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PARIS — No other city in the world can do what Paris has done over the last three weeks, staging the drama of Olympic competition against the mise-en-scene of a glowing Eiffel Tower and the lush gardens of Versailles.
The 2024 Summer Games, with their classical trappings and sheer visual beauty, raised an important question.
How can Los Angeles possibly top this?
The organizers that will bring the Olympics to Southern California in 2028 offered a sneak peek during Sunday night’s closing ceremony at Stade de France. Instead of tradition, they leaned into production values and pop culture.
Like something out of “Mission: Impossible,” Tom Cruise rappelled from the rim of the stadium to the field below, then roared off on a motorcycle. Snoop Dogg dropped a few bars. Billie Eilish performed, albeit remotely, from Southern California beaches.
Tom Cruise rappels from the top of the Stade de France during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Sunday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“We don’t have an Eiffel Tower,” said Casey Wasserman, chairman of the LA28 organizing committee. “We’ve got a Hollywood sign.”
The next host city always gets 15 or so minutes near the end of each Olympic closing. These presentations often involve music and dancers, some colorful lights. They often get overlooked.
But LA28 needed to make a splash in Paris. A big part of the reason was money.
Over the last six months, Wasserman and his private group remained secretive about their abbreviated production. Not until details began to leak last week did they acknowledge hiring Ben Winston.
Winston was the Emmy-winning executive producer of “The Late Late Show With James Corden” and thus partly responsible for bringing the world carpool karaoke.
The 42-year-old Brit said in a statement that he wanted Sunday night’s presentation to evoke “the city’s people, creativity, music and, of course, sport, all wrapped up with a little Hollywood magic.”
H.E.R. performs the U.S. national anthem during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at the Stade de France on Sunday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
All of this matters because LA28 saw its moment in the spotlight as a crucial advertisement, not only for viewers but also big business. As the International Olympic Committee said: “All eyes will be on you.”
The 2028 Olympics will cost an estimated $7 billion — a figure likely to rise — and organizers have vowed to cover all expenses with IOC contributions, ticket sales and, important, corporate sponsorships.
Despite having deals with Nike, Deloitte and Delta Air lines in hand, LA28 is about $1 billion short of its $2.5-billion goal in the last category with four years to go.
The numbers are important to Southern California residents because, if the Games go over budget, city and state lawmakers have agreed to provide hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.
Organizing committees hope an eye-catching presentation will generate excitement and jump-start sponsorship negotiations. The problem, said Michael Payne, a former IOC marketing executive, is that “not many of them stand out when they are up against the full power of the real ceremony.”
Paris had reason to celebrate after producing a Games free of major glitches and full of memorable performances.
Global stars such as gymnast Simone Biles, tennis player Novak Djokovic and pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis lived up to their billing. Among the French athletes, swimmer Leon Marchand won five medals and NBA rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama led his teammates to the men’s basketball final, where they lost to LeBron James and the U.S.
With 9.5 million in ticket sales, venues were packed and loud. There was lots of predictable French goofiness, including the Olympic debut of breaking — previously known as breakdancing — and a viral moment from an ungainly Australian B-girl named ”Raygun.”
“There is no way we could have prepared for everything we have just experienced together,” said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee. “We wanted excitement, we got passion.”
Phoenix performs during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France on Sunday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
The closing ceremony featured a spiny, glistening figure, the “Golden Voyager,” that arrived from the night sky. Performers cartwheeled and danced along an interlocking series of platforms. Acrobats hung from giant wheels that rolled across a futuristic stage as scenes of past Olympics flickered up from the floor.
Artistic director Thomas Jolly said: “As a theater and opera director, the configuration of the stadium gives me the opportunity to use the tools of live performance: the lighting, the decor, the costumes, the machinery, the set design.”
It was creative and deeply symbolic and so very French, to the point that earlier in the day, when workers arrived with leaf blowers, it was hard to tell whether they were part of the rehearsal or just tidying up.
And when popular French band Phoenix played a mini-concert late in the program, athletes got so excited that they rushed the stage and had to be shooed away by the public address announcer.
After two-plus hours, L.A. took over.
Things started simply enough with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo handing the Olympic flag to her Los Angeles counterpart, Karen Bass, the first time two women have performed this tradition. Biles was there. Grammy winner H.E.R. sang the national anthem
Then Cruise appeared, spotlighted atop the stadium’s curved roofline. Looking a bit wind-blown, he made his big entrance and took hold of the flag, rushing off to the waiting motorcycle. From there, the action shifted to video.
It was a nod to both the movie business and the evolution of the Games into a made-for-television event. Cruise tore through the streets of Paris and onto a waiting cargo plane — “I’m on my way” — before skydiving to the Hollywood sign.
Tom Cruise carries the Olympic flag during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Games at Stade de France on Sunday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
A series of athletes took over, with Olympic mountain biker Kate Courtney pedaling the flag to the Coliseum, handing off to famed sprinter Michael Johnson who ran it to skateboarder Jagger Eaton on the beach.
There, by the Pacific — perhaps the only Southern California scenery that can compete with Paris — the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eilish and Snoop, joined by Dr. Dre, closed things out with a concert that bled into a one-hour show on NBC and Peacock.
It remains to be seen whether all this will achieve the desired effect of generating buzz — and dollars. But, having watched Paris close up, Wasserman knows he cannot replicate the Olympics of the last few weeks.
“The 2024 Games have been authentically French and Parisian,” he said. “And the 2028 Games will be authentically Los Angeles.”
