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≡ LA28 AND TICKETS ≡
While the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic organizers explained the release of the detailed schedule of events in a Tuesday briefing, Chief of Sport and Games Delivery Shana Ferguson also spoke about tickets and an accelerated LA28 offering.
Registration to buy will be coming in January 2026 with sales as early as April 2026, more than a year ahead of the usual time frames. As to prices, she explained in some detail:
● “Ticket prices are certainly a topic of concern and consideration for any Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee. Look, we’ve done years of studies here, we’ve got a really great team who have studied not only, basically, what the market will bear but what these tickets are really worth.
“We have about 14 million tickets to sell across these 51 sports across these 49 venues and have priced the tickets accordingly, utilizing data from past Olympic and Paralympic Games, and certainly other events in the region, to understand really where we should be priced.
“We’re about the fact that tickets will go on sale for this Olympic and Paralympic Games much earlier than it has for any others in the past. Just a note, you can start signing up in January – January 2026 – which is much earlier than usual and we’re excited to see how these tickets do sell.”
● “The pricing is set. We’re not doing dynamic pricing. We will have, certainly, more details in the coming weeks and months, because, again, we are going on sale earlier than ever before.
“We understand the concerns that folks will have about secondary ticket markets and ticket pricing and we will address all of those concerns when we do roll out our more-finalized ticket plan.
“We recognize that folks are nervous about ticket prices and that’s always the case when it’s a big sporting event, certainly, and we’ll have more details in the coming weeks and months, for sure.”
One of the problems for ticket buyers prior to the Games is that the athletes and teams who will compete are not known. And in the team sports, the assignment of which teams will play each other at the Games and what times those games will be played won’t be known until – in many cases – just 4-6 weeks prior to the 14 July 2028. Ferguson acknowledged that no “accelerated” draws are anticipated, certainly not in 2026:
“We are really just bullish on getting these tickets out to the public and on sale earlier than has ever been done before, but with that, you know, you run a little bit of a risk of folks knowing or don’t necessarily know who’s going to be playing a particular sport in a particular session on a particular day.”
LA28 chief executive Reynold Hoover told a Los Angeles City Council committee last month:
“We’re proud to announce that single tickets will start at only $28 and we’ll have early-access tickets for locals, who live around the Games venues, as well as L.A. City residents.”
FIFA has drawn significant scrutiny from its dynamic pricing effort for the 2026 World Cup, varying ticket prices in response to sales volume. Olympic and Paralympic tickets have always been sold at a specific price in prior Games.
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Observed: The early sale of tickets by LA28 offers multiple advantages, made significantly possible by the use of existing venues; Ferguson said 77% of all sessions will take place in currently-operating sites.
Early sales bring in needed cash, which can be conservatively invested for positive return, given continuing high interest rates. Moreover, by selling tickets do early, LA28 can identify:
● Events which are unexpectedly popular, leading to internal efforts to create more ticket availability;
● Those sports which will need more promotional efforts;
● Help to refine a more detailed support-services plan for transportation, access control, concessions, restrooms and cleaning, based on real-time monitoring of public sales by site and session.
All of this is possible thanks to no long-term construction projects for the Games – except for the City of Los Angeles’s effort with the Los Angeles Convention Center – and with just 23% of all sessions to be held at temporary sites.
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