1932. 1984. 2028.
These are the years that Los Angeles hosted – or will host – the Summer Olympic Games.
Love it, hate it or still deciding, there’s no denying that the Olympics is a part of L.A.’s history and DNA.
Now, as some look ahead to the next four years and L.A.’s plans for hosting the Olympics a third time, it’s also worth taking a look back at the city’s storied relationship with the Games – and some of the lasting impacts that came from hosting the world’s biggest sporting event.
Take the 1932 Games. Back then, Los Angeles was still “a small town trying to grow up” and, with the exception of perhaps college football, few considered places west of St. Louis as athletic powerhouses, said Daniel Durbin, director of the Institute of Sports, Media and Society at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Then came the ‘32 Olympics. That helped place L.A. on the global sports stage, Durbin said.
Christina Rice, senior librarian of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection, agrees.
“People were aware of L.A. but I’m not sure that we were considered a world-class city at that time and I think (the ‘32 Olympics) played a huge role in helping us establish ourselves as a world-class city,” Rice said.
The ‘32 Games also gave L.A. its “Olympic Boulevard” when city officials decided to rename 10th Street. That Games also gave birth to the modern-day Olympic Village for athletes, Rice said.
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Fast forward 52 years. By the time the ‘84 Games rolled around, L.A. had established itself as a major city. Still, hosting the Olympics a second time gave the City of Angels another chance to market itself.
“Los Angeles was certainly a global city by 1984, so it didn’t need the Olympics. But it helped promote the city,” Durbin said.
Unlike other Olympic games where the host city loses money, many speak of the ‘84 Olympics as a financial success story.
Zev Yaroslavsky was a member of the L.A. City Council during those Games. In the years leading up to the Olympics, he and others pushed for a city charter amendment to prohibit the city from spending taxpayers’ money to host the ‘84 Games. L.A. voters approved that proposal in 1978.
That mandate from Los Angeles voters led to the first privately financed Olympic Games.
Peter Ueberroth, head of the ‘84 L.A. Olympic Organizing Committee, came up with a new financial model that netted the committee a profit of upwards of $232 million – some estimated it to be as high as about $250 million.
“It was a huge success financially,” said Yaroslavsky, who now serves as director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.
Using part of that surplus, civic leaders created the LA84 Foundation, an organization whose mission is to promote youth sports.
It aims to remove barriers and give all children, regardless of their background, income level or ability, the opportunity to participate in sports. Over the past four decades, the foundation has handed out 3,065 grants, trained more than 198,000 coaches and served more than 3.9 million children, according to its website.
Now celebrating four decades of promoting youth sports and development, many consider the LA84 Foundation one of the lasting legacies of the ‘84 Games.
For Yaroslavsky, the LA84 Foundation wasn’t the only lasting impact of those Summer Games. He credits the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival — a 10-week event that preceded the games and drew 1.25 million visitors to L.A. — for helping elevate the city’s reputation as a cultural hub.
“L.A., which was already a cultural mecca, really went to a new level,” he said.
For example, when world-renowned Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo came to L.A. in 1984, he realized there was an opportunity to start an opera company here, said Yaroslavsky. LA Opera opened two years later.
In the years since, L.A. has continued to be a dominant force in the arts and culture scene.
“I think the arts was a bigger legacy of the Olympic Games than the games were,” Yaroslavsky said.
While some look back on the ‘84 Olympics with fondness, not everyone embraced the idea of L.A. playing host.
Some San Fernando Valley residents staunchly opposed any Olympic events at the Sepulveda Basin, citing concerns about increased traffic, construction — and potential damage to the 2,000-acre flood-control channel, recreational area, and wildlife reserve that make up the vast Sepulveda Basin. The basin’s recreation zone, which includes a riparian habitat, is known for kayaking, bird-watching and fishing.
The Valley’s opposition was so strong that the decision was made to not use any venues in the Valley for the ‘84 Games – although skateboarding, BMX cycling and archery competitions are expected to be held there in 2028.
Some residents continue to express hesitation about hosting Olympic competitions in the Valley in 2028. And there are those who oppose L.A. hosting the Olympics at all.
At least two grassroots groups, NOlympics LA and the L.A. chapter of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) are concerned that the 2028 Games could result in the forced roundup of homeless people as the city tries to clean up its streets, knowing that L.A. will be under a global microscope.
They’ve also cited concerns about traffic and a possible explosion of short-term rentals in low-income neighborhoods in Central L.A., South L.A., Exposition Park and the Westlake District if landlords squeeze families out of housing in order to rent their homes for pricey amounts during the Games.
“The city of Los Angeles is poised to throw a big global party, and we want to make sure that it includes and uplifts the community,” Estuardo Mazariegos, ACCE L.A. co-director, said in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Daily News.
“We face displacement as a result of the Olympics,” Mazariegos said. “We don’t want our community to be uprooted.”
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who has traveled to Paris multiple times this year to learn more about how officials and organizers of the Paris Games prepared for their Olympics, has said that one of her key takeaways has been the importance of celebrating the Games throughout the whole city of L.A. in a way that benefits all Angelenos.
After Sunday’s closing ceremony at the Paris Games, where the official Olympic flag was handed over to Bass as mayor of the next city to host the Summer Games, she said in a statement that it’s time “to host the most impactful Olympic and Paralympic Games yet that focus on helping local small businesses, creating local jobs and creating lasting environmental and transportation improvements throughout Los Angeles that generate tangible benefits to Angelenos for generations to come.”
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