Los Angeles Named US Bid City for 2024 Olympics: Latest Details, Comments

Los Angeles will carry the torch for the United States as the International Olympic Committee considers a host for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The U.S. Olympic Team confirmed Tuesday on Twitter that L.A. has the full backing of the United States Olympic Committee.

According to David Wharton and Peter Jamison of the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously in favor of the bid Tuesday morning, which was the final hurdle necessary.

"I want to thank Los Angeles for standing up once again as America’s bid city for the Olympic and Paralympic Games," said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun, per the U.S. Olympic Team. "We believe in the vision of LA. We believe this city can produce a new kind of Games for a new Olympic era."

Boston was the USOC's first choice as the U.S. representative, but the decision was met with heavy backlash from citizens of the city, who worried about the potential skyrocketing costs associated with the games.

The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, cost roughly $50 billion, which surpassed the $40 billion price tag for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as the costliest Olympic Games on record.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, already has a number of world-class athletic facilities and a better infrastructure to handle something as large as the Summer Olympics. The 1984 Summer Olympics, held in L.A., are considered one of the biggest commercial successes in the event's history, so the track record is there.

As comedian Erik Bransteen joked, however, Los Angeles residents might want to get preparations underway already for the inevitable traffic jams that would come with an Olympics in L.A.:

The group behind the push for Los Angeles uploaded its full bid book online. It estimates costs at around $4.6 billion, with roughly $713 million of that tied to venue construction and renovation.

The L.A. Memorial Coliseum would serve as the official Olympic stadium, with the University of Southern California pledging $500 million for upgrades to the venue. Adjacent to the Coliseum would be a new soccer stadium, which would serve as the home for the Major League Soccer expansion franchise, which is set to debut in 2017.

Of course, Los Angeles doesn't have the Olympics just yet. It will need to beat out Paris; Hamburg, Germany; Budapest, Hungary; and Rome for the honor.   

The official host for the 2024 Olympics will be announced in summer 2017.