Loading summary
Transcript78 lines
- [00:01]
Kalshi Advertiser
The World Cup Champion will be crowned this week and you can trade the tourney through the finals on Kalshi, America's number one prediction market platform. Right now Spain is trading at 58% to beat Argentina, meaning 100 trade pays out $166 if they win. On Kalshi, you're trading against other people in a live market. No house, no odds makers. For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code hoops to get $10 when you trade $10k a l s h I kalshi trade the beautiful game 18 only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Kalshi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see kalshi.com regulatory
- [00:47]
Interviewer Aaron
I've
- [00:47]
Podcast Host
got some exciting news today. The United States Olympics are less than two years away. This is different from my normal news coverage. It's not political and hopefully it'll come bring people together. Because the Olympics is a competition that brings folks from across the world, 100 plus countries together in one place to celebrate the game of sport. I'm a huge Olympics fan.
- [01:12]
Interviewer Aaron
I love the Olympics.
- [01:13]
Podcast Host
I love watching it every time, especially the Summer Olympics. I'm a huge tennis fan, huge gymnastics fan, huge swimming fan. So it's why I was excited to have the opportunity to interview the CEO, the man in charge, the man running the show for the LA 28 Olympics, Reynolds Hoover. Now Reynolds, he is a guy who needs no introduction, but he is a three star general chosen in 2024 to lead the LA Olympics, a $7 billion project. This is a different style content. I sat down for a while to speak with him about what the LA Olympics looks like, what sports are coming in, what sports are not there. Some fun facts about the Olympics, how they're turning a massive football stadium into a swimming stadium, and so much more. Want you to watch it. Please if you can share this like comment share. Get the word out and let me know what you think in the comments below. This is a new style of interview, something I haven't done before. My conversation with General Hoover. Excited to be here with Reynold Hoover
- [02:15]
Interviewer Aaron
who is the CEO of LA28. We are two years out.
- [02:18]
Reynolds Hoover
I know. Crazy.
- [02:19]
Interviewer Aaron
How does it feel?
- [02:20]
Reynolds Hoover
It feels great. It's unbelievable. I mean, you know, I'm two years into the job and two years to go, so it's pretty crazy. The excitement in the building and around town just because of, you know, our launch of our volunteer Program today is just palpable, you can feel it.
- [02:34]
Interviewer Aaron
Well, I want to ask you about that, but I also want to ask you, how do you become the CEO of the LA Olympics?
- [02:40]
Reynolds Hoover
It wasn't on my bucket list. I was home, I was retired, you know, three star general retired. I was doing work for the Army War College as a senior mentor and wasn't looking for a job. I got an email out of the blue and they said, hey, we're looking for the CEO of LA28. We'd like to talk to you. And I showed my wife. I'm like, hey, look at this. She's like, oh my God, why would they pick you for that job? And then I interviewed and I just looked at it like this. This was an opportunity really to come out of retirement. I went to West Point, I took an oath at West Point to a life of public service. And this was an opportunity to serve again, just not in uniform, to help unite the world around sport and unite the nation around sport. And when you look at what's happened with World cup around the US and how uniting that has been, that to me is just a precursor of what's coming in LA in 28.
- [03:33]
Interviewer Aaron
So this is a massive operation. Huge, massive. What does a day in the life of the CEO of the LA Olympics look like?
- [03:39]
Reynolds Hoover
Well, this morning I started at 6, so we're still on the go. But look, every day is kind of something different. We've got a great team. When I got here, we were about 120 people. And today we're about 850. We'll be over a thousand by the end of the year. By the time the games come, 5,000. And so a day in the life for me is typically meeting with my senior team. They're the ones that are doing the hard work. I just have the corner office, you know, dealing with our stakeholders and talking to the city and, you know, just kind of doing the things that need to get done at my level so that my senior leaders and the rest of our team, they can get the job done because they're really doing the hard turn.
- [04:24]
Interviewer Aaron
How much does an operation like this cost?
- [04:27]
Reynolds Hoover
Our operating budget is $7.2 billion. That's the break even.
- [04:31]
Interviewer Aaron
Is any of that money coming from the federal government? From taxpayers? How do you know this?
- [04:35]
Reynolds Hoover
Yeah, so we're a nonprofit. Our budget is $7.2 billion to break even. We don't get money directly from the federal government. The US is the only country that doesn't fund its athletes, its Olympic and Paralympic Athletes and doesn't fund the organizing committees. So like France for Paris and Italy, Milano, Cortina, you know, their governments were backstops and helped fund the game. So we don't have that. So we don't get direct federal funding, we don't get direct funding from the state of California, and we pay for our city services here in la. So the budget is something I pay very close attention to because there's only a finite amount that we can get. We're very fortunate. We've got incredible sponsors. Our corporate sponsorship is a little over $2.1 billion so far. Our goal is 2.5. We will surely hit that by the end of the year. We've exceeded ioc prior Games corporate fundraising capability. Our next big funding source is our ticket sales, which is about $2.5 billion in our budget. And then we get some other money from broadcast and IOC and merchandise sales and things like that. But those are our revenue sources.
- [05:51]
Interviewer Aaron
And when you're building out the Games right now in L. A and around Southern California, I mean, what does that look like? Are you building new stadiums? Are you retrofitting old stadiums? What is operational?
- [06:00]
Reynolds Hoover
Yeah, so we're a no build Games, which is great. And this is the third time that LA has hosted the games, right. Since 1932, 1984, and of course, in 2028. And we have, you know, we are blessed that there are very few places around the world that have the incredible iconic venues that we have. This will be the biggest Games in Olympic history. And so in order to do that and do it in a fiscally responsible way, you have to use incredibly iconic and just tremendous venues that we have here. Places like the Coliseum, places like the Rose Bowl. Right. So just really iconic. And so we're not building any permanent new structures. And interesting enough, in 1932 was also a no build games here in LA where they used existing structures. A little Olympic trivia for you is that in the Rose bowl, they actually built a temporary velodrome in the Rose Bowl. Yeah. And so what we're doing is we're using places like the Coliseum, but in the Coliseum, we have to do some upgrades to it for the Games because the seating bowl was expanded and that shrunk the field of play. So you can't do track and field in the Coliseum anymore. So as a result, we're having to build a platform on top of the existing field that'll go about 13 rows or so up into the seating bowl so that we can do track and field again in the Coliseum just as they did in 84 and as they did in 32. And so there's a number of other venues like that, but there are some that we have to just do some additions to and then we're building some temporary venues.
- [07:34]
Interviewer Aaron
Well, I also heard that you guys are going to have swimming in SOFI stadium. How are you going to get a pool into SoFi?
- [07:40]
Reynolds Hoover
That's a great question. I don't know. No, look, the 2028 Stadium in Inglewood, as we call it, will have two swimming pools built in there, which is incredible. I was just there for the quarterfinals World cup, and every time I go into that stadium, I just say to myself, how in the world are we building two swimming pools in here? And they're not just two swimming pools. They will be the biggest indoor Olympic swimming pools ever built. And there is a company, believe it or not, that actually does specialize in building temporary pools. And so we're partnering with them. They will come in and actually build the pools in there. And then. And the more challenging piece is, you know, you didn't ask me is how are we going to build the pool in there and then do opening ceremonies in the stadium right after.
- [08:30]
Interviewer Aaron
That'll be fun.
- [08:31]
Reynolds Hoover
So what we have to do is build a platform over the swimming pool. We'll do opening ceremonies and then we have about two weeks to take the platform up and then be able to get the pool back into shape. Both that and the warm up pool to be able to do swimming competition. And so in order to. To do that, we actually had to swap the schedule. So usually swimming is first in the competition schedule. We had to swap it with athletics, track and field. So track and field will go first and then swimming. And that was in order to accommodate our ability to transition the pool from. Or the stadium from an opening ceremonies where there's a platform over the pool to. Those are the kind of things, Aaron, that keeps me up at night is to think about the time constraints that we have. So you asked about our budget. Right. So 90% of our budget will be spent in the last 12 to 18 months. And the construction windows that we have for Coliseum or for the stadium in Inglewood is pretty small. And so the margins of error are even tighter.
- [09:40]
Interviewer Aaron
So I hear this is more stressful than being a three star general.
- [09:42]
Reynolds Hoover
It is. And I was a bomb technician for 15 years. So that's when I start worrying. Then you got to worry.
- [09:48]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [09:49]
Interviewer Aaron
I can only imagine. You mention the volunteer program.
- [09:51]
Reynolds Hoover
Yeah.
- [09:51]
Interviewer Aaron
You guys had a launch this morning. How is that? And what do Folks need to know if they want to volunteer.
- [09:56]
Reynolds Hoover
Incredible. Okay, well, first things first. If you want to volunteer, go to our website. We've got opportunities for everyone. You know, we need about 60,000 volunteers. The volunteers are the backbone of the game. We want people, you know, they're the people behind the scenes. They're the crew. So we want you to be part of the LA28 volunteer crew. I mean, they're the ones that make it happen. They, they come from all over the world. The volunteers, they get in your heart. They're always happy. They just want to help you. They really make the experience not only for the fans, but the athletes as well. So that's the first thing. Go to our website, sign up today. And today, as I said, we launched this morning. We were out at Griffith park and we did some cleanup of the park with Friends of Griffith Park. And we're really thankful for Delta Airlines, who's our presenting partner for our entire volunteer program. They were out there with us. But Griffith park was important for us as well because it's also one of our venues. The Griffith. The Griffith park zone will be the site of Cycling Road and also at the LA Zoo, which is also there at Griffith park. Just down the road a little bit will be the site of Para Cycling Road. So, yeah, so it was fun to be out there. Today. We had almost 100 people out there, volunteers. Our volunteer program, we started about 18 months early, and we've activated volunteers across the city and across the county doing about 30 different events. From cleaning up Venice beach, for example, that was our first event and that was important to us because Venice beach will be the site of the first medal event, which is the women's triathlon on the morning of the 15th. And so we were really excited about being able to do that.
- [11:39]
Interviewer Aaron
We mentioned all these volunteer events, cleanups. How does, and I mean, how do the Olympics really impact LA as a city, but LA county as a whole. Yeah, local businesses here. What's the impact?
- [11:50]
Reynolds Hoover
Well, look, the Southern California area governments last fall released a report, an economic impact report, showing that the economic impact of having the Games here in the LA region will be about $17 billion. And they did that independent of us. So it wasn't a study that we commissioned. And so one and top, I think, is just that economic impact. We have a procurement program that we are dedicated to which will drive about 25% of our directed spend of purchase to local businesses, local and small business. And we're really supportive of that. We've been very anxious to work with all of the local business partners in the community. So those are, from an economics perspective, the Games are really going to be an uplifting event. I think the other piece for us is there's this legacy of, I'll just say, the volunteerism. So we have about a little over 300,000 people in our volunteer database today. And we've talked to the city and we've talked to the county and some of our venue cities as well, is to say, when the Games are over, here is a database, a legacy of people that have said, raised their hand and said, hey, we want to be a part. We want to be a volunteer and help our city. And that's what you've seen in the events that we've done around the area. And then I think another big program that we've done is a program called Play LA. So unlike 84, when they had about a $200 million, $240 million surplus after the Games, we decided that we weren't going to wait until the Games were over. We wanted to do something now. And so we committed $160 million to a program called Play LA so that every kid in LA can participate in sports, even kids with adaptive needs. And that's never been done before. Last year, we celebrated with Mayor Bass the millionth enrollment in the program. And so far, we've given the city $100 million of the $160 million, and it has been a great success. And I'll tell you, Erin, one of the success stories to me is there was a young woman who was in the program who went to Paris and she got a silver medal in para shot put. Her name is Ariel Middleton, and she was, I believe, the youngest Paralympian to ever get a Paralympic medal. And to me, you know, she started out in the Play LA program, and to me, she is the future of not only the Paralympic movement, but she's a future leader of America. That's another legacy that we're really proud of.
- [14:24]
Interviewer Aaron
Well, you mentioned the Paralympics. Your job is not just the Olympics. Correct. Once the Olympics end, you have a
- [14:29]
Reynolds Hoover
whole nother two week break. Yeah. And then on the 15th of August, we'll do it all over again for the Paralympics. We're really excited about it. And you know, Aaron, we're the first organizing committee to add a new para sport. So we added para climbing to our schedule. So this will be the largest Paralympics in the history of the Paralympic movement and the first time here in la.
- [14:50]
Interviewer Aaron
Well, I gotta ask you, and this is a question a lot of People ask me is I call the Olympics kind of like the United Nations General Assembly. Plus, because you have all the foreign delegations, the foreign leaders, and then you have, plus the VIPs, the celebrities and all of these influential people. How do you protect people?
- [15:07]
Reynolds Hoover
Well, fortunately, we've got a great Secret Service. And we were designated In January of 24 a National Special security event. And so the Secret Service has really, they take on the lead as the executive agent to coordinate federal, state and local law enforcement and first responders for security, including dignitary protection, of course. I thought you were going to go someplace different.
- [15:31]
Interviewer Aaron
Where did you think I was going to go?
- [15:32]
Reynolds Hoover
Well, because it is much like the UN General assembly in New York, right? We have an opportunity on the 14th of July of 2028 at 5pm when the cauldron is lit at the Coliseum at the start of the Games, to show the world that, you know, more than 200 countries can come together not in conflict, but in competition of sport. And to me, that is powerful. And to me, that's the reason I came out of retirement to do this one last thing for our country, to really showc the goodness that can come out of sport and sport competition. I mean, you've been to the Olympics and you've seen it right firsthand. And you didn't. It might not have been a US player from Team USA on the field, but you were on your feet cheering for them. Just like you see the people today, you know, at World cup at these events. No, it's true, right?
- [16:23]
Interviewer Aaron
It's true. Yeah. I gotta ask you, what's something about the Olympics that the average person may not know? Fun fact. Something that you can't search online.
- [16:30]
Reynolds Hoover
Oh, man, there are so many fun facts.
- [16:33]
Interviewer Aaron
Start rattling the movie. Let's go.
- [16:34]
Reynolds Hoover
Okay, here's one for you. It turns out that, well, we have to bring in horses from other countries who are competing in equestrian, which will be at Santa Anita Park. Well, it turns out you cannot let foreign horses poop on our soil. And so we have to have a company that actually cleans that up and properly disposes of it in accordance to Department of Agriculture requirements. Who knew that? Who knew that? Here's another fun fact for you. We will start this year actually importing boats. So sailboats and rowboats and things that are in the crew boats so that they can be here and kind of cure in Southern California and kind of get used to the weather. And then of course, the teams will come here and practice and compete in some of our venues as well. But you have to bring in boats early. Okay, so that's a little fun fact.
- [17:29]
Interviewer Aaron
I like it.
- [17:30]
Reynolds Hoover
Yep. I can give you some Olympic trivia.
- [17:33]
Interviewer Aaron
Sure. I'm not good at it, but.
- [17:35]
Reynolds Hoover
Okay. Here you go. So who lit the torch? Who lit the Cauldron in 1984?
- [17:40]
Interviewer Aaron
I was born in 1999. I couldn't tell you.
- [17:42]
Reynolds Hoover
Okay. It was Rafer Johnson.
- [17:44]
Interviewer Aaron
Okay.
- [17:45]
Reynolds Hoover
And that was significant because he was the only African American ever to light, at that time, to light the cauldron in the Olympics. And the torch was. I won't ask you because you won't know because you were born in 1999. The torch was passed to him by Jesse Owens granddaughter.
- [18:03]
Interviewer Aaron
Oh, I love that.
- [18:03]
Reynolds Hoover
Yeah. Yeah. From 1932 games. Right?
- [18:06]
Interviewer Aaron
Wow. Yeah.
- [18:06]
Reynolds Hoover
Okay. So do you know who lit the cauldron in the 96 games in Atlanta?
- [18:15]
Interviewer Aaron
No. The only thing that I could remember about the 96 games was the bombing, unfortunately.
- [18:18]
Reynolds Hoover
Yeah, of course. Of course we remember that. But we also remember Muhammad Ali lit the cauldron and the torch was passed to him by Janet Evans. And Janet Evans is our chief athlete officer and she has a tremendous story. I'll save that. You can talk to her about her story. How that life changing. That was for her to pass the torch to him in Atlanta. So now this goes way back into the wayback machine. Who lit the cauldron in the 1932 Games?
- [18:54]
Interviewer Aaron
1932 Games? I couldn't tell you.
- [18:57]
Reynolds Hoover
That would be the right answer. No one knows. For two reasons. Right. There we go. For two reasons. One is because in 1932, there was no torch relay. It didn't come in until the 36 games, but they had a ceremonial button. And the vice president of the United States pushed the ceremonial button. And there was some unnamed stagehand who was backstage who actually, I don't know if they had BIC back then, but it was a little lighter and was lighting the cauldron. Yeah. So I tell you all of that because I want to lead into our torch relay. Our torch relay will be 100 days long. It'll start in April, and we will hit all 50 states. And that's never been done before.
- [19:41]
Interviewer Aaron
Amazing.
- [19:42]
Reynolds Hoover
And to me, that is the thread that will bind the nation, one of the many threads that will bind the nation to la. As we move the torch actually from Greece, we pick it up in Athens, Greece. It's lit by the sun at Olympus, and then we pick it up in Athens. And how we bring it to the United States and then showcase it across the country. So really moving Amazing moments.
- [20:05]
Podcast Host
Wow.
- [20:05]
Reynolds Hoover
Yeah.
- [20:05]
Interviewer Aaron
So if people want to see the LA Olympics in action, how do they get tickets?
- [20:09]
Reynolds Hoover
Oh, got to go to our website, sign up. The ticket portal is open now for registration of interest. Our next drop will be in August and so we'll do a second drop of our tickets.
- [20:21]
Interviewer Aaron
Amazing.
- [20:21]
Reynolds Hoover
Yeah. You know, in April we did our first drop. We broke all Olympic records. We sold over 4 million tickets. And we have ticket ranges from, you know, from starting at $28 on up. So there's a ticket price point for everybody. And I think our average price of the 4 million, a little over 4 million that we sold our ticket, average ticket price was around 220 bucks or something like that, which I think very competitive. When you think of the prices of major League.
- [20:47]
Interviewer Aaron
Cheaper than World Cup.
- [20:47]
Reynolds Hoover
Well, cheaper than World cup, but also, you know, as you price it against major professional league teams here in the U.S. you know, I think we're competitively priced and when you think about it, as I said, it is another revenue source for us to be able to deliver a safe and efficient, fiscally responsible games. Yeah. Yeah.
- [21:08]
Interviewer Aaron
Ronald Hoover, thanks so much for the time.
- [21:10]
Reynolds Hoover
Thank you. That was awesome. Good to see you again. Thanks.
- [21:13]
Podcast Host
Hey folks, thanks so much for watching. Feel free to add this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you watch for the latest breaking news and daily hits throughout the day.
- [21:24]
Interviewer Aaron
Make sure to follow, subscribe.
- [21:26]
Podcast Host
See you soon for more.
- [21:27]
Kalshi Advertiser
I started Ornod in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non technical people. We're able to admin everything on the
- [21:40]
Interviewer Aaron
back end, front end and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I
- [21:47]
Kalshi Advertiser
think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify.
- [21:53]
Interviewer Aaron
Start your free trial on shopify.com when
- [21:57]
Shopify Advertiser
it's time to scale your business. It's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.