Los Angeles has made it official — several 2028 Summer Games events will be held in Oklahoma City.
But hosting Olympic canoe slalom and softball at the next Summer Games comes with a price tag. A $34.5 million guarantee to LA28 organizers is on the agenda of Tuesday’s Oklahoma City Council meeting, according to a report in The Oklahoman.
“It’s not a check we expect to write out‚" Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt told the newspaper.
Holt said the $34.5 million would only be paid if the city fails to live up to its agreement with the L.A. Games, an amount reportedly based on what it would cost organizers to relocate the events to the Los Angeles area.
“From their perspective, we’ve committed to do this,” the mayor said. “They committed to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) these events will happen. They are relying on us to keep the commitment they made.”
Oklahoma City has yet to estimate the economic impact of holding Olympic events at Oklahoma City’s Riversport Rapids, a whitewater course along the Oklahoma River and at Devon Park, the home of USA Softball, but up to 200,000 spectators are anticipated, the newspaper reported.
The competitions are being moved some 1,300 miles away from southern California in an effort to keep the cost of organizing the Games down by utilizing existing facilities rather than building new permanent venues, an initiative pushed by the IOC.
Using the specialized facilities in Oklahoma has ...
