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- Paris 2024 was first attempt at unifying Olympic hospitality
- OnLocation has focused on more affordable, tailored packages in Milan-Cortina
- LA28 is regarded as the biggest opportunity
On Location is adamant that renewed interest in the Olympic Games and heightened demand for premium sporting experiences will make Los Angeles 2028 – and its reported US$1.3 billion hospitality contract with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – a “massive” success.
The 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics are the second of a three-Game partnership which began with Paris 2024 and marks the first time that Olympic hospitality has been centrally managed by a single provider.
The arrangement replaces a previously fragmented model where stakeholders such as national Olympic committees (NOCs) and sponsors had to negotiate with different companies.
However, Paris 2024 was a loss-making venture for TKO. The radical change in approach led to significant complexity and upfront costs, with the firm receiving criticism for the speed of ticket delivery and the high cost of packages relative to the degree of experience provided were also sources of criticism.
But what Paris 2024 did do was drive a resurgence in the Olympic movement and provide On Location with a valuable learning experience. Milan-Cortina 2026 presents another opportunity, albeit a smaller scale one, to refine the model and gain more experience ahead of LA 2028, which is widely regarded as the single biggest opportunity of the three-game contract.
More affordable packages, coupled with the need to provide experiences across a significantly wider geographical area have been priorities in Italy, where events are taking place in multiple regions.
Meanwhile, the LA28 organising committee has shown itself to be much more open minded when it comes to commercialising the Olympics, as evidenced by the fact that companies can purchase venue naming rights for the first time. while American sports fans are already accustomed to relatively high prices for sporting events.
“Paris was a learning experience for everybody – it was a new model, a new way of working. We’ve always viewed this as a three-game deal,” Ed Horne, chief operating officer at On Location told SportsPro in Milan. “We’ve applied those learnings to Milan-Cortina and as we look towards LA28, we’re very confident of success.
“We believe [LA28] is going to be massive. When you combine a major cultural, media and financial hub like LA with the interest in the Olympics, and the interest we’ve already seen in terms of deposits for tickets and suites that we’ve already seen – it’s going to be massive.”
“There’s also an incredibly well-developed, commercially-oriented organising committee that we’re working with.”
“Put those together and we really believe this is going to be a significant opportunity. The Games are coming to the USA in a way they haven’t in a long time.”
Expanding the appeal of hospitality through more affordable options at LA28 will make it more likely that a greater proportion of fans will consider an upgrade, especially given the growth of the sports tourism market.
“We live in an experiential economy,” Horne explained. “We all like material things but we’re in an age where communal experiences are something that people really engage in and share with each other. We saw that with Taylor Swift where people travelled to cities they’d never been to before [to watch the Eras Tour].
“Combining great sports experiences with cultural destinations is why we’re seeing [sports tourism] explode.”
This sports tourism effect has already been witnessed in the lead up to the 2026 Fifa World Cup, which also presents an opportunity for On Location as the official hospitality provider for the tournament.
While Fifa has faced criticism over the affordability of tickets sold through general sale, as well as practices such as dynamic pricing, the fact that more than 500 million requests have been made suggest that many fans are willing to pay significant sums for the right to attend matches – and potentially receive a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Crucially, the scale of the World Cup will provide the company with even more experience in managing hugely complex events and how to tailor its packages to maximise demand in the same country that will host the Olympics just two years later.
“This year will be the biggest year in sports hospitality ever,” said Horne. “There’s Milan-Cortina 2026, the Super Bowl we just finished in San Francisco, and then there’s a Fifa World Cup. We do 700 events for 120 rights holders around the world on an annual basis.”
“By last summer we had already eclipsed what [the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar] did in terms of [hospitality] sales. The tournament is massive – 104 matches, 16 venues, three countries. The logistics of that are phenomenal. We’ve sold packages to people in 100 countries and people see it as a travel opportunity. They’re buying [multiple] game packages – they’re not just staying in one city and staying there.
“People want to engage with in sport in a way that’s more than just being a passive spectator. They want an experience.”
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