While the Rose Bowl will host the men’s and women’s gold medal soccer matches for the 2028 Olympic Games, the iconic venue, site of the 1984 Olympic, 1994 World Cup and 1999 Women’s World Cup finals, will be limited to holding five matches during the Games because of field condition and security concerns.
Under a tournament schedule released Monday by LA 28, just five of the 58 matches, less than nine percent, for the Olympic women’s and men’s tournaments will be played in the Los Angeles-Orange County market, the fewest number of matches held in a Games host city area since the 1996 Olympic Games when no matches were played in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The 1996 men’s and women’s finals were played at Sanford Stadium on the University of Georgia campus in Athens, 70 miles and 80 minutes from Atlanta.
The Rose Bowl schedule was dictated largely by concerns FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, and local organizers had about the wear and tear on the stadium’s pitch. Security concerns and overburdening the area also contributed to the Rose Bowl’s limited schedule. The Olympic diving competition will take place at the nearby Rose Bowl Aquatics Center.
In addition to the men’s and women’s finals July 28-29, the Rose Bowl will also host a women’s quarterfinal on July 21 and a men’s and women’s semifinal match July 24-25.
The bulk of the tournament, 53 matches, will be played in Major League Soccer Stadiums in six cities across three time zones. San Diego will host 11 matches, including a men’s and women’s semifinal match and the men’s and women’s bronze medal matches. New York, Columbus and Nashville will host nine matches each. Eight games will be played in St. Louis, while seven will be played in San Jose.
The MLS stadiums, which range in capacity from 18,000 (San Jose) to 35,000 (San Diego), are a better fit for the Olympic tournaments than larger stadiums such as Stanford Stadium, which held 1984 Olympic, 1994 World Cup and 1999 Women’s World Cup matches.
Half of the 2024 Olympic women’s tournament first round matches, nine of 18, drew less than 10,000 spectators and Germany and Zambia drew just 2,642 at St. Etienne’s 41,965-seat Stade Geoffrey-Guichard.
Nine matches at the 2024 Olympic Games were played in Paris’ Parc de Prince stadium, 37 matches in the 2021 Olympics were played in the greater Tokyo area, 12 matches for the 2016 Games were held in Rio de Janeiro and Wembley Stadium hosted nine matches at the 2012 Games.
The Rose Bowl hosted nine of the 16 matches for the 1984 Olympic men’s tournament. The International Olympic Committee did not include women’s soccer until the 1996 Games. The Rose Bowl also hosted eight of the 52 matches for the 1994 World Cup.
The Los Angeles area’s two MLS venues will be used for other sports during the Olympics. BMO Stadium will host the Olympic flag football and lacrosse competitions. Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson is the site of the Games’ archery and rugby events.
