donation

LA28 hopes to sell more tickets for the 2028 Games than any other Olympic organizing committee in history, and the private group launched a fundraising campaign Thursday to help keep those tickets accessible to local fans.

The fundraising effort invites local sports teams, philanthropists and partners to fund ticket donations that will go to local organizations that will distribute tickets within their communities. The Rams are the inaugural partners, donating $5 million to the campaign.

“The 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games are for everyone,” LA28 president Casey Wasserman said in a statement. “This program is about making sure that the people who live, work and contribute to the spirit of Los Angeles can access the Games taking place in their hometown. We’re incredibly thankful to Stan Kroenke and the Rams for being the first to step up for the people of their city. This is true partnership in action, and we look forward to welcoming others for this meaningful initiative.”

Registration for tickets will open in January and single tickets will start at $28. Amid concerns about skyrocketing prices for sporting events, LA28 said it will not use dynamic pricing that is common for large sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup.

Tickets for the FIFA World Cup coming to Canada, Mexico and the United States next year will start at $60 for some group-stage matches and climb to $6,730, the international soccer governing body said this year. Excluding the opening or closing ceremonies, tickets for the Paris Games ranged between 24 euros (about $27) and 950 euros ($1,097).

Leading up to the Games, the Paris organizing committee set aside more than 1 million tickets at 24 euros each and ensured half of the tickets on sale to the general public would be 50 euros or less. Hoping to keep the Games relatively affordable to fans, Paris 2024 used an “adapted pricing policy” that aimed to use the 15% of the tickets offered at the highest rates to allow the millions of lower-priced tickets.

The Paris Games sold a record 12 million tickets for the Olympics and Paralympics, which helped the organizing committee blow past its initial ticketing and hospitality revenue estimate by $365 million.

LA28 organizers expect to make 14 million tickets available for the largest Olympics in history and the first Paralympics in L.A.

After fans register for the ticket lottery beginning in January, purchasing windows will open that spring. Fans living near Olympic venue cities will have access to presale opportunities.

The Olympics are spread across more than 40 venues, with most clustered in L.A., Long Beach, Inglewood and Carson. Southern California residents and those living in Oklahoma City where softball and canoe slalom events will take place who are selected for the presale window will have access to all tickets for all venues.

Tickets for the Paralympics will go on sale in 2027.

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” star Jesse Eisenberg may soon one-up the film franchise’s Robin Hood-esque Four Horsemen in the giving-back department.

This December, the Academy Award nominee and longtime blood donor will give one of his kidneys to a complete stranger, he said Thursday on the “Today” show. He slipped the news into a conversation with host Craig Melvin about a recent show-sponsored blood drive.

As Melvin and his co-hosts reacted in disbelief, Eisenberg said, “I really am [donating].”

“I don’t know why. I got bitten by the blood donation bug,” he said, adding that he was “so excited” to make the nondirected (a.k.a. “altruistic”) donation, wherein a living donor is not related to or known by the recipient.

According to the National Kidney Registry, approximately 90,000 people in the U.S. are currently in need of a kidney transplant, while roughly 6,000 people donate kidneys each year. Less than 5% of those already slim donations are nondirected.

Eisenberg said he suspected that if people knew how safe the process was, those numbers would go up.

“It’s essentially risk-free and so needed,” Eisenberg said in a separate interview with Today.com. “I think people will realize that it’s a no-brainer, if you have the time and the inclination.”

“The Social Network” alum added that prospective donors need not worry about forking over a kidney and later facing a situation wherein a family member urgently needs one.

“The way it works now is you can put a list of whoever you would like to be the first [relative] to be at the top of the list,” he said, referring to the National Kidney Registry’s family voucher program. The program launched in 2019, preceded by an earlier “standard” iteration that required the voucher donor to name a voucher holder who had some form of kidney impairment. (The standard voucher option is still available to donors as well.)

“Not only does this remove an important disincentive to living kidney donation, but it is the right thing to do for the generous people who are donating a kidney to a stranger. Donors can now donate a kidney and still provide security for their loved ones should they need a kidney transplant in the future,” Dr. Jeff Veale, who helped pioneer the voucher system, said in a statement at the time of the program update.

Recovery is also a non-issue for most kidney donors, who on average return to daily activities within a few weeks of the surgery, per the Mayo Clinic.

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” hits theaters Nov. 14, nearly a decade after the previous installment in the franchise premiered. Eisenberg stars alongside returning cast members Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco and newcomers Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt and Rosamund Pike.