Looks Like LA Will Host the Olympics in 2028

As long as it doesn't get swallowed up by the ocean, reduced to rubble by an earthquake, baked into a lifeless desert, or blown to smithereens by North Korea, it looks like Los Angeles will host the summer Olympics in 2028.

LA city officials reportedly struck a deal with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host the games in 2028, according to the Los Angeles Times. The city had been jockeying with Paris for the 2024 games when—in a rare move earlier this month—the IOC announced it would tap the winning bids for both 2024 and 2028 in September.

Paris doggedly wanted 2024—in part so that the Olympics would fall on the 100-year anniversary of its last Summer Games, held in 1924—and LA had voiced its willingness to hold off until the tail end of the decade, the New York Times reports. When the IOC sweetened the deal for LA with promises of major financial incentives, the city pulled the trigger on 2028.

"LA 2024 and the Olympic Organizing Committee have worked out a deal for Los Angeles to host the 2028 Olympic Games," Caolinn Mejza, a spokeswoman for LA City Council president Herb Wesson, told CNN Money. "The LA City Council will hold an ad-hoc meeting on Friday to discuss accepting the deal."

Despite the many financial problems the Olympic Games have been known to cause in various host cities, LA's bid committee estimates it will be able to foot the estimated $5.3 billion cost for 2028 through ticket sales and sponsorships alone, the LA Times reports. The IOC has already pledged about $1.8 billion to LA's committee, and the city plans on hosting events in stadiums that already exist and housing fans in dorms at USC and UCLA. With the obvious payout of bringing tens of thousands of tourists to your city, and it's not hard to see why city officials were happy to settle with 2028.

"I can look people in the eye and say this is a much stronger deal financially," LA mayor Eric Garcetti, who campaigned for the Olympics, told the LA Times.

Although both cities aren't officially hosting quite yet, the IOC announced Monday that it anticipates formally handing Paris and LA the hosting rights at its next meeting, slated for September in Lima, Peru. As long as local and state officials agree to green-light the Games by the time that meeting rolls around, which Garcetti told the LA Times won't be a problem, LA is set to host its third Olympic Games—should global warming not get to it first.

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