The 2028 LA Olympics Are Two Years Out - The Smartest Brands Are Already Moving
The closing ceremony in Milan just wrapped. Kate Hudson belted out "California Dreamin'" in an NBC promo that made the whole country feel something. And just like that, the two-year countdown to the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics officially began. If you're a brand marketer reading this and thinking you've got time, you don't. The brands that win the Olympics aren't the ones that scramble six months out. They're the ones that start building relationships, locking in athletes, and mapping out activations while everyone else is still rewatching hockey highlights.
And there are a lot of highlights worth rewatching - because they offer a masterclass in what smart Olympic marketing really looks like. In this article, Hollywood Branded shares key Olympic marketing moments brands should be studying now as the road to LA 2028 begins.
Team USA Just Had Its Best Winter Games in History
The U.S. came out of Milano Cortina with 33 total medals. Twelve of them gold. That's the most gold medals the country has ever won at a Winter Olympics, breaking the record of 10 set on home soil in Salt Lake City back in 2002. The Americans finished second overall, behind only Norway's dominant 41-medal haul.
The final gold came in the most cinematic way possible. The U.S. men's hockey team beat Canada 2–1 in overtime to win their first gold since the "Miracle on Ice" in 1980. It happened on the exact 46th anniversary of that legendary game. Jack Hughes scored the game-winner, and a new generation of American hockey heroes was born overnight.
But hockey wasn't the only headline.
Alysa Liu came out of retirement and became the first American woman to win individual figure skating gold in 24 years, posting a career-best score of 226.79. Breezy Johnson won the women's downhill, Team USA's first gold of the Games, and then got engaged on the slopes four days later. Mikaela Shiffrin reclaimed her slalom crown 12 years after her first Olympic gold. Elana Meyers Taylor, at 41 years old, became the oldest woman to win individual gold at a Winter Olympics with her monobob victory, dropping to her knees with the American flag and signing to her two young sons that their mom was a champion. Elizabeth Lemley, just 20, won gold in freestyle skiing moguls and led a U.S. 1–2 finish. Alex Ferreira took gold in the men's halfpipe. The U.S. women's hockey team dominated with five consecutive shutouts. And Laila Edwards made history as the first Black woman to play on the U.S. women's hockey team, finishing the tournament with 2 goals and 6 assists.
This was not a quiet Games for Team USA. This was a statement. And for brand marketers, it just created a pipeline of athlete stories worth investing in.
Photo Credit: ESPN
The LA 2028 Opportunity Is Bigger Than You Think
The 2028 Summer Olympics will be the first Games on U.S. soil since 2002. They'll run from July 14 to 30, 2028, followed by the Paralympics from August 15 to 27. That's nearly seven weeks of global attention centered on Los Angeles, a city that sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and culture in a way no other Olympic host city can match.
The numbers back it up. NBC averaged 32 million viewers per day during the Paris 2024 Games across digital and linear. There were 412 billion engagements with Olympic content on social media. With LA 2028 competitions scheduled largely during prime time for American audiences, those numbers are expected to climb significantly.
The business model is shifting too. The IOC has loosened its historically tight grip on marketing restrictions. Athletes now have more freedom to post on social media during the Games. The IOC is introducing first-ever venue naming rights, opening up new commercial visibility that didn't exist at any previous Olympics. And the integrated sponsorship model now bundles rights across the Summer Olympics, the Paralympics, and Team USA into a single package.
Founding partners Honda, Starbucks, Google, Delta, T-Mobile, and Intuit have reportedly committed near $200 million each. Coca-Cola will celebrate 100 years of Olympic partnership. Over $2 billion in sponsorships have already been secured, surpassing Paris 2024's total more than two years early.
This is not business as usual. The marketing landscape for LA 2028 is being rebuilt from the ground up, and the brands that move early will have the most leverage.
Photo Credit: Milano Cortina 2026
The Athlete Window Is Open Right Now
Here's where it gets interesting for brands that don't have $200 million to spend on a founding partnership.
Every Olympic cycle produces a crop of athletes who go from relatively unknown to household names in the span of two weeks. Milano Cortina was no different. The key for marketers is understanding that the window of peak relevance is short, and the time to start building those relationships is before the window closes.
The breakout stars from 2026 are available now. Athletes like Breezy Johnson, Elizabeth Lemley, Alysa Liu, Jack Hughes, and Laila Edwards are riding a wave of media attention and public goodwill. Their social followings are growing. Their stories are compelling. And most of them haven't signed the kinds of deals that will make them unreachable in six months.
At the same time, established names like Mikaela Shiffrin, Chloe Kim, Elana Meyers Taylor, and the U.S. women's hockey squad carry built-in credibility and fanbases that extend across multiple Olympic cycles.
Then there's the summer athlete pipeline. Katie Ledecky, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Steph Curry, Simone Biles, Noah Lyles, and others already featured in the NBC handoff promo will be everywhere as 2028 approaches.
And here's one most brands haven't caught yet: flag football is debuting as an Olympic sport in LA 2028. It brings NFL-adjacent athletes, audiences, and cultural relevance to the Olympic stage for the first time. USA Football was just certified as the sport's first National Governing Body. The athletes who make the inaugural U.S. flag football team will become historic figures in the sport by default. The brands that partner with them early will own that narrative.
Why Being in LA Changes Everything
LA is not Paris. It's not Tokyo. It's Hollywood. The collision of sports, entertainment, and culture will be unlike anything we've seen at a Games.
Celebrities in the stands became a storyline in Paris. In LA, it will be the storyline. The opening ceremony will be split between the LA Memorial Coliseum and SoFi Stadium. Swimming is moving to SoFi to accommodate bigger crowds. Basketball moves to the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood. The Rose Bowl hosts soccer. Long Beach hosts 11 sports. The city understands spectacle, and the 2028 Games will be produced with that sensibility.
The Paralympics add another dimension most marketers are undervaluing. For the first time, Paralympic rights are bundled into the LA28 sponsorship model. They run through late August, extending the marketing runway by weeks. And the audience rewards authenticity in a way that's increasingly rare.
Our agency is based right here in Los Angeles. We've spent over a decade building relationships across the entertainment and sports marketing landscape in this city. When the Games come to our hometown, that proximity becomes a competitive advantage. It means access to venues, athletes, local partnerships, and the cultural ecosystem that will drive the most memorable activations of these Games. Being on the ground here isn't a nice-to-have for brands looking to activate around LA 2028. It's essential.
Photo Credit: Team USA Hockey
The Clock Is Running
Two years sounds like a lot. It's not. Athlete contracts take months to negotiate. Creative campaigns take months to develop. Activation logistics in a city as complex as Los Angeles take months to plan.
Milano Cortina gave us a record-breaking U.S. performance, a new crop of star athletes, and the emotional handoff to Los Angeles. The stage is set. The question is whether your brand will be part of the story or watching it from the sidelines.
This is the first installment in our LA 2028 Olympic Marketing Series, where we're breaking down everything brands need to know to win the biggest cultural moment of the decade. Next up: the full Olympic sponsorship ladder, from $200 million founding partnerships to five-figure athlete deals, and where your brand can enter the game at every budget level.
Photo Credit: LA Times
Eager To Learn More?
If you’re ready to go even deeper on how brands can win big around the Olympics and major sporting moments, check out these related Hollywood Branded insights:
- From Ad‑Free Zones to Strategic Branding: How the Olympics Are Evolving
- How Brands Are Leveraging the Paris Olympics for Global Reach
- Winning Strategies: How Sports Brands Leverage Partnerships for Marketing Success
- Olympic Celebrity Endorsements During the Games
- Olympic Athletes That Brands Should Work With
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