LA28's Drop 2 Is Done — and Every Pool Seat Went With It
The second Olympic ticket sale closed August 20 with aquatics effectively sold out; the next real chance is the official resale in 2027.
The second wave of LA28 Olympic ticket sales is over. Drop 2 closed on August 20 after a ten-day run of draw-assigned purchase windows — and if you wanted to watch anything in a pool in 2028, you likely already missed it.
According to The Medalist's Drop 2 guide, standard tickets for swimming, diving, water polo, artistic swimming and open-water swimming were gone by August 11 — the second day of the sale — leaving only accessible seating across the aquatic disciplines. That echoes Drop 1 in April, when LA28 reported more than 4 million tickets sold across 85 countries and all 50 states, with artistic gymnastics the fastest sellout and the new Olympic sports — flag football, lacrosse, softball and squash — clearing their entire inventory.
How Drop 2 worked
Per LA28's announcement, fans who registered by July 22 entered a random draw; winners were notified August 6-7 and given assigned windows to buy from August 10 through 20. The caps: 12 Olympic tickets per person across all presales, a separate allowance of 12 soccer tournament tickets, and no more than 4 per ceremony.
Pricing skewed lower than the sticker-shock headlines suggested: roughly half of all Olympic tickets under $200, about a million seats at $28, and only around 5 percent above $1,000, per The Medalist's breakdown of LA28's figures.
What's actually next
LA28 has not yet published sales totals for Drop 2, so the scale of the second wave remains unannounced. What is confirmed: the official resale platform opens in 2027, and Paralympic tickets go on sale in 2027 as well. For shut-out fans, the honest advice is patience — the verified resale market is the next legitimate door into the Games.