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Los Angeles will make Olympic history in 2028 by staging the opening ceremony of the Summer Games across two venues: the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. LA28 organizers confirmed the unprecedented dual-venue format on Thursday, making Los Angeles the first city to open an Olympics at two stadiums simultaneously.
The 14 July ceremony will also mark a milestone for the Coliseum, which organizers say will become the first venue to host Olympic events at three separate Games, following 1932 and 1984. SoFi Stadium, the $5bn home of the NFL’s Rams and Chargers which opened in 2020, will make its Olympic debut.
The Olympic closing ceremony will be held on 30 July at the Coliseum, the longtime home of the University of Southern California football team. The Paralympic Games will open at SoFi Stadium on 15 August and close at the Coliseum on 27 August, the final event of LA’s first time hosting the Paralympics.
“The venues selected for the 2028 opening and closing ceremonies will highlight Los Angeles’s rich sporting history and cutting-edge future, showcasing the very best that LA has to offer on the world stage,” LA28 chair Casey Wasserman said in a statement. “These two extraordinary venues will create an unforgettable experience, welcoming fans from across the globe to an Olympic and Paralympic Games like never before and concluding what will go down as one of the most incredible Games in history.”
City officials praised the announcement. “The Coliseum has long stood as a beacon of sports history,” Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass said. “To welcome the world to it once again is a tribute to our city’s lasting place on the global sporting stage.”
Stan Kroenke, the sports team owner whose portfolio includes Arsenal and the Los Angeles Rams, said the SoFi Stadium was built to host events of this magnitude. “The LA28 Games fulfill that dream in the most powerful way possible,” he said.
The LA28 programme includes 351 medal events – 22 more than Paris 2024 – and several additions, including flag football, cricket and squash. New mixed-gender events in gymnastics, athletics and table tennis are also on the slate.
Last month LA28 unveiled additional venue plans for the Games, including Dodger Stadium for baseball, Trestles Beach in San Clemente for surfing, beach volleyball in Long Beach and squash on the Universal Studios lot as it makes its Olympic debut.
While Paris 2024 drew praise for its opening ceremony along the River Seine, LA28 is expected to embrace Hollywood-style storytelling and local culture across its ceremonies. Full details are still under development, although an open call from LA28 in Feburary inviting live production companies to express interest in producing the ceremonies indicates that the selection process for the creative leadership is underway.
“We’re not just hosting another Olympics. We’re making history, again,” said Carol Folt, president of the University of Southern California, which oversees the Coliseum.
The Games will run from 14 to 30 July, followed by the Paralympics from 15 to 27 August. The full list of medal events can be seen here.
