The Brief

The Olympics ticket pre-sale for locals wraps up Wednesday, but some in Southern California left the first ticket drop empty-handed after seeing the high prices.

Fans — or potential ones — reported sticker shock, big purchases and broken hearts after logging on to secure a spot at the 2028 Games and finding prices as high as $5,500, and a 24% service fee. Tickets for $28 for many events sold out fast, as did many many for under $100.

Sarah Maizes of Miracle Mile got a slot to buy tickets and wanted to get seats at artistic gymnastics for her daughter, who's a huge fan. But after she saw the limited options and the high prices, she didn't end up buying any.

"I understand tickets to events are expensive. I have paid for Taylor Swift tickets," Maizes said. "Here's the problem. The campaign made you feel like you had a shot at an insider deal because we are hosting the Olympics and this is our town…and I'm looking at tickets online for $400 a person, $600 a person, $2,100."

The high prices reflect a stark uptick in sports tickets across the board in recent years, amid hyper-focus on wealthier fans, an ever-increasing demand for live entertainment, and dynamic pricing — where sellers can adjust prices based on that demand.

In the case of the Olympics, the local organizing committee LA28 is counting on ticket and hospitality sales to bring in a whopping $2.5 billion to cover the costs of putting on the Games. If they don't hit that mark, public funds could be on the line.

Still, Olympics super-fan Denny Nivens in Hermosa Beach, who said he's attended eight summer Games, said the prices were the highest he'd ever seen, by a long shot.

"It's completely unprecedented," Nivens said. "I think they're pricing a whole lot of people out completely."

How many $28 tickets are left?

LA28 has not laid out how many tickets it released in its drop for locals, or put out official prices. Instead, it laid out that 1 million tickets would be $28, more than half would be over $200, and 5% would be more than $1,000.

But Angelenos who participated in the ticket drop told LAist they felt drawn in by the promise of $28 tickets, only to see astronomical prices on their screens.

Many reported that the cheapest tickets were almost entirely unavailable. By Monday, one buyer reported only seeing $28 tickets left for women's golf prelims and women's soccer matches outside of Los Angeles.

LA28 spokesperson Gigi Gutierrez told LAist via email that hundreds of thousands of $28 tickets had been sold — and tens of thousands remained available as of Monday.

"That's hundreds of thousands of Angelenos that were able to get incredibly affordable tickets," Gutierrez said.

She said that the future availability of $28 tickets would depend on how many were sold in Drop One, indicating that cheap tickets could only become harder to come by.

Why are tickets getting more expensive?

Olympics prices aren't the only ones on the rise. FIFA has also come under fire for the cost of attending this year's World Cup, which have been listed for thousands of dollars. It's a trend that fans are seeing not just in mega-events but in average sports seasons, too.

One reason that tickets are rising, sports economist Victor Matheson told LAist, is simple: there are more people than ever who want access to sporting and music events and can afford to pay for them. But capacity remains basically the same.

"The Coliseum in Rome at 2,000 years old is about the same size as the Coliseum in L.A.," Matheson said. " You have more and more people, and more and more money, fighting for basically the same number of seats and the same amount of entertainment."

But he also pointed to the ever-smarter technology sports teams and events organizers have at their fingertips that allow them to jack up prices. These techniques and the many fees associated with ticket purchases have come under increasing scrutiny, as consumer experiences increasingly cater to the very wealthy and fans wonder who profits when ticket prices jump.

Ticket revenue is a major part of LA28's budget

The success of ticket sales in Los Angeles will be critical to the success of the Olympic Games. Organizers currently have a $7.1 billion budget to put on the Olympics — and much of the expected revenue will come from ticket sales.

LA28 hasn't said specifically how many Olympics tickets are for sale, only that together with the Paralympics, there are 14 million tickets in total.

But Rich Perelman, who worked for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, recently estimated that if 12 million of those tickets are for the Olympic Games in particular, the average ticket price would need to be $208.33 to hit the $2.5 billion in expected revenue.

"That’s why they are so expensive," Perelman wrote on his website The Sports Examiner.

Matheson, the sports economist, said high ticket sales could help LA28 stay out of the red.

" [It's] actually pretty good for taxpayers," Matheson said of Olympics tickets being high. "In that the more money that's raised from ticket prices, the less likely any taxpayers will be on the hook for cost overruns at the Olympics."

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.