Southern California and Oklahoma City locals got their first crack at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games presale on Thursday, which has begun to reveal some details of the event.
Facility Layout
The meet will be held in SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams of the NFL. The stadium will be converted to a pool after it hosts the Opening Ceremonies, which is why swimming is bumped to the second week from its traditional first week placement.
The facility appears that it will have a similar setup to the one that Lucas Oil Stadium had for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials. The pool will be set up at one end of the football field, with a curtain or wall blocking off the other end (which will likely hold the warmup pool).
While the seating chart is not specific enough to get an accurate count for estimated seating capacity, the picture appears to show about 30-40% of the 70,000 seat stadium being used. That would put capacity at 21,000-28,000 fans. The largest crowd for the Olympic Trials in 2024 was 20,689, which is a modern record.
There is likely room for expansion if demand becomes overwhelming, either by moving the curtain further around the bowl or by building a larger grandstand between the curtain and the pool.
Seating Chart:
Screenshot courtesy Rob Craven
While Americans are used to selecting their exact seat, the Olympics are using a different system where you buy tickets in a certain category and then are assigned seats closer to the event. This allows the organization more flexibility to tessellate groups around to fill all seats.
This also means that people, for example, in Group A are paying a lot of money for a potentially very different viewing experience, depending on where their seat winds up.
Ticket Prices
Tickets for medal rounds, aka finals sessions, range from $186.05 to $1,860.45 per session. Prelims tickets range from $93.02 to $806.20 per session.
LA28 organizers are boasting similarly low prices for the 2028 Games, with ‘at least one million tickets’ being sold for $28 (similar to Paris’ pledge for 1 million tickets at €24). There are $28 tickets for swimming, listed as Category H, but they are not currently available for purchase.
All of this together imputes the potential for more than $150 million in revenue from swimming ticket sales at the Games.
Other Sports:
Other sports have a lot more variability depending on which finals and how many finals are on a given day.
- Synchro finals at an outdoor arena in Long Beach range from $28 (currently unavailable) to $328.68 for prelims, and $104.19 to $626.35 for finals.
- Diving finals at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center range from $28 to $498.44 for prelims, $64.33 to $554.26 for semifinals, and $106.50 to $684.46 in finals (currently only Category A tickets are available).
- Open water races at Belmont Shore in Long Beach range from standing room only at $28 to standard grandstand seating for $124.03. Tickets are not available for sale at this time.
- Water polo at the Long Beach Aquatics Center prices range from $28 to $248.06 for preliminary rounds (per session, with multiple sessions per day). For quarterfinals, prices range from $43.41 to $266.66. Semifinals run $49.61 to $310.08. The bronze medal matches cost $55.81 to $334.88. The gold medal matches cost $74.42 to $477.52.
I was able to get two tickets for women’s final diving- group C for about $700. I wish I would have bought 4 tickets, but I was trying to buy artistic swimming tickets also. I was told that as new ticket drops occur (one at the end of 2026), more tickets will open per event. However, expect the prices to be a little higher the closer we get to the actual summer games. Good luck, everyone!
I was excited because I received my ticket drop for today – April 10, which is one of the earliest drops. Why can’t I purchase Water Polo tickets now? It is a huge venue. . .when will other standard tickets become available? And how will I be notified to participate in future drops?
My timeslot just opened and there are no finals tickets available at all :/ and all the prelims tickets are 800+ only.
The $800 seats are only for people in wheelchairs. Cheapest regular seats are $1,100+.
we got a spot in “local” CA lottery but all finals tix are showing soldout as of 1pm PST today, at all price levels. only $500 tix for a few prelims session available
We’ve reached out to ask if these sessions are truly sold out of if they’re holding back tickets for the general public.
I don’t think they’re sold out only for that phase.
• Phased Releases (“Drops”): There are multiple ticket drops over time. If a sport sells out in the first drop, more tickets may become available in later drops.
any word?
They responded but wouldn’t share any info about how many tickets they’re releasing and when. But it also doesn’t look like they’ve opened up any new tickets for the first wave of ‘public’ purchasers. Maybe there will be for the second?
We’ve got staff members in each wave of tickets so we’ll keep reporting back on what we see.
Seriously can someone at swimswam interview Janet Evans and ask her wtf? I bought 2 tix for one morning session for $275 each. I am planning to buy some online the week of the event if they go cheap enough. I was hoping to buy some beach volleyball and womens volleyball but passed due to high prices.
I would love to see this be the largest attended swim meet on record!
I can’t imagine a scenario where it isn’t.
how much will the swimmers get paid? i’ll wait…
Checks out, glad they are making swimming affordable