Because it first opened in 1923, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has been the only real dwelling of USC soccer. No main sports activities workforce within the metropolis’s historical past has performed in the identical venue for longer.
However after greater than a century spent by USC within the metropolis’s iconic stadium by the campus, The Instances realized that the 2028 Summer season Olympics and Paralympic Video games probably will drive USC to discover a new dwelling for its soccer workforce in 2028, with the likeliest choice being SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
Folks with data of the state of affairs not licensed to debate it publicly advised The Instances that the Coliseum wouldn’t be prepared for the beginning of the school soccer season in September 2028 due to the $100-million short-term monitor that’s being constructed on high of the Coliseum subject to host the track-and-field competitors on the L.A. Olympics and Paralympic Video games.
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The logistics nonetheless are being labored out with LA28, the town’s organizing committee, and USC has not made a closing determination about the place the 2028 soccer season will likely be performed. A supply mentioned the college hasn’t formally decided whether or not the Coliseum subject might be prepared later within the fall, maybe to host a portion of USC’s 2028 dwelling schedule. However even whether it is logistically doable, it’s not clear that USC’s athletic division would discover that association in its greatest curiosity, given it might imply uprooting the workforce midseason or spending a protracted stretch of the season away from L.A.
“USC and LA28 are working in lockstep on all logistics for the Olympic and Paralympic Video games,” USC athletics spokesperson Cody Worsham mentioned in an announcement. “We’ll share particulars with the general public when they’re finalized.”
SoFi Stadium officers declined to remark when requested about USC’s doable transfer to the venue in 2028.
With the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Video games set for Aug. 27, 2028, there could be simply two weeks for the short-term monitor to be eliminated and the grass subject under to be restored forward of USC’s scheduled 2028 dwelling opener on Sept. 9. A number of folks advised The Instances that’s not a possible timeline for a construction LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman as soon as referred to as “the most costly and doubtless difficult factor we really should construct” forward of the 2028 Video games.
This isn’t a brand new drawback at USC. Discussions concerning the plausibility of the soccer program sharing the Coliseum with the Olympics in 2028 hint again properly earlier than athletic director Jennifer Cohen was employed in 2023. The idea at one level, in line with an individual acquainted with these discussions, was that with some intelligent scheduling, USC must miss solely a house sport or two.
Now, in line with folks acquainted with the state of affairs, USC is anticipated to spend the 2028 season at SoFi Stadium, which hosts the NFL’s Rams and Chargers. By that time, it additionally stands out as the dwelling subject of the town’s different Huge Ten soccer workforce.
Rose Bowl attorneys contend that UCLA already acknowledged it plans to commerce in its dwelling stadium, the place it has performed since 1982, for the fashionable SoFi Stadium despite a lease settlement that doesn’t expire till 2044. The town of Pasadena and the Rose Bowl Working Co. have sued the college and SoFi Stadium’s possession in hopes of blocking the Bruins’ transfer.
If UCLA forges on with plans to desert the Rose Bowl subsequent yr for SoFi, all 4 of the town’s main soccer groups might be enjoying underneath the identical roof two years later.
These logistics, nonetheless, pale compared to what it’ll take to host Olympic monitor and subject on the Coliseum in 2028, in the identical stadium the place the competitors was held nearly a century earlier. The most important impediment LA28 confronted utilizing an iconic venue that hosted the 1984 Olympics is that there wasn’t sufficient room on the Coliseum flooring for an Olympic-sized monitor.
Renovations within the early Nineteen Nineties added 14 rows of seats on the backside of the bowl, shrinking the dimensions of the Coliseum subject. The answer requires set up of a monitor 11 toes above the sector that stretches over the primary few rows of stadium seating to satisfy Olympic requirements.
To construct the short-term monitor, the Coliseum’s turf and the grime beneath it is going to be scraped away, right down to the stadium’s concrete base the place columns will likely be positioned about each 10 toes. That building on the Coliseum is anticipated to start instantly after the Trojans end their dwelling soccer schedule in November 2027.
Invoice Hanway, the chief vp for AECOM — the infrastructure consulting agency employed to supervise LA28’s preparations — advised The Instances in June 2024 that the monitor was “an extremely complicated construct” in “an extremely tight house.”
Taking the monitor down will likely be its personal problem, one that can take longer than the two-week window between the top of the Video games and the start of USC’s 2028 slate. When an analogous construction was constructed for the 2014 Commonwealth Video games in Glasgow, Scotland, the soccer workforce that performed within the stadium — Queen’s Park FC — didn’t return for greater than a yr.
Except that timeline might be slashed, the Trojans might spend the 2028 season switching off Saturdays with their rivals, who, for one yr, could be throughout the hallway versus throughout city.
USC and UCLA shared the Coliseum for 54 years earlier than the Bruins moved to the Rose Bowl in 1982. For 33 of these years, the Coliseum additionally hosted the Rams on Sundays. Now the Chargers play there too.
If that feels too crowded to USC, the Rose Bowl is the one different choice on the town — and out of the blue it might be in critical want of a tenant.
However as of now, in line with an individual acquainted with the state of affairs, SoFi Stadium is the one venue that’s been mentioned as a possible short-term dwelling.
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