As the Milano Cortina Games wind down, the world is already excitedly awaiting the spectacle of Los Angeles 2028: the roar of the crowd, the crowning of new heroes, and the global spirit of competition. For the broadcasters, sponsors, and media organisations tasked with capturing this historic event, however, the most critical race is already being run. It’s an invisible marathon of preparation, strategy, and technological foresight. The difference between delivering groundbreaking storytelling and succumbing to operational chaos will not be determined in the heat of the moment, but in the foundational content infrastructure being architected today.
As we look toward 2028, the scale of the media challenge can be daunting. The industry has evolved beyond just broadcasting to a television screen to delivering personalised and immediate experiences to billions of individual devices across countless platforms, languages, and time zones. The modern fan goes beyond just tuning in to interact and share content that’s relevant to their favourite teams and athletes.
For LA28, success will be defined by the ability to move beyond reactive reporting and embrace proactive, real-time storytelling. This requires a fundamental shift in how we view, manage, and activate content, powered by a sophisticated, AI-driven backbone.
From reactive scrambling to proactive storytelling
The moment the opening ceremony begins, an organisation’s preparation is put to the test. Without a solid foundation, media teams will find themselves in a constant state of defence, scrambling to find clips and package highlights in response to events that have already passed.
The alternative is a proactive ecosystem where content is indexed, enriched with metadata, and made instantly searchable the moment it is created, like Stevenson Savart finishing with a flourish as Haiti’s first Olympic cross-country skier. A proactive system allows a producer to instantly pull footage of other events, find interviews, and surface clips from earlier in the race—all within seconds. This allows the narrative to be built as it unfolds, turning a historic achievement into a rich, compelling human story for a global audience. This infrastructure transforms thousands of hours of live feeds and archival footage from a logistical nightmare into a powerful storytelling advantage.
Search as the stabilising force in the content storm
Under the immense pressure of a global live event, searchability becomes the bedrock of the entire media workflow. When volume, velocity, and distribution demands are at their peak, the ability to locate the right asset with precision and speed is the game-changer. It is the stabilising force that empowers a media team to weather the inherent unpredictability of the Games.
Consider the inevitable disruptions in Los Angeles: a marathon rescheduled due to a heatwave, a sailing event postponed by wind, or a dark horse athlete capturing the world’s attention. An AI-driven workflow provides the essential agility to navigate these shifts. By automating the classification, tagging, and routing of content, the system can pivot in real-time. If a key event is delayed, it can automatically surface relevant historical content, athlete profiles, or venue-specific stories to fill the programming gap, ensuring a continuous and engaging narrative for the audience. This allows teams to move from a defensive stance of crisis management to an offensive position of creative curation.
The human curator in an AI-powered world
While AI is the engine that will power the LA28 media machine, human oversight remains non-negotiable. AI is incredibly powerful for automating repetitive tasks, identifying patterns, and surfacing potential storytelling opportunities from an ocean of data. However, it lacks the nuanced understanding of context, brand voice, ethical responsibility, and the subtle pulse of human emotion.
The role of the media professional evolves from a content technician to a master curator. AI can identify a clip and tag it with “athlete celebrating”, but it is the human producer who determines the narrative significance. Is it a celebration of a hard-fought bronze or the jubilant relief of a world-record-breaking gold? Is it a moment of personal triumph or one that speaks to a larger national story? Ultimately, human decision-makers are the essential guardians who shape the raw data into a narrative that’s compelling, accurate, responsible, and aligned with the Olympic spirit.
Building the living archive: the legacy of LA28
Perhaps the most profound strategic shift required for LA28 is to treat the content generated not as a disposable byproduct of a 16-day event, but as the foundation of a living, monetisable archive. The approach to content capture and organisation during the Games is pivotal in shaping the long-term value of this digital library.
By implementing a strategy for real-time, metadata-rich archiving, every clip, every interview, and every highlight becomes a dynamic asset. This transforms the archive from a costly storage problem into a perpetual revenue generator. This “living archive” will fuel future documentaries, create on-demand personalised fan experiences, provide invaluable training data for smarter AI models, and lay the groundwork for even more sophisticated storytelling at future Olympic Games. It’s a future-looking strategy that ensures the investment continues to deliver value for decades to come.
The world will be watching Los Angeles in 2028. The media organisations that win will be those that understand the race has already started. The three essential pillars for success are a robust and structured data foundation, governable real-time workflows that can adapt instantly, and a forward-looking strategy that treats the archive as a valuable asset from day one. By embracing this vision, the industry will move beyond simply broadcasting the Games and begin to craft a more immediate, personal, and enduring Olympic legacy for a new generation.
