Casey Wasserman said he's been struck by the passion that has been shown toward the Olympicsgetty images
LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman sat down with The Ringer's Bill Simmons for a wide-ranging interview that covered everything from his duties preparing for the 2028 L.A. Games to the futures of college football and the world of media. Wasserman said he's been particularly struck by the passion for the Olympics, noting that everyone is "willing to spend and support big sporting events and big global events." Wasserman: "We have more revenue today contracted than Paris will generate in total, and we're four years from the Games." Wasserman went on to say that there is "good and bad" about not receiving public funding. Wasserman: "The good is we get to do things in a rational, business driven, economically minded way. The challenge, which is the part that keeps me up at night, is ... a level of complexity and scale that is unimaginable." LA28 will have "the biggest sport program ever" and Wasserman noted "we have more tickets to sell than ever." Wasserman went on to say that one of the biggest differences between 2028 and 1984 -- when L.A. last hosted the Games -- is that there are so many different venues to work with in the city now. Wasserman: "We have all these things that didn't exist, so the scale of our venues and the infrastructure here is stunningly different than '84." He said the plan is for SoFi Stadium to serve as the venue for the Opening Ceremonies, and they are also "planning on moving an event there." He added basketball is "likely to be at Intuit Dome."
Other topics Wasserman touched on included:
- On what his team can learn from this year's Paris Games: "They're doing things differently. The city is different. It's a government entity that delivers the Games. But there's a lot to learn operationally. There's a lot to learn when you think about security, taking care of fans, how do you manage transportation, how do you manage athletes and making them feel at home. So it's a lot of learning because it's our only chance to see it at scale."
- On the future of college football: "I really think we're at the fork in the road. First of all, let's not be shy. The Big Ten and the SEC look a whole lot like the AFC and the NFC. And that's not an accident. And the fork of the road is does college football become its own entity and keep all the money? Or does college football monetize its rights differently and use the massive increase in revenue that that would generate to fix the system? The truth is it's not just the arms race on NIL. ... It's facilities. It's salaries of coaches. It's assistant coaches. It's infrastructure. It's travel. It's the expenses around the teams are stunningly different than they used to be with no controls and no system of managing those things."
- On the future of sports media rights: "All of these entities are now going direct-to-consumer and sports is a really valuable piece of the puzzle because it's the one thing that you can directly connect with consumers and you can give them what you know they want. And so the question is, does it ever come to a place where the NFL can monetize its rights better or a league can monetize its rights better by not selling its rights and monetizing its rights for its own account? ... At some point in the next five years, someone's going to decide there's a part of our business that we can monetize directly and it's more valuable than selling it to someone else" ("The Bill Simmons Podcast," The Ringer, 3/6).
