact on Los Angeles Communities
Category

Subcategory# Yes/No

Test

SignificanceCommunity
experience

Engagement with
community

19/13

T-testNot significant

Participation

21/11

T-testNot significant

Cost of living

23/8

Mann-Whitney U

Not significant

Social networks

10/14

T-testNot significant

Resources
availability

16/10

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Sport facilities

4/14

T-testNot significant

Athlete experience

0/12

N/A

N/A

Interaction sport
communities

2/15

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Cleanliness

6/19

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Availability

13/12

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Cost of living

19/6

Mann-Whitney U

Not significant

Value of property

12/11

T-testSignificant, worse

Availability of
housing options

20/7

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Quality of housing

14/10

T-testSignificant, worse

Cost of rent

22/5

Mann-Whitney U

Not significant

Culturalopportunities

3/21

Mann-Whitney U

Not significant

Museums

3/21

Mann-Whitney U

Not significant

Exhibits

3/20

Mann-Whitney U

Not significant

Tourism
attractions

3/20

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Music concerts

2/19

Mann-Whitney U

Not significant

Art show

3/19

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Access totransport

11/15

T-testNot significant

Ease of getting
around LA

12/15

Mann-Whitney U

Not significant

Generalinfrastructure

9/16

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Sport experience

Public spaceexperience

Housing

Culturalexperiences

Transportation
experiences

Quality of …
infrastructure

Metro

10/17

T-testNot significant

Light rail/tram

5/17

T-testSignificant, worse

Heavy rail

6/16

T-testSignificant, worse

Roads

6/20

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse(continued)

1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

43

Table 1.2 (continued)
Category

Subcategory# Yes/No

Test

Significance

Quality of …
Services

General service

7/19

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Bus

6/17

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Metro

9/18

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Light rail/tram

6/18

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

Heavy rail

4/20

Mann-Whitney U

Significant, worse

1.4.8 LA’s Games Plan as of June 2019
In 2017, one LA24/28 bid committee member had explained in an interview: “overthe next couple of years you will see an evolution and transformation of the bid thatwill make it much stronger.” A budget for the 2028 Olympic bid was to be releasedon 31 March 2019 along with the 2028 Games Foundation Plan. Both were stipulated
in LA28’s Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Los Angeles and with
the International Olympic Committee.
Changes to Operations, Infrastructure, and Legacy
The IOC, however, withdrew the requirement for the 2028 Games Foundation Plan,
as a representative of the IOC explained: “after checking with my colleagues of
the Olympic Games department, please note that the ‘OG Foundation Plan’ does notexist anymore” (29 April 2019). Instead of a several-hundred page Games Foundation
plan—as had been customary for previous Games—the City of Los Angeles received
LA28’s annual report for 2019, which is little over three pages in length (excluding
appendices). This annual report explains that LA28 completed its transition froma Bidding to an Organizing Committee in 2018, highlights the OCOG’s US$9M
operating budget based on the IOC’s quarterly payments, and the development ofa youth sports program (PRR 2019). Casey Wasserman, chair of LA28’s board of
directors, argues there is no need for an updated Games concept, as it has remained
the same since the 2024 bid submission (Wharton 2019).
The legacy for Angelenos remains in the making, as it has yet to be developed.
LA28’s Olympic channels describe Los Angeles as a “blank canvas,” ignoring its richand complicated history. In the KPMG (2019) report, consultants trained in financial
auditing advise: “Hosting the Games has provided the City with an opportunity todevelop its vision to complement the broader public policy objectives that the City
has established and capture the benefits it would like to realize for its residents. The
vision could leverage how the City wishes to align and promote the City’s Olympicrelated activities with broader public policy goals such as tourism and economic
development, and realize benefits through legacy related initiatives. KPMG recommends the City, in concert with LA28, fully develop its vision for hosting of the 2028
Games to allow for appropriate resource planning. This will help ensure the City’svision is complementary to that of LA28 and the visions of the City and LA28 are
mutually supportive” (KPMG 2019, p. 13). KPMG’s advice is to pursue an LA vision

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1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

that is “complementary” to the Games and to orchestrate that vision with a private
bidding corporation post-bid, all of which many urban mega-event scholars havecautioned against (Kassens-Noor 2012; Müller 2015). Further, KPMG’s suggestions
to pursue tourism goals and economic development, also are two Olympic myths
scholars have proven to have little to no long-term effect on host cities (Zimbalist
2015). As of 2019, the LA Olympics are an elite-driven Games that will reshape thecity through strong neoliberal forces over the next nine years.
LA28’s Final Budget as of April 2019
KPMG (2019) validated LA28’s balanced US$6.9B real (2028) dollar budget, which
stipulates a perceived increase of US$1.6B even though most of the changes (86%)
in the budget are due to inflation adjustment and the budget’s representation in 2028
(instead of 2016) US$. KPMG judged the 2028 Games budget to be “reasonable”
and “complete” (KPMG 2019, p. 3) while the Games’ venue plan has not changed.
The net-expenses increase of US$219M includes the costs of the youth sports andsustainability programs, as well as secondary ceremonies. A major change KPMG
further noted was the increase in costs for people management due to the four yearsof additional bidding, which stemmed from the award for the 2028 instead of the2024 Olympics.
The net-revenues increased by US$455M due to ticketing and hospitality, whichis estimated at US$2B (KPMG 2019); the revenue increase stems from operational
concept novelties, such as the dual opening and closing ceremonies in the LA Memorial Coliseum and the new SoFi Stadium. LA28 also is counting on a 25% increase indomestic sponsorship and donations due to a 2-year additional marketing program.
LA28’s 2019 annual report demonstrates the outsourcing of bidding and planningfor the Games from the local to the global. For example, much of the budget is spenton international elite consulting companies, such as Teneo: a top executive strategy
advisory firm; John Tibbs Associates: an international relations and communicationsin sport consultancy; Laundry Service: a digital and social media consultancy; 72nd
and Sunny: a global marketing, advertising, and design company, and AECOM,an engineering and infrastructure firm. Notably, AECOM was paid US$2M in 2018
for the development of the Games master plan, the legacy strategy as well as technicalappraisals and inventory projects (PRR 2019). Even though the latter two companies
are LA-based, they all constitute global company giants.
As demanded by the IOC, the budget has focused on LA28’s operating expenses;
however, many questions on city expenses that are not included in the OCOG budget
remain, such as expenses incurred due to accelerated infrastructure investments, andoperational and security provisions necessary to run the Games, e.g., equipment andmaintenance costs. To summarize the preceding narrative, between 2014 and 2019,the bid books have changed. Table 1.1 highlights these key changes that will have an
impact on LA’s legacies. Specifically, the dual ceremony and the Twenty-eight by 28
initiative will have a fundamental impact on the Olympics and on LA. The fact that
there still is no official statement on legacies indicates the uncertainty over legacy
outcomes.

1.4 The Los Angeles Olympics 2028

45

Table 1.3 summarizes how the LA bid for the 2028 Olympic changed over its bid
history. Notably, the budget has increased, no legacies have been defined, Olympic
specific investments have been minimized, major transportation initiatives have beentied to the Olympics, and a dual Olympic opening ceremony has been introduced.
There are still eight more years left during which changes to the bid will shape LA’s
legacy after the Summer Olympic Games (Games of the XXXIV Olympiad) to beheld from 21 July to 6 August 2028.

1.5 Discussion on Planning and Legacies of LA’s 2028
Olympics
Goal: discussion on implications of the LA planning and staging the 2028 Olympics.
LA28’s premise “we have done it before, we can do it again” has been a powerfulslogan to secure the bid, but may create challenging legacies for Angelenos. The
first part briefly compares the 1932, 1984, and 2028 Olympic Games to provide an
overview of the previous three sections and background for the following discussion
on planning and legacies of LA’s 2028 Olympics. Then, four reasons are discussed
that allowed LA28 to win the bidding process of the 2028 Games in the current
anti-bid Olympic climate: history has value, LA’s bidding process is institutionalized, global elites lead bidding, and LA28 learned from recent bid failures. Finally,
the discussion concludes by addressing why Los Angeles might face challenging
legacies. It outlines LA28’s legacy promises that the two former organizing committees had realized: transformation of the Olympic and Los Angeles brand, creation of
unparalleled athlete experiences, and minimization of urban changes.

1.5.1 Comparing the Three Los Angeles Olympics
For every Olympic bid Los Angeles has ever won, the city was the sole bidder for theSummer Games that Olympiad. Each time LA won, the bid boosters wielded powerover the decision-making process. In 1923, Los Angeles was an unknown remote cityin the eyes of the IOC. Local elites without a legitimate political stance secured theGames on the premise they would put LA on the world’s map, increase tourism, andestablish the city as the headquarters of American sports (Riess 1981). In 1978, Los
Angeles was the only city that dared propose to host the Olympic Games after thefinancial disaster of the Montreal Games that left US$1.6B debt to local taxpayers. In
2017, the IOC’s desperate need to find bidders awarded simultaneously two cities theright to host the Games as bidding cities dropped their bids due to local oppositionand declining public opinion. Table 1.4 provides an overview of the similarities anddifferences between the three LA Olympics.

46

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Table 1.3 Exemplary differences between Los Angeles’ bids for 2024/2028 Olympics
Initial bid (2015)

IOC nomination(2017)

Awarded bid (asof Oct 2019)

Budget

US$4.52B (December2014), US$4.67B(August 2015)

No total budget given(Stage 2) US$5.3B(December 2016)
US$5.325B (2017,
Stage 3)

US$6.9B (2028dollars)

LegacyWithheld

LA: alignment toexisting plans
long-term economic,
social, environmental,
and sporting benefits
Olympic movement:
new imagery

No official
statement on legacy
released

Goals/Promises• Reinvent theexperience for the
Olympic family• Create the mostsuccessful, modern,and sustainablegames• Deliver the ultimate
experience forathletes• Refresh theOlympic brand• Use almost
exclusively existing
and temporary
stadia• Tell inspiring
stories about thegames

Host a new Games
for a new era that
benefit ourcommunities andconnect the
Olympic andParalympic
movements to a
new eraVenues31

31

Id% existing venues

85%

97%

Id

% newly built

15%

3%

Id

Clusters

Downtown; Valley;
Coastal; South Bay;
Hollywood

Downtown; Valley;
Coastal; South Bay

Id

Opening Closing
Ceremonies

Coliseum (US$500M
renovation)

Two stadia: SoFi
Stadium & Coliseum(US$270M
renovation)

Id

Media Village &Main Press Center

New studio and officefacilities on NBC
Universal’s Studio
Lot

Id

Id

Transport investments

US$88.4B intransport
infrastructure

US$300B in transport
infrastructure,
Twenty-eight by 28
initiative

Id

Olympic village

Newly built(downtown)

UCLA campus,
existing dormitories

Id

Note Comparisons according to bid books and updates to LA28 website and LA28 annual report(2019)

1.25 million spectators

ViewershipMedia village

N/A

Baldwin Hills (new/temp)

Attract athletes to LA

Athlete experience

Olympic village (athlete housing)

California

Financial liability

SCCOG

Not existent

Host City contract

minimalCalifornia voters approved $US1M
bond

Public referendum

Urban changes~$US1.5 M

Legacies~US1M

Profit14 sports, 15 venues

Games budget

117 events, ~1300 athletes

Scope and scale of the games

LA on the World map, Olympics as
movie set

21 sports, 28 venues (8 notmodernized)

30 July–14 AugustGames schedule

Shaping LA & Olympic brand

221 events, ~6,800 athletes

9 years

Bid planningUCLA

3 villages (UCLA, UCSD, USC)

minimalLA84

7 million tickets soldTelevision urbanism

USOC

Not signed

Voters prohibited any capital
expenditures for Games (1978)~$US232.5 M~US$400 M

Commercialization, Games as abusiness

28 July–12 August

6 years

Only bid city

Only bid city

Competition

1984
1948, 1952 and 1956 (IOC), 1960,
1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980
(USOC)

1924, 1928

Bids prior to winning

1932

Table 1.4 Overview of Los Angeles planning approaches and legacies

USC

UCLA

New public transit system

TBD

3.6 billion globally(continued)

Ultimate athlete experience

LA28

Signedpublic opinion polls; Opaqueness: noreferendum, no votes,$US500M expected

US$6.9B (2019)

Sustainable LA, Refresh Olympic
brand

28 sports, 31 venues

302 events, ~10,500 athletes

21 July–6 August

11 years

Only bid city

2012, 2016, 2024

2028

1.5 Discussion on Planning and Legacies of LA’s 2028 Olympics
47

Sources See previous sections

Cars/shuttles

Transport infrastructure needed

1932

Swimming pool, rowing facility,
cycling track

New stadia

Table 1.4 (continued)

Bus stations/busses

Olympic swim stadium (USC),
Olympic velodrome (CSUDH)

1984

US$300B public transit (alreadyplanned)Temporary

2028

48
1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies1.5 Discussion on Planning and Legacies of LA’s 2028 Olympics

49

1.5.2 Why LA is Hosting the 2028 Olympic Games
Four reasons allowed Los Angeles to win its third Olympic bid.
History matters: The “we have done it before, we can do it again” Premise.
Los Angeles’ history with the Olympics was a quintessential factor in securing theGames for Los Angeles a third time. The premise “we have done it before, we
can do it again” enabled bid boosters to convince the IOC that LA was capable ofrejuvenating the Olympic brand once again. One LA24/28 bid committee member
explains, “L.A. was very successful in 1984 and the IOC remembers that fondly.”
Both in 1932 and 1984, Los Angeles saved the Olympics when the city, who had
dared to bid for the Games at a time when no one else would, set unprecedented
benchmarks in rejuvenating the Olympic brand as a profitable enterprise, as thepremier global event, and as a desirable local endeavor.
LA2028’s slogan “we have done it before we can do it again” effectively disabled
local skepticism over the Olympic Games that had effectively ended 13 Olympic bidsof other aspiring host cities over the past five years. Los Angeles was able to sell the
Olympic idea to locals, because cost overruns, the most frequent counter-Olympic
argument, had never happened in LA. LA’s opposition further was effectively disabled
due to the stop & go for bidding (when LA emerged as the nominee after Boston’s
bid failure) and awarding of the Games (when the IOC awarded the 24/28 Games
simultaneously). Endorsement for LA’s bid from Boston’s vivid anti-bid activists
sealed the deal. The chances for any referenda were further disabled as bid boosters
used the Mayor’s popularity to overrule any IOC concerns over the Games andcounted on LA’s infamous reputation of political apathy. Thus, boosters did not
engage in the battle for public opinion that had made other bid cities fail (Hiller andWanner 2019).
Los Angeles’ Institutionalization of the Bidding Process
Los Angeles was able to develop its bid and pass legislation with an unprecedented
speed because bidding in LA has been institutionalized. Even though Mayor Garcetti
and sports and marketing executive Casey Wasserman ran the bidding effort, SCCOG
holds and has held experience in how to develop a bid for decades. Thus, asking for
financial proof, political support, and venue commitments is an institutionalized process enabled through extensive global and local networks, existing Olympic knowledge, business-as-usual attitude, and common practice over the years. While all otherUS cities assemble the required documents from scratch, in LA these documents arereadily available and, ensuring they get signed on time, just a phone call away. Bidding reflected boosters’ ability to ask officials with the phrase: they have done itpreviously, can you just do it again; thus, securing financial guarantees in vastlydifferent financial times presented minor hurdles in LA’s most recent bid. Similarly,
securing council votes on a whim without proper review of changed circumstances,e.g., four-year extension, was possible as city leaders felt they had done it before andwere successful in doing so.

50

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

Global Elites Bid
Los Angeles has become a platform for global elites to bid and organize the Olympic
Games. International private-sector tycoons lead the bidding committee in supportof LA winning the Games. For example, Bill Hanway, Executive Vice President &Global Sports Leader at AECOM, served as the Director of Venues and Infrastructureduring the bid. Global elites also lead the planning of the Games. For example, Gene
Sykes, who was the Global Co-head of Mergers and Acquisitions and Chairmanof Global Technology, Media & Telecommunications and Investment Banking forGoldman Sachs, serves as LA24/LA28 CEO since 2017. Similarly, Carla Callans,
who worked for AEG for over a decade, is now Director of Operations at LA 2028.
The trend of global elites to dictate the Olympic Games arguably started with theIOC’s establishment of its TOP sponsorship program in 1985. These global elites
boast extensive experience and involvement in previous Games such as Lenny Abbey,
the current director of LA 2028, who had worked in Rio and London.
Global elites sell well-known Olympic practices to locals as unique. For example,
the head of metro proudly said a novelty of the Games would be that Olympic
spectators would use only public transport to attend the Games, when in fact, thishas been an implemented practice since the Sydney 2000 Games. Global elites also
used their expertise to blindside local decision-makers. For example, LA28—theonly possible organization that could become liable for cost overruns as per the
MOU (PRR 2017)—will simply cease to exist the moment the Games end.
In contrast, the previous Los Angeles Games were firmly in the hands of local
elites. Los Angeles 1932 was financed and driven by the 8-man Community Development Association that wielded tremendous power through their wealth and had
control over the Olympic narrative through their newspaper ownership (Riess 1981).
The 1984 Games became known as the model for boosters to pursue a pro-growth,
consumption-based local agenda (Burbank et al. 2001).
Learning from Bid Failure in Current Global Political Climate of Bidding
Los Angeles had the distinct advantage of being able to learn from Boston 2024s bid
failure. As anti-Olympic movements challenged Boston’s Olympic bid, three main
reasons why locals opposed the bid emerged: opaqueness in decision-making process,no specific local legacies, and budgets likely to lead to cost overruns. Boston shifted
its planning approach to involve stakeholders, identify specific legacies, and provide
accurate cost details as a response to opposition (Kassens-Noor and Lauermann2017). While many scholars (Hiller 2020; Müller 2015) have argued that transparency
is key in democratic countries to allow for bidding, LA and USOC approachedbidding in the opposite manner. Boston’s lead USOC consultant worked with LA’s
bidding committee, even before Boston’s bid failed. What LA’s bid boosters saw wasa Boston bid that locals were able to destroy once bid details became transparent.
LA28 approached bidding with secrecy: the bid remained an elite-driven process; thebid did not make any claims about legacies by withholding that section from public
view; LA24/28 waited to release budgets as long as possible; and the IOC canceledthe 2028 Games Foundation plan (original release date on 31 March 2019). Concerns

1.5 Discussion on Planning and Legacies of LA’s 2028 Olympics

51

are fended off with LA32 & LA84 arguments, “we have done it before, we can do it
again.” Bid boosters emphasized the city’s experience in bidding, LA politicians who
had high approval ratings, the LA84 Foundation as proof of a viable, living legacy,
and two previous Games that had turned a surplus. Responding to inquiries into theGames’ plans, LA28 insisted that the Games’ concept has not changed despite themost recent (2019) budget increase of ~US$500M.

1.5.3 Why LA Might Face Problematic Legacies
While the previous section provided arguments that enabled Los Angeles to win thebid, the following section questions the premise “we have done it before we can doit again” in the context of legacies given the changes in the Olympic hosting context.
The idea that the Olympic Games are a vehicle to drive existing strategies and catalyze
local priorities seems appealing, yet might come with hidden and unanticipated costs
to Angelenos and future hosts.
Shaping the Olympic & LA Brand
The IOC is hoping that the LA Games will reignite Olympic passion and stimulate
more bids for the Olympic Games in the future; however, this expected legacy may
be problematic, because LA did not improve the bidding process that had madebids in democratic countries fail (Kassens-Noor and Lauermann 2018; Lauermann
and Vogelpohl 2017; Oliver and Lauermann 2017). Instead, LA’s 2028 stop & goprocess made bidding extremely opaque, while future bidders have yet to learn andunderstand how to engage meaningfully with the public to propose bids that carrydemocratic legitimacy. Los Angeles is essentially the right place to bid and has won
bids at the right time in its history to emerge as the savior of the Olympic brand.
Los Angeles has the infrastructure, the expertise, huge private-sector resources, andproof of viable legacies. Very few—if any—cities in the world can claim to have thesame. While LA has saved the Olympic brand in the past, this time it may save theInternational Olympic Committee by allowing it years of breathing room to rethinkits strategy and expectations for the Olympic Games.
Create Athlete Experience
The long Olympic bidding period allowed LA to develop novel plans, which thecompetitive Olympic award process encourages (McBride 2016). Arguing for an
improved athlete experience between the initial bid and the submitted bid books,
LA28 proposed two (instead of one) venues to host the Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies. This change requires two venues with 80,000+ seating capacities,
according to IOC requirements. While the Coliseum has no chance of turning into awhite elephant as it has been consistently used since 1923, the new SoFi Stadium thatis now planned as the second venue to host both ceremonies has all the makings of ahumungous white elephant. Legacy-wise, the new SoFi Stadium already is slated tobe the most expensive stadium in US history. In moving the Olympic timeline from

52

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

2024 to 2028, technology installed today likely will have to be upgraded. The stadium’s size and its rapid cost-escalation have the makings of white elephant legacies.
Even though two NFL-teams have claimed the arena as their new home, the risk of
the Rams relocating persists, “LA didn’t seem to care that much when it didn’t havean NFL team for 21 years before the Rams returned in 2016” (Schrotenboer 2019).
The Olympic stadium has in many host cities turned into a white elephant after the
Games were over, most notably the Bird’s Nest of Beijing. The idea to link the new
privately owned SoFi Stadium to the Olympics is opposite from what the 1932 and1984 venues did: these were purpose built or updated for local colleges. In contrast,
the SoFi Stadium is supposed to be an economic stimulator for the city of Inglewood;
however, many times in Olympic history this strategy failed. For example, Atlanta
lost its main tenant of its Centennial Olympic Stadium to the suburbs when the city
would not provide the upgrades the baseball team demanded. Further, adding thestadium to LA28’s operational plans constitutes the danger of an operational legacy
that future Olympic bidders may attempt to repeat.
Technology will remain LA’s Olympic wild card, as the technology budget may not
suffice to cover technology costs. Innovations will be a driving factor as LA’s Metro’s
director explains: “Now that we have this extra time, there may be all these other
innovations that are going to happen that we need to be accountable for.” Tokyo’s
Olympic technology will be the most innovative in Olympic history (Kassens-Noorand Fukushige 2018). Providing similar operating conditions for the technology will
be very cost intensive for LA given the necessary infrastructure to accommodate
arising technological inventions like autonomous cars.
Implement Urban Changes (Stadia/Transport)
With the use of existing and temporary venues, LA28’s main argument centered on
not leaving any white elephants. While concerns linger over the SoFi Stadium, LA’s
plan to link the Olympics with an accelerated transportation construction program
through the Twenty-eight by 28 initiative causes risks. LA32 and LA84 worked offof a bare-bones plan with existing infrastructure (highways) and solved the Olympic
transport challenge with sophisticated transport management (Giuliano 1988), requiring little to no capital expenditure on infrastructure projects. In contrast, LA28’s bid
boasts the US$300B LA initiative to build its new public transportation system. The
mega-project transport literature has extensively warned of cost overruns, especiallythose accelerated through mega-events as the pressure to finish on time comes atthe expense of costs and sometimes even safety (Dimitriou et al. 2013; KassensNoor et al. 2018; McBride 2016). Thus, LA might burn through its tax dollars raised
through Measure M and R faster than anticipated. The exclusion of the non-OGOC
budget will prevent tracking these hidden expenses.
Implementing urban changes with the allocated budget carries a continued riskof additional inflation. This adds to the complication that the long lag time between
bidding and hosting the Games can inflate local costs (McBride 2016).

1.6 Conclusion

53

1.6 Conclusion
Goal: planning recommendations to remedy potentially negative legacies.
Los Angeles is a unique Olympic city. The 1932 Olympics introduced Los Angeles
and the Games to worldwide audiences. The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games
stands as the most profitable in history when LA revitalized the flagging Olympic
Movement to keep the Olympics relevant in the twenty-first century. Perhaps for thesereasons, the 1984 Games were arguably the most important event in the history of themodern Olympic Movement (Llewellyn et al. 2015). LA28 attempts to repeat its 1932
and 1984 history through the commercialization of the Games, introducing novel
concepts to increase revenue from global broadcasts and marketing in an attempt tocover the ever-increasing expenses.
In doing so, however, Los Angeles is slated to go into the neoliberal “state of
exception” to enable Olympic preparations and staging (Gaffney 2010; Müller 2015).
As currently planned, the 2028 Olympic will whitewash Los Angeles over the next
eight years. This neoliberal Olympic concept is problematic, as anti-Olympic opposition has arisen exactly because of the nature of funding and unequal distributionof Olympic benefits. As such, the Los Angeles Games will not change the current
bidding climate as the challenge does not lie in convincing political elites to globalize (as was the case in 1932) or pursue the Games for profit (as was the case in1984), but in convincing the local populations to support Olympic bids on the meritsof their legacies. Thus, LA may not be capable of serving as an example for future
Olympics that other cities can emulate, but rather as one that drew from its unique
circumstances.
Only if and when the Olympic Games create desirable, long-lasting Games’ legacies for Angelenos, can the Olympic brand be saved. Thus, LA’s mantra “we havedone it before, we can do it again” was ideal for make-believe bidding, but will beinsufficient to secure a lasting positive legacy either for LA or for the IOC. The current model of bidding and staging is built upon an utopian vision, which proposesthat physical changes to the Olympics will lead to social change. This 18/19th century
way of utopian thinking is well known in the urban planning profession to miserably
fail.
To change the current path of LA28 Olympic legacy planning, LA’s governmentand LA28 must prove to the world that the Games can alleviate or even remedy acity’s greatest struggles. Both should provide funds now and continuously over the
next eight years—similar to those set aside for youth sports—to create legacies forthe most vulnerable Angelenos. Funds should be dedicated to support the homeless,ease the housing crisis, and ensure just and fair policing. The Olympics thus far havenever been (and could not be) a silver bullet to remedy local concerns. Yet, they mustto survive the anti-Olympic climate. If LA finds a way to use the Olympics to solve
its urban social problems, it will not only save the Olympic brand, but also become arole model for other cities to use similar strategies. With the impending climate crisis
that triggers mass migration and unprecedented poverty, cities must find solutions

54

1 The Los Angeles Olympic Games: Planning Legacies

to take care of its most vulnerable residents. Why not make the Olympics a tool and
LA a poster child for solving urban crises?
LA’s city government, LA28, and the IOC in unison can make the Games solve
urban social problems if basic assumptions and rules get overturned, e.g., money
should not be spent exclusively on sports, but in the spirit of the Olympic movement
reaching beyond sports to enable its broader mission of placing “sports at the serviceof humankind.” This spirit has to become the pretext for any and all Olympic-related
decisions. For example, instead of arguing for more hotels to solve the looming
shortage for Olympic visitors, the Olympic spirit argument is to find all Angelenosa permanent place to live before the Olympics. The Olympics have been a game forthe rich and powerful. They still are but need to transform to survive by setting a
precedent for the redistribution of wealth with new political and personal morals that
improve local liveability instead of global fame.
The legacy of LA28 will be that the Olympics fundamentally altered the narrativeof the city of reinvention, Los Angeles. The how can still be changed.

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