Olympic ticket sales soar for LA28, leaving some fans priced out

LOS ANGELES – Early ticket sales for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are surging, but prices exceeding US$1,000 (S$1,274) for top events are testing how much fans are willing to pay.

First-week sales have outpaced those of every previous edition, organisers say, with hundreds of thousands of Southern Californians securing seats during a local-priority round.

On April 9, sales opened to the first wave of global buyers through a random draw, with the purchase window running until April 19.

The rush has bolstered the widely followed sporting extravaganza even as it has exposed a growing frustration – events that fans most want to see are expensive and the affordable seats are going quickly.

Artraneen Gardner signed up in January for Southern California’s early-access round after seeing tickets advertised starting at US$28. The mental health therapist in Long Beach, California, had her sights set on the opening ceremony, track and field, swimming and gymnastics.

She went on the website at the first possible moment on April 6, but tickets to events she wanted were priced at more than US$1,000. The cheapest seat she found was for a preliminary-round basketball game for about US$300.

“It was just too expensive,” Gardner said. “I’m not going broke to try to see the Olympics.”

About 14 million tickets will be sold for the Olympics and Paralympics in the Los Angeles area, with a handful of events taking place in Oklahoma City. More than 1 million are priced at US$28, roughly half cost less than US$200 and about 5 per cent of seats to marquee events exceed US$1,000.

“We’re thrilled by the level of interest and enthusiasm in tickets to the Games and we’re ready to welcome millions of others to Los Angeles in 2028,” LA28 chief executive officer Reynold Hoover said in a statement. 

Ticket sales are central to the financing of the Games. With a budget of about US$7.1 billion, organisers are counting on roughly US$2.5 billion from ticketing and hospitality.

Fans who register are assigned specific purchase windows and inventory can shift quickly as high-demand events sell out. Organisers have said more lower-priced tickets will be released in future phases, with sales continuing into 2027, along with the launch of a resale platform.

Unhappy fans have posted complaints on social networks, voicing disappointment about high prices crushing the elation of qualifying for early ticket access.

For Molly Kaufman, an aerospace engineer living in Los Angeles, the timing of her assigned window mattered. By the time she logged on, the affordable options were mostly limited to early-round or lesser-known events, including about US$70 for a preliminary-round handball match, she said.

“I don’t think I could justify this much money for an event I don’t even want to see,” she said.

BLOOMBERG