7 Iconic LA Venues and the Olympic Events They Should Host

Even if you’re not a remote worker with eyes glued to the Gold Zone all morning, you have probably seen, by now, the spectacle that Paris has put on for the 2024 Olympic games: the Parade of Nations down the Seine, the beach volleyball court in front of the Eiffel Tower, equestrian at Versailles, the Gojira concert on the Conciergerie former palace/prison for some (awesome) reason. Paris showed up for these Olympic games, there’s no denying it. But it’s nothing compared to what LA’s going to bring when we host the 2028 Olympics.

You have probably also seen the jokes going around about our own Parade of Nations on the LA River—which, despite the universal jeers, is in fact possible to traverse in a boat without too much portage in some places, sometimes—but there are plenty of other essential LA landmarks that deserve the full Olympic treatment.

In fact, that was one of the major selling points for LA’s Olympic bid in the first place—we already have so many iconic stadiums, coliseums, bowls, domes, pyramids, and venues in other shapes that we’ll hardly have to build anything new, other than a smidge of public transit and housing and airport upgrades and assorted supportive infrastructure. But nevermind that, it’ll all surely be done in the next three-and-a-half years. Look, instead, at all of these badass venues where we should be hosting Olympic events for LA28:

Anyone who ever played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater has thought about it—how sick would it be to shred the resplendent chromed-out curves of Disney Hall? Unfortunately it won’t be a relevant reference for the teenage competitors who dominate Olympic skating, because most of them will have been born more than a decade after the end of the Nintendo 64 era. Yikes. I guess you could say I’m growing older all the time, looking older all the time, feeling younger in my mind.

Despite some (creative, unpredictable, boundaryless) movement in that direction, Parkour didn’t make the cut for the Olympics—and there’s strident debate within the parkour-mmunity about whether it should. But we can pay homage to the running style of kings like David Belle and Michael Scott by encouraging the next batch of sport climbing competitors to shed the bright plastic holds of an indoor gym and join legends like Reckless Ben in performing death-defying stunts on LA’s very own dystopian towers of outsider art. Bonus points if they can evade private security and maybe leave a little tag of their own on the way.

The Olympics is a great opportunity for the host city to selectively highlight its cultural and artistic contributions to the world, and, so US Olympic Committee leaders should take the opportunity to remind everyone about our truly unmatched mall culture. And what better way to do it than with a Busby Berkeley-style spectacle at Glendale’s premier open-air shopping and water show destination, with winners treated to Tex-Mex Eggrolls from Cheesecake Factory fried to a crispy golden-brown, and maybe they can get their parking validated too.

Now that 3x3 Basketball is a certified major sport—shoutout to Ice Cube, once again ahead of his time—it’s only right to take it to the streets in LA. And there are few street courts that can match the prestige and the views of the Venice Beach Basketball courts. Honestly, the people who play there regularly should be allowed to form their own nation just for this event. And maybe we’ll get to see if Woody Harrelson can still dunk—lord knows he gets high enough.

Yes, they’re supposed to be rolling out public transit improvements over the next few years in the run up to the Olympics, but it will still be terrible to try to get across town at rush hour by any method. For the next Olympic Triathlon, competitors should be required to race between two wonderful but inconvenient neighborhoods, going for the fastest time by any three methods they see fit. Will the bus to the metro to an Uber beat jogging, swimming, and biking? Can a combo like electric scooter to kayak to hijacked delivery robot win the day? Only one thing is for sure—anything is better than driving in rush hour traffic.

Paris has Versailles, a historic palace that celebrates French art and culture and scientific advancement on sprawling grounds that still serves as a symbol of national splendor. LA has the Arclight Hollywood and the Cinerama Dome, a historic palace that celebrated our own art and culture and scientific advancement on a sprawling campus, an opulent monument that is now a boarded-up husk, but by 2028 it should be reopened like Versaille after the Revolution, as a cultural symbol once again.

What is a donut if not a target with a hole punched in it? Let’s fill that thing in, then line up the world’s greatest bow shots to knock the hole right out again.

Want more Thrillist? Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube.