Swimming tickets for prelims at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics still remain, although with a high sticker price of $1,116.27. Tickets for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games became available last week for locals in LA and Oklahoma City and opened on Thursday, April 9th for the general public.
Finals tickets sold out for swimming with the local drop on Monday, April 6th and prelims tickets became sparse. Only higher priced “categories” were available shortly after the start of the local sale.
Non-local fans who received a ticket time in drop 1 can still purchase prelims swimming tickets with tickets starting at $1,116.27 meaning only category A is available. That is the highest tier pricing and sits fans on the side of the pool in the lower section of SoFi Stadium. The lowest tier ‘H’ originally had swimming prelims tickets available for $49.61, with those tickets being in the upper level and at the start and turn ends.
Diving tickets became unavailable towards the end of the local drop and remain unavailable while water polo tickets are available for purchase still, with prices beginning at $248.06. Closing ceremony tickets are also available starting at $4,961.20.
Although official ticket resale is set to open in 2027, there has been no formal announcement regarding potential price controls, leaving uncertainty around affordability.
Credit: Isabella Van Ess
Credit: Isabella Van Ess
Credit: Isabella Van Ess
$1,116 for prelims?? At that price I better be swimming in a heat too.
I just checked the price of a seat on my couch in front of a large big screen during the same time period…. very reasonable!
Have they announced the cost for the streaming of the games? If you want access to 100% of the coverage I bet its gonna be something outrageous like $400-500.
i’m thinking all evening sessions are free on NBC?
so that’s all semis and finals!
Morning finals in LA 🙁
Olympic semis and finals are evening session
6pm LA time
Almost nobody on here has admitted to buying tickets. Its got to all be brokers and speculators. I really hope the prices crash the week of the games.
Maybe, but it’s also possible that swimming fans with the money to afford tickets don’t spend their time commenting on SwimSwam. Probably a combination of both.
Have to remember that the Olympics draws a world wide audience. Given swimming’s moderate popularity I could see millionaires coming internationally for the games as a whole, and just picking up a couple finals sessions when like McIntosh or Marchand are swimming.
I was lucky and got in on the second day of sales and purchased 12 tickets for $1200. Mostly all cheap seats though. And there were no tickets available then for open water.
I found this online. There ARE swimming finals tickets available if you go the Hospitality route. But it is expensive!
https://hospitality.la28.org/en/products?events=SWM&dates=&groupSize=2
Who will all this excess revenue benefit? It’s not a wonder that the Olympic audience is shrinking.
💯It’s a travesty. Talk about catering to elites. Doesn’t do much to counter one of the major (and warranted) criticisms of the swimming community and the lack of access to it either.
No one, family excluded, will pay that much to watch swimming. The self importance in that pricing is absolutely stupid.
I got a time slot yesterday and only prelims category A were available (I didn’t buy, crazy expensive). I assume that they only released a limited number of tickets on this drop, because I doubt that they already sold 500k tickets at those prices. There were still $2000 tickets for the USA Paraguay game on the same stadium for this summer’s World Cup a few days ago, so I can’t imagine that the demand for swimming is that much higher.
Is this what they mean by swimflation?