No other city in the world can do what Paris has done over the past three weeks: stage the drama of the Olympic Games against a backdrop of an illuminated Eiffel Tower and the lavish gardens of Versailles.
The 2024 Summer Olympics, with their classic look and sheer visual beauty, raised an important question.
How can Los Angeles ever top this?
Organizers bringing the 2028 Olympics to Southern California offered a taste of what’s to come during Sunday night’s closing ceremony at the Stade de France. Instead of tradition, they leaned on production values and pop culture.
In a Mission: Impossible-style performance, Tom Cruise rappelled from the edge of the stadium to the field below and then sped off on a motorcycle. Snoop Dogg dropped a few bars. Billie Eilish performed, albeit remotely, from Venice Beach.
“We don’t have an Eiffel Tower,” said Casey Wasserman, president of the LA28 organizing committee. “We have a Hollywood sign.”
The next host city always gets 15 minutes or so towards the end of each Olympic closing. These presentations often include music and dancers, some colorful lights. They are often overlooked.
But LA28 had to make a splash in Paris. A big part of the reason was money.
For the past six months, Wasserman and his private group have remained secretive about their scaled-down production. It wasn’t until details began to leak out last week that they admitted they had hired Ben Winston.
Winston was the Emmy-winning executive producer of “The Late Late Show with James Cordon,” helping to bring carpool karaoke to the world.
The 42-year-old Briton said in a statement that he wanted Sunday night’s presentation to “evoke the people of the city, creativity, music and of course sport, all wrapped up in a bit of Hollywood magic.”
All of this is important because LA28 saw its moment in the spotlight as a crucial advertisement, not only for viewers but also for business. As the International Olympic Committee said, “All eyes will be on you.”
The 2028 Olympics are estimated to cost $7 billion, a figure that is likely to rise. Organizers have promised to cover all costs through contributions from the IOC, ticket sales and, importantly, corporate sponsorship.
Despite deals with Nike, Deloitte and Delta Airlines, LA28 is still about $1 billion shy of its $2.5 billion target in the latter category, with four years to go.
These amounts matter to Southern California residents because if the Games go over budget, city and state legislators have agreed to provide hundreds of millions in tax dollars.
Organizing committees hope that a flashy presentation will generate excitement and spur sponsorship negotiations. The problem, says Michael Payne, a former IOC marketing director, is that “not many of them stand out when they’re up against the full force of the real ceremony.”
Paris had reason to celebrate as the Games passed off without any major problems and with memorable performances.
World stars such as gymnast Simone Biles, tennis player Novak Djokovic and pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis lived up to their reputations. Among the French athletes, swimmer Leon Marchand won five medals and NBA rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama led his teammates to the finals of the men’s basketball, where they lost to LeBron James and the USA
With 9.5 million tickets sold, the venue was packed and noisy. There was plenty of predictable French craziness, including the Olympic debut of breaking — previously known as breakdancing — and a viral moment from the clumsy Australian B-girl known as “Raygun.”
“From the beginning we had one vision… [to] “We really combine the emotion of the sport with the emotion of our city,” said Tony Estanguet, head of the organizing committee.
“We couldn’t possibly have prepared ourselves for everything we’ve just experienced together,” said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee. “We wanted excitement, we got passion.”
The closing ceremony featured a spiky, glittering figure, the “Golden Voyager,” emerging from the night sky. Performers did somersaults and danced along a series of platforms. Acrobats hung from giant wheels that rolled across a futuristic stage as scenes from past Olympic Games loomed from the floor.
Artistic director Thomas Jolly said: “As a theatre and opera director, the layout of the stadium gives me the opportunity to use the tools of live performance: the lighting, the scenery, the costumes, the machinery, the set design.”
It was creative and very symbolic and so very French. Earlier in the day, when the workers arrived with leaf blowers, it was hard to tell if they were rehearsing or just tidying up.
And when the popular French band Phoenix gave a mini-concert late in the program, the athletes got so excited that they ran onto the stage and had to be sent away by the announcer.
After more than two hours, LA took over.
It all started off quite simply when Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo presented the Olympic flag to Mayor Karen Bass, the first time two women had performed this tradition. Biles was there. Grammy-winning singer HER sang the national anthem
Then Cruise appeared, in the spotlight atop the stadium’s arched roofline. Looking a little wind-blown, he made his grand entrance and grabbed the flag before racing toward the waiting motorcycle. From there, the action switched to video.
It was a nod to both the film industry and the evolution of the Games, which have been transformed into a television event. Cruise raced through the streets of Paris and climbed into a waiting cargo plane – “I’m on my way” – before skydiving toward the Hollywood sign.
A series of athletes took over, with Olympic mountain biker Kate Courtney cycling the flag to the Coliseum and passing it to famed sprinter Michael Johnson who ran the flag to skateboarder Jagger Eaton on the beach.
There, by the ocean — perhaps the only Southern California landscape that can rival Paris — the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eilish and Snoop, joined by Dr. Dre, closed the evening with a concert that segued into an hour-long show on NBC and Peacock.
Whether all this will have the desired effect of generating buzz — and dollars — remains to be seen. But, after watching Paris up close, Wasserman knows he can’t replicate the Olympics of the past few weeks.
“The 2024 Games were authentically French and Parisian,” he said. “And the 2028 Games will be authentically Los Angeles.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
