Out with World Cup, in with L.A. Olympics: Casey Wasserman braces for a ‘fast’ two years

On July 14, the day Spain beat France in the first semifinal of the FIFA men’s World Cup, Casey Wasserman turned to the app on his phone that shows the countdown to the opening ceremonies of the 2028 Olympics he is due to present. The screen revealed a milestone: a flip from two years out to a year, 11 months and change.

“It may have just been one day that triggered that flip, but that was a big difference,” Wasserman, the chairperson and president of the LA28 organizing committee, said Wednesday by phone. “It’s gonna go fast. We started bidding for the Olympics in 2014, so in relative terms, it’ll be a blink of an eye.”

The United States, Canada and Mexico are coming off hosting an unprecedented 48-team World Cup that spread across 16 cities and — with a few exceptions — felt like a rousing success. Next up: The Los Angeles Olympics and Paralympics — the first domestic Games in more than a quarter century, now less than two years away — which face a laundry list of potential issues that have skeptics wondering how it, too, can be a triumph for the country.

“They deserve a really big round of applause because they pulled off a significant event, and it came together incredibly well, and by every metric it was a success, and their success just laid the foundation for us to build upon,” Wasserman said. “If anything had gone wrong, you can imagine that it would have just led to negative noise about what could go wrong with L.A. in the same context.”

These Olympics, granted to Los Angeles in 2017 — providing much more time than the normal seven-year run-up — are hardly immune to issues. Those start with Wasserman himself. In 2003, he exchanged flirtatious emails with Ghislaine Maxwell, now a convicted child sex trafficker — communiques that were revealed in a February drop of the files of the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Though Wasserman hasn’t been charged with any crime, the exchanges took place before Maxwell had been charged with any wrongdoing, and the LA28 board backed Wasserman, the entertainment mogul sold his agency after several prominent artists fled. Several Olympic stakeholders, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, called for him to step down.

In February, Wasserman said that he regretted the correspondence and stated he had no relationship with Epstein. He did not comment on his ties to Maxwell on Wednesday but reiterated that he intends to remain in the job.

“I’m clearly not going anywhere,” Wasserman said Wednesday, “and I feel very comfortable leading this organization, and will continue to do so for the next 800 or so days — hopefully.”

Those days will be filled trying to address the issues facing the Games. Any Olympics are beset by logistical questions in the run-up. Given Los Angeles, at a resting state, is a traffic nightmare, transportation for what Wasserman called “the largest peacetime gathering in the history of the world” would seem to present a challenge.

Organizers are expecting five million visitors to the metropolitan area during the Games — which run from July 14-30, 2028, with some competitions beginning a few days early — and promised public transportation options, such as a “People Mover” rail line from Los Angeles International Airport, have not yet been delivered as promised.

“It’s not as though an opening ceremony is in two days and we forgot to tell people that the world is coming,” Wasserman said. “For those two weeks of the Olympics and the 10 days of the Paralympics, you can change normal traffic patterns and normal traffic engagement to solve for big impediments.”

As with any Olympics, the 15,000 athletes and 25,000 broadcasters and journalists will ride buses in dedicated lanes. Wasserman also harkened back to the 1984 Los Angeles Games, when Mayor Tom Bradley prohibited delivery trucks during peak daytime hours. This time around, organizers can ask non-essential workers to work remotely.

“You tell people: Here’s how things are going to be different for this period of time,” Wasserman said.

U.S. President Trump’s presence hung over the entire World Cup. He has a close relationship with FIFA president Gianni Infantino, and FIFA rented office space in one of Trump’s New York properties. Trump got FIFA to move the World Cup draw party to Washington, inserted himself in the action by urging Infantino to look into the suspension of American star Folarin Balogun (which was subsequently overturned), and wouldn’t cede the stage when champion Spain tried to celebrate its victory.

Considering his predilection for attending marquee sports events, the potential for Trump to have a vested interest in the 2028 Games, during the final year of his term, is high.

Wasserman said Olympic organizers have been in constant contact with three dozen federal agencies as well as the administration.

“They have done what we’ve asked them to do exactly how we’ve (asked) them to do it without conditions,” Wasserman said. “The administration has been supportive, and I have no doubt that — especially having seen the success of the World Cup — that they’re gonna want to replicate and grow that success and showcase the best of what this country has to offer.”

Local officials have expressed concern that the Games will not bring the economic impact organizers have promised — somewhere in the $13-18 billion range. Wasserman argued Wednesday that LA28’s two main revenue streams — ticket sales and sponsorships — are both exceeding expectations. Wasserman said that the committee has raised $2.2 billion of a proposed $2.5 billion in sponsorships, and he is comfortable the group will reach that number.

“No question coming out of the World Cup, I think there’s also a little bit of FOMO coming from sponsors who aren’t yet sponsors or want to have a deeper dive with us,” he said.

Organizers say there are 14 million tickets available across the Games and subsequent Paralympics — with three-quarters of those for the Olympics themselves. Tickets are available through a registration process followed by a random draw. More than 12 million people have registered for tickets, organizers said.

“We have far more interest in tickets than we have tickets to sell,” Wasserman said.

Still, there remains concern about the environment fans and athletes will encounter. Los Angeles was the site of significant unrest following raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Trump sent in National Guard troops, as he did with other cities.

Though the World Cup avoided issues with ICE raids at stadiums, the agency this summer has been responsible for shootings that killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.

“My communication with the administration in the broadest sense is clear — which is the Olympics are a unique moment in time to showcase the best of this country, and the less politics in every regard, the better,” Wasserman said. “This is about ‘red, white and blue,’ not red and blue. This is about marching behind a singular flag and singing a singular anthem. So I have no doubt that this administration, from top to bottom, wants to showcase the best of what this country has to offer.”

Every Olympics faces questions in the run-up, and some of these same concerns hung over the World Cup too. That soccer’s international showcase still went off well bodes well for the L.A. Games, Wasserman believes.

“Their success, we certainly don’t take it for granted, but we’re very thankful for them,” he said. “We think it’s a really good springboard.”