Latest news with #CaseyWasserman
New York Times
3 days ago
- General
- New York Times
Quote of the Day: Pulling Off Plan For L.A. Games Is a Feat in Itself
'The Olympics is hosting seven Super Bowls a day for 30 days.' CASEY WASSERMAN, the chairman of the Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, on the challenges the city is facing in hosting the 2028 Games.
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
LA 2028 Olympics: Janet Evans Chief Athlete Officer
Before there was Ledecky there was Evans. Janet Evans. In the late 1980s Evans was the first woman to hold three world records simultaneously in the 400, 800, and 1500-meter freestyle and was the first American woman to win four individual Olympic gold medals in swimming. She was ahead of her time. Her records would not be broken until 2006, 2008 and 2007 respectively. Evans would finish her Olympic career, which began in Seoul in 1988, in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics as one of the most decorated American swimmers of all time. Nicknamed 'Miss Perpetual Motion,' she won five Olympic medals (four gold), captured 45 national titles, and set seven world records in the pool. Although she succeeded beyond her wildest dreams in her racing career Evans would reflect later that her experiences outside the pool as an Olympic athlete often left something to be desired. So when LA 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman and LA Mayor Eric Garcetti first approached Evans in 2015 about the job of Chief Athlete Officer for the 2028 Games she was quick to spell out her expectations. Evans saw her role as reminding everyone on the organizing committee every day that the athletes are the most important stakeholders in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. All decisions regarding events including timing, transportation, facilities, food and housing would be filtered through this lense. 'When I took the job, I told LA 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman and Mayor Garcetti: 'I won't take this job unless we put athletes at the heart of what we're doing, and every decision we make that involves athletes will be passed through my team,'' Evans said. 'That's how my role evolved here at LA28, because Casey gave me the bandwidth to put athletes first. I think every decision we make here at LA28 is very athlete centered. We have more Olympians working here at LA28 than the IOC does in Lausanne.' From the beginning Evans would reach out to athletes for feedback while preparing L.A.'s presentation to the IOC, including at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials. She wanted to hear their direct input for how to envision the 2028 Games. 'It was an amazing experience because I got to reconnect with athletes,' Evans said. Now in her role as Chief Athlete Officer, Evans is faced with the Herculean task of arranging accommodations for 15,000 athletes from more than 200 national Olympic committees (NOCs) across 30 different sports. As someone whose 1992 Olympic experience was impacted by her bus driver getting lost in Barcelona between prelims and finals, Evans knows firsthand how important it is for logistics to run smoothly on what might be the most important day of an athlete's career. Evans would attend the 2024 Games in Paris not only to talk to attend events and tour facilities like the Olympic village, but seek fresh input from the athletes right after the Games. She wanted to hear the good, the bad and the ugly from their perspective. 'Having lived in three Olympic Villages and having competed in three Olympic Games ... "It's really important to understand what the athletes are experiencing,' Evans said. For Evans that meant things like comments about uncomfortable beds, limited air conditioning and food shortages. Evans is satisfied those issues have been successfully addressed in housing the athletes on the campus of UCLA. The athlete village for the 2028 Games will be the campus of UCLA, which has an enrollment of almost 45,000 students, with 11,000 undergraduates currently living on campus. That includes 5 dining halls and 5 casual eating areas, 9 of UCLA's athletics facilities for training (which will allow 51% of Olympians and 62% of Paralympians to train in the village). For swimmers, divers, artistic swimmers, and water polo players, that training will include use of the 50-meter pool at the Spieker Aquatics Center. There will be a total of 17,000 beds in the Olympic Village for athletes and support personnel. This 'city within a city' will be complete with services and amenities designed with convenient access to dining options, fitness centers, TV and recreation lounges, laundry rooms, and 24-hour front desk assistance. In addition to creating optimum housing and training facilities for the athletes, Evans and the LA Organizing Committee are prioritizing their safety and security. In June of 2024, the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in the greater Los Angeles area were designated a National Special Security Event by the Secretary of Homeland Security. This marks the furthest in advance that a National Special Security Event designation has ever been granted. 'The security planning for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be a huge undertaking that will require close coordination between law enforcement and public safety partners at all levels,' said Brian Lewin, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Secret Service Los Angeles Field Office. 'We are already working diligently to ensure that the games, though years away, will be secure for all athletes, attendees, and the public.' Seems like Janet Evans should feel pretty good then about her goal to put the athletes first at the 2028 Games? Yes and no. 'Not every athlete is going to get every single thing because there are 27 different international federations that have needs, too,' Evans said. 'It's become an interesting transition for me away from aquatic sports, if you will, and toward the entirety of the participants at the Games, both Olympic and Paralympics. We love Team USA, but we have 206 national Olympic committees (NOCs) coming to LA. While Team USA is obviously my favorite team, we have a lot of other NOCs that have their needs also.' The bottom line is Evans' job is a monumental undertaking. Between now and the summer of 2028 she and the organizing committee have a never-ending task list. And It will not be perfect in the end. But I think Evans is the right person for the job. Because of her experience as an Olympic athlete and her dedication to putting the athletes first in all things at the LA 2028 games, they win. And if they win we all win.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
LA28 Sets Sponsorship Target After Slow Dealmaking Start
The Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic Games is steadily pushing toward its $2.5 billion domestic sponsorship goal. LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said he hopes to hit at least $2 billion in corporate revenue by the end of the year. The Hollywood sports mogul declined to specify how much LA28 organizers, Team USA and its media partner Comcast have collectively generated to date but estimated it was more than $1.5 billion. Advertisement More from Still, in a phone interview, Wasserman acknowledged the 11-year lead time between Los Angeles securing the Olympics and the actual event has challenged his sales team. Committees typically get a shorter seven-year window to strike deals. 'People buy when they want to buy, and not when you want to sell,' he said in a phone interview. 'No one has ever had an 11-year cycle, from awarding the games to hosting the games. Those timelines are nontraditional and produce nontraditional ebbs and flows of all these processes. In many ways, as we go through it for the first time, the whole movement, in terms of how they think about it and compare it, is going through it for the first time as well.' Wasserman also attributed the initial lag to the complexities of the partnership program between the USOPC and LA28, which aimed to drive more revenue by selling bulk partnerships over four Olympics in Beijing ('21), Paris ('24), Milan ('26) and LA. Advertisement Organizers are now eight months away from the Winter Games in Italy (Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo), which will be followed by the Summer Olympics in 2028—held in the United States for the first time since 1996. LA28 organizers are still looking to fill major categories like financial services and automotive. Last year, top-tier sponsor and software firm Salesforce split less than three years into their seven-year partnership. It was a notable loss since it left LA28 with just two founding partners in Comcast and Delta. In the meantime, the committee has added lower tier sponsors such as Cisco and Aecom, who are joining older USOPC partners on the same level as Nike and Ralph Lauren. 'In the next 60 days, you'll see some pretty significant announcements in some big categories, and we'll continue to show our momentum,' Wasserman said. 'We're hitting our stride to say the least.' The nonprofit organization remains confident about its revenue trajectory after hiring new CEO Reynold Hoover last summer. As the committee and partners such as NBCUniversal prepare to add more corporate backers, Wasserman in recent months has turned his attention to ensure that 2028 Olympians won't have visa issues. He has met with President Donald Trump on multiple occasions and maintains that he does not anticipate athletes and their supporters having trouble entering the country despite Trump considering various travel restrictions. Advertisement 'I have no doubt that we're going to have everyone in the world here to experience an incredible Olympic Games,' he said. Wasserman also confirmed that Dodger Stadium will host all of the baseball games in 2028. Baseball is returning to the summer sports program after being excluded from the Paris Games in 2024. Meanwhile, all cricket matches will be played at a temporary built facility at The Fairgrounds in Pomona, Calif. That means neither New York nor any other East Coast state will host cricket matches despite the chance to offer prime time broadcast slots in India. 'There's a lot of logic to it,' Wasserman said. 'But in the end, the [International Cricket Council], it was really important to them to have the cricket athletes be part of the Olympic Village and the Olympic program for their first opportunity at the games in a long time.' Advertisement Best of Sign up for Sportico's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Associated Press
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
After NFL approval, LA28's Wasserman is optimistic MLB players will also find a path to the Olympics
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The organizers of the Los Angeles Olympics remain optimistic that Major League Baseball will find a way to join the NFL in sending the world's best athletes in their respective sports to the 2028 Games. LA28 president and chairman Casey Wasserman said he has been in close contact with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred about the decision that must be made by both the league and the players' union on whether to send players to the Olympics in the middle of the 2028 baseball season. There's no current timetable for the decision. 'I'm optimistic because it's the right thing for the sport of baseball, it's the right thing for the players and it's certainly the right thing for the Olympics,' Wasserman told The Associated Press on Wednesday. 'I think when things make sense for everybody, you can usually find a way to get things done.' LA28 was buoyed last week by the NFL owners' unanimous decision to approve the players' participation in the inaugural Olympic flag football event, with Wasserman calling it 'an awesome day.' The Los Angeles organizing committee is hoping for similar news on baseball, whenever the decision is made. 'We're very engaged with the commissioner,' Wasserman said. 'I talked to him in anticipation of the NFL announcement so they knew what was coming. They have a different challenge because it's in the middle of their season, but we are very engaged in ongoing discussions with the hope to get to a good result.' Players' union head Tony Clark has said his players want to vie for Olympic gold — particularly those who got a taste of international competition in previous World Baseball Classics. Several superstars have expressed public interest in playing in the Los Angeles Olympic tournament, including reigning league MVPs Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. But the decision is much tougher for baseball because the Olympics fall in the heart of the regular season, necessitating major scheduling changes similar to the quadrennial disruption of the NHL season when the league participates in the Winter Olympics. Baseball also isn't a pillar of the Olympic program like ice hockey, being only intermittently included in the Summer Games for decades. The NFL players who make their nations' 10-man flag football teams are unlikely to miss more than a few days of training camp in July 2028, but MLB would have to make a dramatic adjustment to its normal competition schedule. Manfred spoke about the decision last month in New York at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors. Wasserman has been pitching Manfred for over a year on the benefits of putting his sport under the Olympic spotlight. 'It's a complicated issue for us,' Manfred said at the APSE event. 'Lots of major league players would be involved because of the different countries that would likely be involved, massively disruptive to our season given the timing, and we're trying to sort through all that. ... We do see LA28 as a real opportunity from a marketing perspective.' The sport long known as America's Pastime was played only as one-game Olympic exhibitions until 1984, when it joined the Los Angeles program as a demonstration sport. Baseball became an official Olympic sport in Barcelona in 1992, but U.S. professionals weren't allowed to compete until 2000, when minor leaguers were allowed to play. The absence of the world's players was one reason cited when baseball was subsequently dropped from the London and Rio de Janeiro Games. The sport returned in baseball-mad Tokyo in 2021 — but only for MLB players not on a 40-man roster. Japan's top league shut down its season, and Japan won gold. Baseball was dropped once again in Paris, but restored for LA28. The tournament will be played at historic Dodger Stadium, the same venue that hosted the 1984 Olympic tournament. Wasserman spoke about his baseball aspirations after an event that should remind MLB of the Olympics' unmatched marketing power. NBCUniversal has taken over a large soundstage complex in suburban Sun Valley to create extensive multimedia content to be used in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics broadcasts in nine months, feeding the broadcast machine that boosts winter stars including Chloe Kim, Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn to international celebrity. ___ AP sports:
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
After NFL approval, LA28's Wasserman is optimistic MLB players will also find a path to the Olympics
Chloe Kim, a two-time U.S. Olympic snowboard gold medalist, arrives at an NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, in Los Angeles, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Oksana Masters, a Paralympic nordic skiing athlete, speaks at an NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Mikaela Shiffrin, U.S. World Cup alpine skier left, and Mike Tirico, NBC Olympics primetime host meet at a NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, in Los Angeles Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Casey Wasserman, chairman of LA 2028, the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics, is interviewed at an NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Casey Wasserman, chairman of LA 2028, the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics, is interviewed at an NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Chloe Kim, a two-time U.S. Olympic snowboard gold medalist, arrives at an NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, in Los Angeles, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Oksana Masters, a Paralympic nordic skiing athlete, speaks at an NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Mikaela Shiffrin, U.S. World Cup alpine skier left, and Mike Tirico, NBC Olympics primetime host meet at a NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, in Los Angeles Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Casey Wasserman, chairman of LA 2028, the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics, is interviewed at an NBCUniversal and U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee press preview event to promote the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) LOS ANGELES (AP) — The organizers of the Los Angeles Olympics remain optimistic that Major League Baseball will find a way to join the NFL in sending the world's best athletes in their respective sports to the 2028 Games. LA28 president and chairman Casey Wasserman said he has been in close contact with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred about the decision that must be made by both the league and the players' union on whether to send players to the Olympics in the middle of the 2028 baseball season. There's no current timetable for the decision. Advertisement 'I'm optimistic because it's the right thing for the sport of baseball, it's the right thing for the players and it's certainly the right thing for the Olympics,' Wasserman told The Associated Press on Wednesday. 'I think when things make sense for everybody, you can usually find a way to get things done.' LA28 was buoyed last week by the NFL owners' unanimous decision to approve the players' participation in the inaugural Olympic flag football event, with Wasserman calling it 'an awesome day." The Los Angeles organizing committee is hoping for similar news on baseball, whenever the decision is made. 'We're very engaged with the commissioner,' Wasserman said. 'I talked to him in anticipation of the NFL announcement so they knew what was coming. They have a different challenge because it's in the middle of their season, but we are very engaged in ongoing discussions with the hope to get to a good result.' Players' union head Tony Clark has said his players want to vie for Olympic gold — particularly those who got a taste of international competition in previous World Baseball Classics. Several superstars have expressed public interest in playing in the Los Angeles Olympic tournament, including reigning league MVPs Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. Advertisement But the decision is much tougher for baseball because the Olympics fall in the heart of the regular season, necessitating major scheduling changes similar to the quadrennial disruption of the NHL season when the league participates in the Winter Olympics. Baseball also isn't a pillar of the Olympic program like ice hockey, being only intermittently included in the Summer Games for decades. The NFL players who make their nations' 10-man flag football teams are unlikely to miss more than a few days of training camp in July 2028, but MLB would have to make a dramatic adjustment to its normal competition schedule. Manfred spoke about the decision last month in New York at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors. Wasserman has been pitching Manfred for over a year on the benefits of putting his sport under the Olympic spotlight. 'It's a complicated issue for us,' Manfred said at the APSE event. "Lots of major league players would be involved because of the different countries that would likely be involved, massively disruptive to our season given the timing, and we're trying to sort through all that. ... We do see LA28 as a real opportunity from a marketing perspective.' Advertisement The sport long known as America's Pastime was played only as one-game Olympic exhibitions until 1984, when it joined the Los Angeles program as a demonstration sport. Baseball became an official Olympic sport in Barcelona in 1992, but U.S. professionals weren't allowed to compete until 2000, when minor leaguers were allowed to play. The absence of the world's players was one reason cited when baseball was subsequently dropped from the London and Rio de Janeiro Games. The sport returned in baseball-mad Tokyo in 2021 — but only for MLB players not on a 40-man roster. Japan's top league shut down its season, and Japan won gold. Baseball was dropped once again in Paris, but restored for LA28. The tournament will be played at historic Dodger Stadium, the same venue that hosted the 1984 Olympic tournament. Advertisement Wasserman spoke about his baseball aspirations after an event that should remind MLB of the Olympics' unmatched marketing power. NBCUniversal has taken over a large soundstage complex in suburban Sun Valley to create extensive multimedia content to be used in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics broadcasts in nine months, feeding the broadcast machine that boosts winter stars including Chloe Kim, Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn to international celebrity. ___ AP sports:
