USOC looks at options for winter bid

A month after securing the Summer Olympics, the U.S. Olympic Committee will look at options for bidding for a Winter Games, potentially as soon as 2026.

But with 2028 secured, Los Angeles will play a critical role in whether and when the USOC tries to land the winter event.

The USOC and the Los Angeles organizing committee have a joint marketing venture that runs from 2020 to 2028, meaning U.S. cities — including 2002 host Salt Lake City — couldn’t bid without L.A. signing off.

LA 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman called the issue “complicated” at the USOC media summit on Tuesday, but he left the door open to a possible U.S. bid.

“There’s lots of issues, but our approach is we’ll take an open mind and listen and let that process develop, and when it’s time to engage and really deeply entertain it, great,” Wasserman said. “Certainly, we’d love the Winter Games to come back to the United States, whether that’s

2026 or 2030 and beyond.” Los Angeles secured its Olympics by reaching a historic agreement with the IOC earlier this month, getting the 2028 Games while Paris was awarded the

2024 Olympics. It’s the first Summer Olympics that the United States will host since Atlanta in 1996.

CEO Scott Blackmun said the USOC would discuss the possibility of a winter bid when it meets Oct. 13. He said Salt Lake City, Denver and Reno/Tahoe are among cities that have expressed interest, but the USOC has not established a domestic bidding phase.

“It would be more difficult for us to bid for 2026, and we wouldn’t go forward with the 2026 bid unless that was something that Casey and (chief executive Gene Sykes) and the team from L.A. were comfortable wasn’t going to impact their ability to market and promote the 2028 Games,” Blackmun said. “So this is a decision we’ll take in close consultation and partnership with 2028.”

Those are talks that might not intensify for a while. The Inter- national Olympic Committee is changing the bid process for

2026, allowing for a year-long invitation phase during which interested cities can seek feedback from the IOC before committing to bidding.

Several cities have publicly expressed interest in bidding for

2026, including Sion, Switzerland; Innsbruck, Austria; Calgary; and Stockholm.

Blackmun said he hopes more than one U.S. city can participate in that phase but wouldn’t speculate on which might have an advantage.

Chairman Larry Probst said besides monitoring which Games and which city the USOC might want to put forward to a bid, it must monitor bids from other countries.

Ultimately, Los Angeles is in- terested in supporting the Olympic movement and U.S. athletes, Wasserman said. But before formally bidding, the Los Angeles organizing committee must assess how hosting a Games immediately before or after 2028 does affect sales of sponsorships.

“It’s not up to us to decide whether those cities in the United States are interested to participate (in the invitation phase), but certainly before they formally bid, it’ll require a lot of conversation and a deep understanding of how that would affect us, how that would create challenges, how that might create opportunities,” Wasserman said. “It’s certainly exciting to think about the Winter Games coming back too, but there’s a lot of work to be done between now and then.”