Gene Sykes, the Goldman Sachs M&A banker who helped bring the Games to Los Angeles, sat down with Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast on September 19, 2026 and laid out the case for the 2028 Olympics in raw numbers. The 2028 Games will host 17,000 athletes competing across 900 medal events, with 15 million tickets going on sale. For comparison, Sykes noted the World Cup sells roughly 6.5 million tickets.
You can hear the full conversation on the Odd Lots episode page.
How Olympic Revenue Actually Stacks
Sykes walked through a revenue architecture built in tiers. At the base sit media rights, which the International Olympic Committee sells years in advance. NBC holds United States broadcast rights through 2036, at a fee that runs roughly $1.5 billion or more per Games. Layered on top are global sponsors. The domestic organizing committee sells a further tier of category rights to additional companies.
The duration is the structural detail that stands out. NBC is committed through 2036 even though no host city has been named for that year. The broadcaster has bought an event whose location is still an open decision. That is what “locked in” means in this business.
Clean Venues and the Premium Brand
Co-host Tracy Alloway pressed Sykes on whether the Olympics risks the kind of commercial saturation critics have leveled at FIFA. Sykes pointed to the clean venues rule, telling Alloway that “anywhere you see the athletes competing, there’s no corporate advertising at all.” His commercial argument, which he framed as a brand-preservation choice rather than a moral one, is that keeping the field of play advertising-free is precisely what allows the surrounding sponsorship tiers to command premium pricing. Sponsors pay for association with an unbranded stage.
M&A Context From the Banker’s Chair
Sykes moved from the Games to his day job and offered a striking read on deal activity. He said this is the biggest M&A year in the history of the world, the biggest year by far, and that the market will be much bigger than it was at the peak. He identified 2021, inflated by Covid, as the last high-water mark.
The mix has shifted as well. For the past several years, 40% of the M&A market consisted of selling companies owned by private equity sponsors. This year that share sits at 30%. Sykes attributed the change to substantive strategic demand driven by the technology impact on the economy, reaching into every industry. Natural resources and power generation companies are building infrastructure for AI. Semiconductor equities and semiconductor M&A are booming as buyers pursue proprietary chip technology.
What Makes the Olympics Business Unusual
Strip the Games down to their commercial spine and you get a rare structure. Rights are sold more than a decade forward. Some of those rights attach to Games in cities that have not been chosen. The whole edifice rests on a promise to keep advertising off the field of play. Very few businesses of this scale ask counterparties to write checks that far into the future against a product whose value depends on what the seller refuses to sell. That is the framework Sykes is describing, and it is what the 17,000 athletes arriving in Los Angeles in 2028 will be competing inside.