The city of Los Angeles, in the U.S. state of California, has bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host the Summer Olympic Games 10 times, more than any other city in the world."US Cities Bidding for the Olympics", OlympStats, December 15, 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2025. After the success of its most recent bid, Los Angeles will have hosted the Olympics three times, in 1932, 1984, and 2028. It is thus tied with London and Paris as the city which has hosted the most Olympic Games. However, Los Angeles has never been chosen over a rival candidate in the bidding process. It has only been selected as the host city under atypical circumstances: when it was chosen before any bidding process had begun for 1932, when no other candidates submitted a bid for 1984, and when two cities were the only candidates for either 2024 or 2028.

A movement led by local real estate developer William May Garland advocated for Los Angeles to host the Olympics as early as 1920, and succeeded in bringing the event to the city in 1932. Garland later founded the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games (SCCOG) in 1939, which has been advocating for the Games to be held in Los Angeles ever since. The city submitted a bid for every Summer Olympics from 1948 to 1984. Beginning with bids for the 1960 Summer Olympics, the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) took responsibility for choosing one American city to bid to the IOC for each Games. Los Angeles' bids from 1960 to 1972 were passed over in favor of Detroit, sometimes leading to conflict between the two cities. When Detroit stopped bidding, the USOC nominated Los Angeles as its candidate from 1976 to 1984. After Los Angeles successfully hosted the Olympics in 1984, SCCOG resumed its activities and submitted proposals to host most of the available Summer Olympics from 2004 to 2024. The 2024 bid was the first of these to be approved by the USOC, and led to Los Angeles being awarded hosting rights for the 2028 Summer Olympics by the IOC without contest."About Us", Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games. Retrieved October 30, 2025.

1924 and 1928 The Southern California Olympic Games Committee was originally created to organize tryouts for athletes hoping to attend the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. One of these was a track and field meet held at Tournament Park in Pasadena, as a qualification event for athletes going to the U.S. Olympic trials at Harvard Stadium. During a meeting preparing for this event on the evening of June 1, 1920, members discussed the city of Los Angeles' plans for a new large stadium in Exposition Park (which would ultimately become Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum). At the meeting, it was suggested that the stadium could potentially be used as the primary venue for the 1924 Summer Olympics."Pasadena Olypmpic (sic) Details Are Fixed; Tickets On Sale", Pasadena Star-News, June 2, 1920, page 19. A column in the previous day's Long Beach Telegram had complained that "from time to time various cities in this country flood the presses with items that their city wants the 1924 Olympic games", and argued that any country which had already hosted an Olympics (as the United States had with the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis) would likely have to wait "fifty years or more" before being awarded another."Sporting Gossip", Long Beach Daily Telegram, May 31, 1920, page 11. The committee members countered this argument by saying that past precedents were likely to be broken in the aftermath of World War I.

The idea caught on quickly. On June 3, the Community Development Association, which was partnering with the city to plan and build the stadium, announced that it would send "a delegation of prominent Los Angeles men" to Antwerp to meet with the IOC and advocate for their city as the next Olympic host."Mayor Refuses to Sign Name to Pact", Pasadena Star-News, June 3, 1920, page 14. William May Garland, a local real estate developer who was the president of the Community Development Association, was one of the leaders of the delegation."L.A. Is To Bid For Eighth Olympiad Scheduled For Year 1924", Los Angeles Evening Express, July 14, 1920, second section, front page. The next day, it was reported that Gustavus Town Kirby, the president of the USOC, supported the idea and promised he would "aid in every way possible." Pasadena's planned Rose Bowl stadium, which also had not yet begun construction, was offered as an alternate venue for the Games if Los Angeles' stadium plan fell through."City May Get 1924 Olympic Games, World Athletic Classic, Is Word Brought Here", Pasadena Post, June 4, 1920, front page and page nine.

Garland was joined by his two sons and Robert Weaver, president of the Southern California chapter of the Amateur Athletic Union, on a three-month trip to Antwerp, sailing on the RMS Olympic in July.Siegel, Barry. Dreamers and Schemers: How an Improbable Bid for the 1932 Olympics Transformed Los Angeles from Dusty Outpost to Global Metropolis, University of California Press, 2020. Garland met with Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who had founded the IOC in 1894 and had been its president ever since. Coubertin and the other members of the IOC were impressed by Garland's presentation, and the minutes of the IOC session recorded that "Mr. Garland from Los Angeles made a brilliant presentation of the city's candidacy." However, Coubertin desired that his own home city of Paris would host in 1924 (although it had previously hosted in 1900) and had already promised the 1928 Summer Olympics to Amsterdam. The final decision was postponed until the next IOC session in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1921, and Los Angeles' candidacy was filed away alongside 13 other bids, including American bids from Atlantic City, Boston, and Chicago.

In the meantime, the proposal for the Coliseum in Exposition Park depended on a referendum to approve municipal bonds that would fund its construction, scheduled for August 31, 1920. Three days before the vote, Garland and Weaver telegraphed back from Antwerp with an optimistic message: "If citizens vote for bond issues firmly believe world's greatest sporting event will be ours. Urge voters to insure world prominence for their city.""Olympiad Here If Bonds Carry", Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1920, Part II, page 3. This last-minute message to voters was unsuccessful, and the referendum was narrowly defeated. The bond issue needed a two-thirds majority (66.7%) to pass, and only about 65% voted yes."Five Policemen Ousted; Woolwine's Majority Growing; Few Votes Beat Memorial Hall; Latest Returns On Primary In L. A. County", Los Angeles Record, September 1, 1920, front page.

Returning to Los Angeles in late September, Garland negotiated an alternate funding arrangement to build the Coliseum: the Community Development Association would lease the land from the city, loan money from private banks to fund construction, and then rent the finished stadium back to the city for 10 years before giving joint ownership of the stadium to the city and Los Angeles County. Officials were concerned that this arrangement could violate state law, and they sent a test case to the Supreme Court of California before pursuing it.Riess, Steven. "Power Without Authority: Los Angeles' Elites and the Construction of the Coliseum", Journal of Sport History 8:1, Spring 1981, pages 50–65. While waiting for a verdict in this case, Garland was informed by William Milligan Sloane, an American who had been a member of the IOC since its founding, on March 23, 1921, that "protests against assigning the next Olympiad to America have been received from substantially every European country". The next day, Garland wrote to Coubertin to advocate for Los Angeles as a host. Coubertin replied that "the hate of the world is such that the California plan for 1924 seems very hard now to put up", and said that Europeans wanted the 1928 Olympics "within their reach" as well.

The IOC gathered for the 7th Olympic Congress and the 19th IOC Session in Lausanne in June 1921. Coubertin had recently announced his plans to retire after the 1924 Olympics were celebrated, and he urged the committee members to approve his proposals for the 1924 and 1928 Olympics as a parting gift. Up to that point, all Olympic hosts had been approved by a unanimous vote of all committee members. When the host cities were chosen on June 2, the delegations from four countries opposed Coubertin's motion, but both proposals were approved. The candidate cities officially recorded for the 1924 Games were Amsterdam, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Paris, Prague, and Rome. Paris was chosen. The committee's attention then turned to the host for 1928, for which only Amsterdam and Los Angeles were recorded as candidates. Amsterdam was chosen.Mallon, Bill, and Ian Buchanan. "The Games of the VIIIth Olympiad (1924)" and "The Games of the IXth Olympiad (1928)", Historical Dictionary of the Olympic Movement, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005, pages xlv–xlvii.

Both American delegates to the committee, Sloane and Bartow S. Weeks, were ill and could not attend the session. Gustavus Kirby and his secretary Fred Rubien traveled to Lausanne in their stead. Kirby told Coubertin at the beginning of the session that Los Angeles was still interested in hosting in either 1924 or 1928. The Americans were unaware of the meeting in which the hosts were chosen, and they came to a meeting the next day prepared to present on Los Angeles' behalf, only to be told that the decision had already been made. Coubertin wrote to Garland on June 6 to apologize that he could not decline the city's offer in person, and he offered to let Los Angeles serve as a backup host in the event that political difficulties prevented Paris from holding the Olympics in 1924.

1932

In May 1921, the Supreme Court of California ruled that the public-private partnership planning to build the Memorial Coliseum was constitutionally permissible. The contract was signed by the city, the county, and the Community Development Association in November, leasing of Exposition Park to the latter group. Ground was broken on the stadium the following month, and it was completed on May 1, 1923.

During the stadium's construction, Garland sent Coubertin newspaper clippings about the ongoing progress, as well as renderings of John and Donald Parkinson's design for the finished structure. The two men became friends, and in November 1921, Coubertin offered Garland a seat as a member of the IOC, recently vacated by Allison V. Armour. Garland was officially elected to the IOC on March 17, 1922."Elect William Garland to Olympic Committee: President of Los Angeles A. C. Member of International Body", Associated Press, via the Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 18, 1922, page seven. Garland used this position to offer Los Angeles again as a potential backup host for either the 1924 or 1928 Olympics. Coubertin grew frustrated with these offers and urged him to instead make a bid for the next available Games, those of 1932.