A sponsorship deal with Honda is driving renewed optimism from LA28 organizers.
The Japanese auto giant has signed on as a founding partner for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee and Team USA. This is LA28’s first founding partner sponsorship deal since the Salesforce partnership was announced in 2021; that deal, originally signed as a seven-year pact, ended in 2024 after just three years.
Founding partnerships are the highest-tier multiyear deals for LA28 and the USOPC, which oversees Team USA.
The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Honda joins a short list of LA28 founding partners including Delta, which signed a $400 million inaugural founding partnership deal in 2020, as well as media partner Comcast, which signed a USOPC extension before the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. The Honda deal was announced Monday at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Torrance, Calif.
This Honda partnership brings LA28 organizers, Team USA and Comcast a step closer toward the Games’ domestic corporate sponsorship goal of $2.5 billion. Organizers got off to a slow start hitting that target, but securing a major category in auto brings a sense of optimism heading into the Winter Games next year.
“People buy when they want to buy,” LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said in a phone interview. “Now we’re in this window where [sponsors] see the value and opportunity. It’s enough lead time, but it’s not so far out where they feel like they don’t have use cases.”
Previously, Team USA benefited from Toyota’s reported $835 million auto partnership with the IOC, but Toyota chose to not renew its deal after the 2024 Olympics, opening up a spot for an auto partner with Team USA. Toyota was part of the IOC’s top sponsorship tier, which also includes Coca-Cola and Intel.
Organizers decided last year to go back on the market to find an auto-category replacement. The news of Toyota’s partnership split came a few months after Salesforce parted ways with LA28.
“Especially in this market, this is a really important category,” said Wasserman, who noted that California is the largest car market in the nation. “We weren’t really sure, when this process started, if we would have the opportunity given our relationship with Toyota. But when they chose not to extend [with the IOC}, the category opened up. We were fortunate to find a great partner in Honda.”
LA28 organizers recently said that they hope to hit at least $2 billion in corporate revenue by the end of the year. Wasserman last month acknowledged the 11-year lead time between Los Angeles securing the Olympics and the actual event has challenged his sales team. But the Hollywood sports mogul remains hopeful, saying there were “two or three” more major sponsorship announcements coming soon. He says also not to count out the importance of lesser-tier deals, which add up, noting that Paris landed about 40% of its sponsorship revenue within the final 18 months.
“Our goal is to, at worst, hit our budgets. So that’s what we’re focused on.”
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