The city of Los Angeles will be taking its bid for the 2024 Olympics to the small screen Jan. 2 as part of its entry in the Rose Parade.

The Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board, which is responsible for creating the city’s float, chose the Olympics as the theme this year in hopes of building support among the 84 million people worldwide expected to watch the parade on TV.

“Each year, when we start working in February on the theme for the float, we ask, What would we want to highlight about L.A.?” said Don Skeoch, chief marketing officer for the board. “We’re bidding on arguably the largest sporting event in the world.”

The board and the LA2024 bid committee are sharing the cost, he said.

Floats generally start around $250,000, according to a Tournament of Roses spokeswoman.

In combining this year’s Rose Parade theme, “Echoes of Success,” with the bid’s theme of “Follow the Sun,” the board played up the city’s relatively rare status as a major metropolitan area on the beach, Skeoch said.

In a rendering of the float, a bright sun shines on palm trees, waves, a volleyball game, and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which hosted events in the 1932 and 1984 Olympics and which LA2024 wants to use again.

Riding on the float will be Olympians, including volleyball player April Ross and gymnasts Bart Conner and Nadia Comaneci, as well as young athletes from LA84, a nonprofit youth sports organization founded with leftover money from the 1984 Olympics.

– Caroline Anderson