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In a break from tradition, the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will sell naming rights for event venues.
LA28, the planning committee for the Games, announced Thursday that it had deals with Comcast and Honda to name the venues for squash and volleyball, respectively.
“These groundbreaking partnerships with Comcast and Honda, along with additional partners to come, will not only generate critical revenue for LA28 but will introduce a new commercial model to benefit the entire Movement,” LA28 chief Casey Wasserman said in a release.
LA28 has touted itself as being a fully privately funded Olympics with no new infrastructure needed. Wasserman said in the release that the International Olympic Committee’s decision to allow the committee to sell naming rights will bring in revenue to cover costs. LA28 is expecting to bring in $2 billion in sponsorship revenue by the end of the year, according to a source familiar with the committee’s finances.
The committee said that it will only offer naming rights to the existing corporate sponsors. So if it can’t strike a deal with Intuit for the basketball arena, for example, it will remain officially unnamed during the Games. The Olympics will be held from July 14–30, 2028, while the Paralympics will be from August 15–27.
The names of permanent venues, including Crypto.com Arena (boxing and gymnastics), and BMO Stadium (lacrosse and flag football) are up for sale, as well as 19 temporary venues.
SoFi Stadium and the Coliseum will jointly host the opening ceremony. The Coliseum will solely host the closing ceremony.
The Olympics and Paralympics had operated under a “clean venue” policy for years, as the IOC wanted to protect the interests of its existing sponsors.
FIFA and UEFA have similar policies for their major events like the World Cup and Champions League, leading to generic names for their stadiums in major tournaments. For example, MetLife Stadium in New Jersey will be known as “New York New Jersey Stadium” during the 2026 men’s World Cup.
In February 2024, FIFA said it would continue with the tradition for generic stadium names next summer. FIFA did not respond to a request for comment on if it was considering selling temporary naming rights after the Olympics reversed course.
For the Olympics, the longstanding “clean venue” rule is now a “clean field policy” that will prevent sponsorship logos from appearing on the court or field—at least for now.
Representatives for Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, which owns and operates SoFi Stadium, did not respond to a request for comment.
