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≡ LA28’s BIGGEST HEADACHE ≡
Following the close of the 1932 Olympic Games on 14 August, where the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was the scene of the opening and closing ceremonies, track & field and other events, the defending national champion University of Southern California “Trojans” opened their football season before 35,000 fans with a 35-0 shutout of Utah on 24 September.
After the 1984 Olympic Games closed in the Coliseum on 12 August, the Trojans won their season opener before 45,067 with a 42-7 win over Utah State on 8 September, just three weeks later.
That’s not likely to happen in 2028. In fact, it is unlikely that USC will play football at all in the Coliseum – its home since it opened in October 1923 – in 2028.
The reason is the temporary track that must be installed for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Here’s the set-up:
● The Coliseum sat 75,144 when it opened in 1923, and was enlarged to hold the 101,022 attending the 1932 Olympic opening ceremony, and then 92,655 for the opening of the 1984 Games.
● The seating bowl was continuously modified with multiple renovations, including in 1993 when the 1984 Olympic track was removed to install 14 rows of seats – about 8,000 – closer to the football field.
● From late 2017 to mid-2019, the University of Southern California, which operates the facility now, invested $315 million to remake the seating and install a Rose Bowl-like pavilion on the south side; those improvements reduced the seating capacity to 77,500 today.
There is simply not enough room on the field to accommodate a world-class running track in 2028:
● American football playing field dimensions are 120 yards long by 53 yards wide, plus sideline spaces for the teams.
● A World Athletics-regulation track of eight lanes is much bigger at 194 by 102 yards, plus at least a small space around the ends and more width on the straightaways. If a preferred ninth lane is added, it’s even bigger.
So, to create an Olympic-regulation track – again – in the Coliseum, a new track will have to be installed, “undoing” the 1993 field-lowering by installing stilts to hold a temporary floor at the level where the track was in 1984.
This was done for the first time for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, where Hampden Park – normally home to Queens’s Park FC – was converted into a track & field stadium, as shown in this amazing 90-second video:
How long did this take? Here’s the timeline:
● 03 Dec. 2013: Field removal begins
● 25 Mar. 2014: Mondo S.p.A. access to field surface
● 15 May 2014: Track installation completed
● 04 Jun. 2014: Track unveiled to public
● 27 Jul. 2014: Commonwealth Games track & field (to 3 August)
● 28 Nov. 2014: 50% of track placed at Grangemouth Stadium and Crownpoint
● 03 Jan. 2015: 1st Queen’s Park FC home match in return, vs. Clyde FC
The project included installation of 1,000 panels (total of 18,000 sq m) on 6,000 stilts to raise the floor by 1.9 m (6 feet, 3 inches, removing eight seating rows). The seating capacity was reduced from 52,000 to 44,000 and the project cost – then – £27 million ($36.4 million U.S. in 2014 dollars). The track was removed and re-installed at Grangemouth Stadium and Crownpoint for training purposes.
From the start of the field removal to the unveiling of the track took six months. If the Coliseum can be done that fast, work would start at the beginning of December and would be completed by the end of May. LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman said the project could cost as much as $100 million to complete.
The ceremonial opening of the 2028 Olympic Games will take place in part in the Coliseum on 14 July, so it is possible that the U.S. Olympic Trials could be squeezed into the Coliseum in June. This was done at Hampden Park with a Diamond League meet on 11-12 July 2014, with the Commonwealth Games track events starting on 27 July (the opening ceremony was elsewhere).
It’s worth noting that the NCAA Division I Championships for 2028 have already been scheduled for Eugene, Oregon from 7-10 June. So perhaps a shortened U.S. Trials in the Coliseum from 17 to 25 June? It’s hard to imagine the LA28 organizers allowing anyone into the Coliseum after that.
Interestingly, the 1984 Olympic Trials in the Coliseum were held from 16-24 June, but the Olympic Games didn’t open for another month, on 28 July. It’s a tight timetable.
Because of all of the seats lost to the track, the Coliseum will downsize for the Games; LA28 has listed 68,000 as its projected capacity of the Coliseum for now on documentation seen by The Sports Examiner.
Let’s get back to the Trojans.
USC’s final home football game in 2027 will be at the end of November, and then the digging will start. It has its 2028 home opener already on the books for 9 September against Fresno State, just 13 days after the close of the Paralympic Games on 27 August!
Considering it took 13 months for Queens F.C. to play their first match on the restored field, there is – barring an engineering miracle – no chance that USC will play any of its 2028 home schedule in the Coliseum.
USC has options, of course. It could work with arch-rival UCLA and the City of Pasadena to book some games at the famed Rose Bowl, which will be the site of football during the 2028 Games. More likely will be a deal with SoFi Stadium, which is already host to the Rams and Chargers.
Asked for comment, USC Senior Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communication and Brand Advancement Cody Worsham said in a statement, “USC and LA28 are working in lockstep on all logistics for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We will share details with the public when they are finalized.”
Rest assured, the rental agreement between USC and LA28 is taking the displacement of the football team into account.
In a Games that will not see any new, permanent venues built for the event, the Coliseum project and its return to pre-Games status will be – along with the L.A. Convention Center expansion – the construction tightrope stories of 2028.
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