Susan Shelley: Could Los Angeles back out of the 2028 Games?

Did you know that Denver backed out of hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics?

In 1970, the International Olympic Committee chose Denver as the host city for the 1976 Games, but as it became clear that the price tag would be far higher than taxpayers were told, public support collapsed. In November 1972, voters in Colorado approved Amendment 8, the "Colorado Winter Olympic Games Funding and Tax Amendment." It prohibited the state from imposing taxes, appropriating money or loaning funds to pay for the 1976 Winter Olympic Games, which were then relocated to Innsbruck, Austria.

Could L.A. back out of the 2028 Games?

The city would probably be sued for a monstrous amount of money.

The thing is, though, the city is on the hook for a monstrous amount of money from hosting the Games. City officials may be angry enough to do something about it.

On Tuesday, the CEO of LA28, the Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, was grilled like a rack of ribs by the City Council's ad hoc Committee on the Olympics and Paralympics. The council members were furious over the high ticket prices and the high ticket surcharge of 24%, demanding to know how much of that surcharge went back to LA28. Katy Yaroslavsky recalled that the council was told to scrap its idea for a $1 ticket tax because it would make tickets less unaffordable. "I feel like we were misled," she complained.

The bigger financial problem is the lack of an agreement for LA28 to reimburse the city for enhanced resources, the extra costs for police, sanitation and any other city expenses due to the Games, beyond "normal and customary" services. The Host City agreement signed by outgoing Mayor Eric Garcetti deferred such unpleasant details to be negotiated later. The deadline for the Enhanced City Resources Master Agreement was last October. Negotiations are still ongoing, and they're not going well.

In late February, LA28 sent over its latest draft agreement, and in late March, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto sent a report to the City Council to warn that LA28 was planning to put surplus money into a "Legacy Fund" ahead of reimbursing Los Angeles for its extra expenses. Feldstein Soto recommended changes to the draft agreement to make it consistent with the "core tenet" that the Games be "at no cost to taxpayers," what she called the "zero-cost principle."

But there is no such agreement yet.

At Tuesday's committee meeting, Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez told LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover, "The city of L.A. is the financial backstop to everything that you are doing, and I don't think that has resonated or permeated to you or to this whole board that I just frankly don't trust." Soto-Martinez noted the presence of "a lot of MAGA Republicans" on the LA28 board.

Making the Council members even angrier is the plan developed by LA28 to fulfill its promise to award 75% of Games-related contracts to local businesses, with 25% to small businesses. As a cost-savings measure, LA28 defined "local" to include the five-county Southern California region, allowing businesses that don't have to pay L.A.'s taxes to underbid businesses that do.

That may have done it.

On Tuesday, Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez introduced a motion to consider an amendment to the City Charter that would add a "Zero-Cost Principle" covering the Olympics, "ensuring the City is fully reimbursed for all costs associated with hosting the Games." She said "enforceable safeguards" are needed to ensure that the city is "fully reimbursed for every enhanced resource cost before any surplus funds are declared and used elsewhere, including the establishment of a Legacy Fund."

A charter amendment, once drafted and approved by the Council, would have to go on the ballot for voter approval. Would it be enforceable on the LA28 organization? Maybe not, but the real threat is the bad publicity. The Olympics would be dragged through a campaign exposing that Los Angeles taxpayers are being "asked to subsidize the Games," in Rodriguez's words.

That's bad for the Olympics brand, it's bad for sponsorship tie-ins, and it's a warning to all the cities on earth that hosting the Olympics is a shortcut to bankruptcy.

It might work.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 11:33 AM.