LA28: A Ticketing Plan with a Twist
The 2028 Summer Olympics are taking a similar approach to ticket sales as the World Cup, but are off to a stronger start. Why subtle pricing tactics matter.
Both events are using a dynamic ticket-pricing model. Both events offer premium and luxury ticket packages to enhance the fan experience. Both are partnering with hotels, airlines, and other sponsors to drive travel and tourism-related ticket sales. The only difference is that one is on track to become the largest ticketed event in history, while the other has been generating headlines for not managing to fill stadiums.
In many ways, the organizers of the LA28 Summer Olympics are following the same ticketing model as this year’s World Cup—but with some slight tweaks that have drastically improved the results. Whereas high prices and low demand kept many of the World Cup’s opening-round matches from selling out, the first ticket “drop” for LA28 in April sold an Olympic-record four million tickets across 85 countries (a second drop is scheduled for August 10).
To be sure, World Cup organizers FIFA point out that they’ve sold more than six million tickets, and that many empty seats seen on TV screens are fans taking breaks. Still, Garrick Yu, co-leader of the Global Sports practice at Korn Ferry, attributes the disparity in initial sales to brand reputation and pricing strategy. The organizers of the World Cup were very open, he says, about “charging North American prices” to maximize ticket profits. “It feeds into the narrative that FIFA is trying to make as much money off the American audience as it possibly can,” he says.
By contrast, LA28 organizers (who declined to comment for this story) are releasing tickets in drops that feature different pricing bands and target different audiences. For instance, the first drop was for local fans living near venues in LA. In total, 14 million LA28 tickets will be made available via lottery over the next two years, with prices ranging from $28 to more than $1,000. “They’re doing a better job of building excitement and fan interest leading up the games than the World Cup did,” says Noah Glantz, a managing consultant in the Global Sports practice at Korn Ferry. Either way, experts say, there are lessons here for leaders in every industry about the power of small tweaks in pricing approaches.
But no matter how firms are handling pricing, today’s world of AI will inevitably generate criticism. Fans have complained that bots gamed LA28’s lottery system, buying the cheapest tickets and reselling them, at a markup, on the secondary market. High transaction fees have also generated frustration, as has the fact that organizers are holding back the best tickets for the most popular events for VIPs and sponsor packages. Meanwhile, Glantz expects World Cup ticket sales to ramp up as the tournament moves into the knockout, or elimination, rounds. “No one is going to be talking about half-filled stadiums when those matches come around,” he says. To be sure, estimated revenue from ticket and hospitality sales for both LA28 and the World Cup is projected to be between $2.5 billion and $3 billion.
Yu agrees, observing that the World Cup’s approach to ticket sales is more transactional, while LA28’s is more ecosystem oriented. As he sees it, the World Cup is pursuing a more aggressive pricing strategy because it has a finite amount of premium matches that will attract “big-country fanbases as well as casual fans.” For LA28, on the other hand, every sport has its own built-in fanbase, and the totality of fans across all those sports creates opportunities to generate revenue from casual Olympics goers. “The Olympics is a cultural event, while the World Cup is still mainly a soccer event,” says Yu. “FIFA isn’t going to sell a ticket to your mother, but the Olympics can.”
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