This is a true story. Names have been removed, but it did happen. In was the summer of 1995, and I was a graduate student living in Gainesville, Florida. We were exactly one year from the ‘96 Summer games in Atlanta, which meant I was going to be a five-hour drive from the center of the sporting universe and young and free enough to drop everything to drive north and crash on someone’s couch in between track and swimming and whatever else I could get to.
This is where it gets a bit odd. So this summer of ‘95, one year from the Games, I had just started seeing someone, loosely defined, and on maybe our third time hanging out we impulsively decided to go in together and enter the lottery to buy tickets, together, to go watch the Olympics, together, the next summer in Atlanta. Back in those days, it was old school, you had to fill out a paper application and mail it in before the deadline and wait for several months to see what you got.
I am certain you know where this is going. Let’s just say that this almost- relationship ended soon thereafter, not by my choosing, after which point we barely saw each other again in a sea of nearly 40,000 students. Which made this impulsive decision even more awkward when a few months later I got a package with two tickets to a bunch of Olympic events. We had won, I suppose. Even though we didn’t get every ticket we asked for, we got a bunch, which created an incredibly awkward situation with someone I basically barely knew.
I’ll bypass most of the details, but we did run into each other soon thereafter on campus, and she spared me further embarrassment by letting me know I could have the tickets, which meant that I ended up going to the Games with a friend who actually predicted this would happen when I first told him the story.
Why all this prelude? Simply to illustrate the fact that in 2026, some 30 years later as the U.S. looks toward its first Summer Olympic Games since then in 2028 in Los Angeles, there is absolutely no way this could possibly happen today. For like 100 reasons.
We know this because just last week, the LA Games opened up its advanced ticket sales by online lottery, and most people who managed to get a time slot found tickets either sold out or exorbitantly expensive. Like $1,000 a piece to a track and field event if you could get it – and not front row in the finals of the 100, but just tickets. Apparently there was a collection of $28 tickets, available primarily to Los Angeles residents, but their scarcity makes them feel more myth than reality. Like no one seems to have seen one in the wild. At this point, it sounds like most everything is sold out, or at least this wave of sales, which means if you have aspirations of going to the Games in a couple of years, you either need serious corporate ties or start saving your nickels for one wild ride on the secondary market.
According to Games organizers, these market-based prices will help keep the hosting city from incurring debt. With an expected price tag of more than $7 billion, discount admission might end up costing the public in taxes, something I doubt the already high-taxed state residents would enjoy. To be clear, the economics of hosting is not for the faint of heart, which is why few countries take the risk, and many who do plan on either federal debt or cheap labor.
So these American Games will take a more American economic tact – let capitalism run its due course to find every last dollar. That’s good for paying the bills. Not so much for anyone who assumed the inconvenience of hosting the world’s athletes might mean at least a shot at watching them play on something other than a big screen. Unfortunately, after last week’s ticket drop, that seems less likely. But do enjoy the traffic.
So you can see, what happened to me in 1996 could never happen today, especially not on a grad student budget. So much for impulse and romance. Then again, maybe instead of planning for the Olympics, young folks might simply try to get past a third date.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the College of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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