LA28 Olympic Basketball Tickets: How to Get Into the Intuit Dome (and the 3x3 Court) in July 2028

LA28 Olympic basketball tickets: the short answer for anyone who wants to go

If you want to watch Olympic basketball in Los Angeles, here is the situation as of October 9, 2026. There is no public sale open right now. LA28 ran two big ticket “drops” in 2026, both through a registration and random-draw system, and says more than six million Olympic tickets were sold across them, with the vast majority of available inventory gone. The next opportunity is a first-come, first-served sale in 2027. LA28 says there will be no draw, no time slot and no purchase limits, and that inventory will be refreshed across all sports. The exact opening date has not been announced.

That last point is the one that matters most for basketball fans. In a first-come, first-served sale, being early is the whole game. When the 2026 drops opened, you had a randomly assigned window. In 2027, everyone who is ready will be competing at the same moment. Knowing the date, having an account set up and knowing which sessions you want before the sale starts will make the difference.

What you are actually buying at LA28: sessions, not teams

Olympic tickets are sold by session. A session is a block of time at a venue, and in basketball it can contain one or two games. During the group phase at the Intuit Dome, a typical day has a midday session running from noon to about 4:15 p.m. Pacific Time with two games, followed by evening sessions at 6:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. In the knockout rounds the rhythm slows down: the quarter-finals are played at 1:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., the semi-finals at 4:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Crucially, you do not know which teams you will see when you buy. The 5x5 tournaments have 12 teams per gender, split into three groups of four, and most of those teams have not qualified yet. The men’s field depends heavily on the 2027 FIBA World Cup in Qatar and on qualifying tournaments in late June and early July 2028. On the women’s side, only the USA is in so far. So a ticket for “Team USA” does not exist at this stage. You pick a date and a round, and the draw decides the rest.

That is not necessarily bad news. Group-phase double-headers give you two games for one ticket. And if your goal is a medal game, the dates are already fixed:

• Women’s bronze: Friday, July 28, 4:00 p.m. PT
• Men’s bronze: Saturday, July 29, noon PT
• Women’s gold: Saturday, July 29, 4:00 p.m. PT
• Men’s gold: Sunday, July 30, 12:45 p.m. PT, the day of the Closing Ceremony

Our full LA28 basketball schedule lays out every day in a table, including the 3x3 sessions.

Three Olympic events in one: men's 5x5, women's 5x5 and 3x3

LA28 basketball is really three competitions running in parallel. The women’s 5x5 tournament opens the whole Olympic program on Wednesday, July 12, two days before the Opening Ceremony. FIBA explained that the early start allows the quarter-finals to be spread over two days and means no game has to start before noon. The men begin on Thursday, July 13. There is no basketball on Friday, July 14, the day of the Opening Ceremony.

The format is the same for both genders: three groups of four, with the top two in each group and the two best third-placed teams advancing to an eight-team quarter-final round, followed by semi-finals, the bronze game and the final. Twelve players per team means 288 athletes across both 5x5 tournaments.

The third competition is 3x3, played in a temporary arena in the San Fernando Valley, at a different site with a different atmosphere. It expands from 8 to 12 teams per gender for LA28, and every 3x3 medal is decided on a single evening, Saturday, July 22. It is a good option if 5x5 sessions are out of reach. Our 3x3 guide covers it in depth.

What already happened with LA28 tickets in 2026 (and why it matters for 2027)

Understanding the 2026 sales helps you read what comes next. LA28 opened registration for its first ticket draw on January 14, 2026. A locals presale for residents of greater Los Angeles and Oklahoma City ran in early April, and Drop 1 opened on April 9 with time slots handed out at random. After Drop 1, LA28 reported more than four million tickets sold, with nearly three quarters of Drop 1 tickets going to LA and OKC residents. A Visa presale ran at the end of July, Drop 2 followed from August 10 to 20, and LA28 then announced that more than six million tickets had been sold in total.

During those drops, each buyer could purchase up to 12 Olympic event tickets (plus a separate allowance of 12 for football), with a maximum of four per ceremony. Those limits are being removed for 2027. That is great if you are organizing a group, but it also means a single buyer can take a large block of seats, so demand at the opening moment may be intense. Our LA28 ticket guide has the full timeline in a table and a checklist for the 2027 sale.

LA28 basketball prices: what has actually been published

LA28 has made affordability a central message. In its April 9, 2026 announcement, it said tickets for every sport start at $28, with more than one million tickets at that price across the Olympics and Paralympics. It also said nearly 50% of Olympic tickets were priced below $200, more than 75% (finals included) below $400, and about 5% were premium seats above $1,000. Earlier, LA28’s Casey Wasserman was reported by the press as saying that about a third of tickets would cost $100 or less.

What LA28 has not done is publish a basketball-specific price list by session in its press releases. You may see figures circulating online. We do not repeat them, because they do not come from an official LA28 publication, and prices for the 2027 refreshed inventory may differ anyway. The honest expectation: basketball is among the most in-demand sports, and late-round sessions sit at the upper end of the range.

Where to buy LA28 Olympic basketball tickets, and where not to

LA28’s ticketing runs through its own platform, with AXS and Eventim as ticketing service providers and Visa as the official way to pay. You can check the current status on the LA28 ticketing page. Premium packages that bundle seats with food, drink and lounge access are sold separately by On Location, LA28’s official hospitality provider, on a first-come, first-served basis since early 2026, including basketball and 3x3 options.

Resale is the area where fans get burned. LA28 says its verified resale program opens in 2027, through its Official Secondary Ticket Marketplace, AXS, Eventim and verified resale platforms, and that resale listings elsewhere before 2027 are not verified. Anyone offering you “guaranteed” LA28 basketball seats today is selling something LA28 does not recognize. Read our resale and scam-prevention guide before paying anyone.

Planning your Los Angeles trip around your tickets

Two venues, two very different parts of the city. The Intuit Dome is in Inglewood, in the south of the LA basin, in the same Inglewood zone as the stadium that shares the Opening Ceremony with the LA Memorial Coliseum. The 3x3 venue is in the Sepulveda Basin, in the San Fernando Valley, much farther north. Seeing both on the same day is possible on paper, given that 3x3 sessions start at 2:00 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., but Los Angeles distances are real, so build in generous travel time. Our venues page has practical advice.

If you are traveling from abroad, it makes sense to wait until you hold confirmed tickets before locking in non-refundable travel, or to choose flexible bookings. And if you are following a specific national team, keep an eye on qualification: our teams and qualification page explains which events in 2027 and 2028 decide the field.

How not to miss the 2027 LA28 sale

Because the next window is first-come, first-served and its date is still unknown, the risk is simple: you hear about it a day late. Our free email alert is built for exactly that. We send a message when LA28 announces the opening of the 2027 sale, when it opens, and when a new phase begins, such as verified resale. We are independent and not affiliated with LA28, the IOC or FIBA, we do not sell Olympic tickets, and we link only to the official channel. In the meantime, make sure your LA28 account is set up, your payment method is ready and you know which two or three sessions you want, so you can move fast when the moment comes.