Los Angeles 2024 has what you might call a good problem: More venues than it needs to host the Olympics, and that’s not even counting the world’s most expensive stadium development.
The relocating St. Louis Rams’ planned $2.66 billion NFL stadium project slated for Inglewood seems an ideal addition to a possible Olympic portfolio because of its opulence, size, private financing and scheduled completion in 2019. But, as it stands today, the Inglewood stadium wouldn’t fill any obvious holes in the L.A. plan, and shifting some major sports or events there could carry downsides.
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The old Hollywood Park racetrack looms in the background of the Inglewood stadium site.
Photo by: AP IMAGES
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“Suffice to say that the most expensive and most technologically advanced stadium ever built will certainly be a key part of our plans going forward, and I would stay tuned for that,” said LA 2024 co-Chair Casey Wasserman last month, though he wouldn’t elaborate.
The leading hope at the moment, sources say, would be to use the Rams’ stadium to host the elaborate opening and closing ceremonies. Its proposed transparent canopy would ensure against weather disruptions, and its state-of-the-art technology would be useful for made-for-TV events such as the two ceremonies. Its planned special event capacity of more than 100,000 and proposed extensive adjacent development helps, too.
But since the Inglewood stadium will not include a running track, that would lead to an unorthodox situation by traditional Olympic standards. This year, Rio will become the first Summer Games since 1912 to hold either ceremony somewhere other than the track and field venue. (LA 2024 is budgeting for the installation of a track at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the ceremonies are currently slated, in addition to a renovation planned by the University of Southern California.) Despite the long tradition, no formal Olympic rule encourages co-locating the ceremonies with the track and field, or athletics, venue.
Games could force
LAFC to relocate
MLS expansion club LAFC fully supports the Los Angeles 2024 Olympic bid even if the Games could force the team to relocate for much of the year, co-owner and President Tom Penn said.
If Los Angeles wins the Olympics, the bid group wants to host swimming and diving in a temporary pool facility at the new LAFC stadium at Exposition Park. Construction would start nine to 10 months before the July start of the Games, preliminary documents say, with test events four months prior.
“We’re not to that point,” Penn said when asked about the timeline. “I can’t answer that, because I have no idea what the technology will be in 2024. But I think given enough time and ingenuity, there might be a way to make it much less disruptive than what you just described.”
— Ben Fischer
“We remain open and flexible to hearing what candidate cities propose for their Olympic plans,” an International Olympic Committee representative said.
But moving the ceremonies to Inglewood would undermine some of LA 2024’s vision for a relatively compact “cluster” of Olympic activity based around downtown Los Angeles and Exposition Park. Current plans call for the ceremonies, much of the Games’ nonathlete lodging, major sponsor activations and three major sports — basketball, track and field, and swimming/diving — to be fewer than 3 miles apart, creating a high-energy, spiritual center of the Games.
Inglewood is roughly 10 miles from downtown.
Soccer is another possibility for Inglewood. The Rose Bowl is slated to host the final of that competition, but the sites for preliminary contests were not identified in the first tranche of formal bid documents that were submitted to the International Olympic Committee on Feb. 17. However, most host countries distribute those events around the country in hopes of spreading Olympic interest and viewing opportunities.
Medal-round basketball games could be expected to draw crowds large enough for the Inglewood stadium, but preliminaries — especially those not involving the United States — would struggle to come close to filling the seats. Basketball is now slated for the Staples Center. In 1996, the Georgia Dome hosted the basketball final in half of the 71,000-seat stadium.
Another high-profile sport, gymnastics, is probably secure at the Forum, where it can have exclusive run of the facility. Gymnastics is contested every day of the Games, making it difficult to share a venue.
In any case, the IOC vote is still more than 18 months away, and insiders say serious discussions about the Inglewood stadium’s role are still to come. The Rams and many other venue owners say they’re committed to working with the bid committee. “We look forward to working with the Los Angeles 2024 bid on a transformative bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” a Rams spokesman said.
