How Small L.A. Businesses Can Put the LA28 Emblem on Their Products

Applications open on RAMPLA.org, and makers inside the city of Los Angeles get the first month of review to themselves.

Starting Friday, a small shop that makes things in the city of Los Angeles can apply to stamp the LA28 emblem on its own products. A shop anywhere else in L.A. County gets its turn a month later.

LA28, the committee running the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, unveiled the licensing program, called Made for Two Eight (it's also written Two-Eight), at Homeboy Industries. Homeboy signed on as a licensee for apparel and accessories, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported. Applications open Friday at RAMPLA.org, and there's a line: businesses inside the city of Los Angeles go first.

LA28's Oct. 20 announcement sets three tests, and licenses go out through a competition:

• The product has to be made at a physical facility in L.A. County.
• Materials should come from the county. Products made with all or nearly all local materials get priority, and city of L.A. materials get extra priority.
• The business has to count as small under U.S. Small Business Administration size standards.

LA28 says a winner can put its branding on the merchandise and sell the approved goods through several outlets, the business's own among them. Each license covers one product category for a set period. Peter Zeytoonjian, LA28's senior vice president of consumer products, said in the announcement that the program was built to be "as accessible as possible" for small businesses.

The fine print comes later. LA28's own timeline puts each category's standard terms out on the day applications open.

1. Check that you're small. The SBA sets the limit by industry code, its size standards page says. Most manufacturers with 500 or fewer employees qualify, and so do most non-manufacturers averaging under $7.5 million a year in receipts, though some industries have their own limits. The SBA's Size Standards Tool will look up yours. Count your affiliates too: any business that can control yours, whether it uses that power or not.
2. Check which side of the city line your workshop sits on. The city's Office of Finance has an address lookup. If your spot falls in the blue area, the city counts you as inside. If you're right on a boundary, the office asks you to contact it.
3. Register on RAMPLA.org now. That's the Regional Alliance Marketplace for Procurement. LA28 says to turn on notifications and subscribe to the Sports and Entertainment Announcements and Opportunities alert, which is how its emails will reach you. It also points businesses to their local chamber of commerce for updates.
4. Read your category's terms Friday, before you write a word of the application.
5. Apply. Makers whose workshops sit inside the city of Los Angeles get the first month of review to themselves. Once that month ends, applications open to eligible makers anywhere else in the county. The window closes in February 2027, and LA28 hasn't named the day.

Here's the mistake to avoid: assuming a county address puts you on equal footing. A city of L.A. shop gets two advantages, the first month to itself and priority in selection for its facility. Materials sourced inside the city earn extra priority on top of that. A workshop in Pasadena or Long Beach can still win, but it's competing from behind.

Homeboy shows the kind of maker LA28 wants. Its first design, by Homeboy Art Academy founder Fabian Debora, uses a torch as a nod to the Rev. Gregory Boyle, Homeboy's founder, carrying the torch for the 1984 Olympics, Debora said in LA28's announcement. Mayor Karen Bass said the Games are projected to bring as much as $40 billion in economic activity, and she wants the city's own businesses to be "the first to benefit."

LA28 names the winners in July 2027. That's about when the licenses kick in, around the one-year-out mark that MyNewsLA put at mid-July, and they run through the end of the Paralympic Games in August 2028.

Source: smdp.com, retrieved October 27, 2026. Other sources: la28.org, sba.gov, City of Los Angeles, mynewsla.com.

Correction, October 27, 2026: An earlier version of this story said any small shop in L.A. County could apply starting Friday, and that a city of L.A. shop gets priority in selection for its materials. Shops outside the city of Los Angeles can apply once the city’s first month ends, and LA28’s extra priority goes to materials sourced inside the city.