For the last six months, my family has been planning a trip to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. I don’t just mean my husband and two kids. I mean my parents, sisters, aunt and uncle, cousins, and everyone’s spouses and kids: a total of 16 adults and 11 children, from toddlers to teens.

Not every one of us is a sports fan, but we all like the spectacle and global feeling of community that the Olympics represent. So in January, many of us signed up for the first drop of tickets on the LA28 site. Then we waited with excitement for the early-April emails that would assign us our 48-hour ticket-buying windows. 

We asked the kids which sports they wanted to see and plotted out events that would take place within a few days of one another. I wanted to see gymnastics; my cousin was interested in surfing; my son was dying to go to skateboarding. We all hoped to catch a glimpse of athletes at the peak of their craft amid the pageantry of the games. 

We thought we did everything right. But almost immediately, things went wrong. 

What I learned throughout this process is that even though the Olympics are billed as a family-friendly spectacle open to anyone around the globe, the reality is that there are two kinds of Olympics-goers: There are the people who can pay thousands of dollars to access premium tickets in a frictionless system — and then there are the rest of us. 

The Olympics aren’t unique in this respect. In a world where Taylor Swift and Beyonce tickets resell for thousands of dollars, an imbalance of supply and demand has created a K-shaped experience economy across music, sports, and entertainment, in which the richest people can buy their way out of scarcity while everyone else fights over the limited affordable inventory. In an increasingly online culture, live experiences have become more valuable than ever — but much harder for normal families to access. 

We loaded my cousin up with requests for all the things we wanted to see: gymnastics, skateboarding, swimming, weightlifting, baseball, BMX. But when she logged on, tickets to those sports were either unavailable or cost more than $1,000 a ticket. Tickets to the opening ceremony were unavailable; those for the closing ceremony cost nearly $5,000. The best she could find was archery or badminton for $136 per ticket and fencing for more than $300.  

“Even ping-pong is gone,” she texted our Olympics chat. 

We almost had her buy 12 tickets to cricket, a sport we collectively know nothing about, because the tickets were only $93. 

Just before her session timed out, some of us agreed to buy $117 tickets to the women’s field hockey quarterfinal, which we also know nothing about but at least seemed fast-paced and fun and was as close as our budgets would allow to any kind of medal event. 

Other family members signed on to their later time slots; there was no improvement in inventory, and by the time my turn rolled around, I didn’t even bother logging in.

Where were the tickets to the prime events? Many, it turns out, are reserved for people willing to pay a pricey premium. The Olympics have an official partnership with hospitality firm OnLocation, which can hook fans up with access to any event, as well on-site lounge access, special entrances, and premium food and beverages. No ticket lottery. No frenzied decision-making as your time slot ticks down. No deflating disappointment.

“We are seeing strong interest across the board,” an OnLocation rep told me. “There’s a convenience factor that resonates with new and repeat buyers.”

The rep could not reveal how many packages it has available for each event but said swimming, beach volleyball, and basketball are the best-sellers so far. Swimming starts at $800 for C-level seats in a preliminary round and goes up to almost $5,000 for B-level seats for the finals. Men’s semifinal basketball tickets start at $5,000 for C seats and go up to $8,500 for B. Some highly popular events, like gymnastics, haven’t even gone on sale yet, and some A-level seats are already sold out, although they may be restocked later.

It’s not just the most-wanted categories going the premium route; there are even packages for our field hockey game, with B seats in a hospitality package going for about five times what we paid for our C tickets.

The contrast with the last time Los Angeles hosted the Olympics is striking. In 1984, even premium events, like track and field (opens in new tab), were relatively affordable, at about $80 per ticket when adjusted for inflation. The closing ceremony was about $300 in inflation-adjusted dollars. No matter what ticket you bought, the ticketing fee was just $1, not 24% as it is today. 

One reason ticket prices have skyrocketed is simply demand: The population is larger, and more people travel internationally to events like the Olympics, Super Bowl, and World Cup than they did a few decades ago. 

It doesn’t help that service fees have risen precipitously to meet the rising demand. LA28 has defended the 24% service fee (opens in new tab)as being within industry standards and necessary to cover the costs of the ticketing platform development, customer service, payment processing, and distribution. Ticketmaster, which controls access to 80% of the nation’s venues, has a similar fee and has reportedly found ways around various legislative attempts (opens in new tab) to rein in these charges.

Much like higher ticketing fees, increased interest in premium packages is not limited to the Olympics. OnLocation has similar partnerships with FIFA; there has been controversy (opens in new tab) over the fact that it appears those with hospitality packages for the World Cup have been able to get better seats than those who bought à la carte tickets in the same seating tier. OnLocation was also the hospitality partner for the Super Bowl and sells packages to college sports games and music festivals. 

With all the time we spend on our devices, I’m glad people still put such a high value on real-world experiences. (Experience gifts for Mother’s Day hit a record this year, according to the National Retail Federation, with 1 in 3 consumers surveyed planning to give moms tickets to concerts or other events.) And as a San Francisco residential real estate reporter, I certainly understand how an imbalance in supply and demand can push prices to new heights.

But it also seems like we’ve lost something when events meant to bring people together, like the Olympics, become easily accessible only to the elite few.

My family was hoping the Olympics would be a memorable experience we would have together, not a process that’s equal parts frustration and FOMO. And we’re luckier than most, since we assume that if we do get tickets, we’ll be able to afford the plane tickets and accommodations that will also surely be at a premium in the summer of 2028. 

But we cannot pay thousands of dollars to access the hospitality packages that would guarantee access to the games we want to see. Instead, we’re pinning our hopes on a promised replenished supply in the next round of tickets, which is coming in August. We’ll automatically be reentered into these draws, which the LA28 team says will have “refreshed inventory across all Olympic sports,” until we each hit our 12-ticket per-person maximum. 

We’ve also been consoling ourselves that we’re not alone. In the aftermath of the first-round ticket drop, many took to online forums to discuss their shock and disappointment. 

“We ended up not purchasing — I’m not spending hundreds to watch fencing,” one Angeleno posted on Reddit (opens in new tab).

“My window was on Monday and there was not a single ticket for any sport any day for under $200. I bought the absolute cheapest track and field tickets available and they were still $400/ea,” wrote another (opens in new tab).

Others who have attended past Olympics offered a conciliatory take (opens in new tab), telling hopefuls to hang in there and wait for more ticket drops or the official resale market in 2027. In the past, markups on resale tickets have not been allowed, but the LA28 team has been notably mum on that point so far. 

A few days after my bust of a lottery slot had passed, I got an email from LA28 telling me I would automatically be entered into the next draw. 

A few days after that, I got another email, this one extolling the virtues of the hospitality program, including “once-in-a-lifetime moments.” My family is still hoping to experience those moments together — without having to pay a major markup.