Los Angeles will submit a bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics, after the city council on Tuesday gave the greenlight to pursue the games.

Still unresolved is whether the city will be ultimately responsible for cost overruns.

“This is the beginning, not the end. This is the engagement, not the wedding, and now we are in the prenup phase,” city council president Herb Wesson said after the council gave unanimous approval.

The U.S. Olympic Committee is expected the pick Los Angeles as its candidate to the International Olympic Committee, which will select a site for the games in 2017.

Casey Wasserman is chairing the committee leading the Olympic bid. He and Mayor Eric Garcetti have been negotiating with the IOC over terms.

The games are budgeted currently to cost about $6 billion — including about $1.7 billion in money raised from the private sector that would finance an Olympic Village and renovations to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The budget currently projects as $161 surplus, with revenue from ticket sales and sponsorships.

A key question has been the city’s exposure to potential cost overruns — something that has beset other games. Boston withdrew its bid earlier this summer over concerns that it would have to commit to such liability, as well as for the lack of public support.

The L.A. council also voted to require a more detailed report on costs.

Miguel Santana, the city’s chief administrative officer, said the council’s vote on Tuesday did not commit the city to spending public funds or covering cost overruns — something that would come before the council in future votes. Those questions would be subject to negotiations between the city, the bid committee and the USOC.

Los Angeles, which hosted the games in 1932 and 1984, may have advantages over other host cities, as it has a number of venues already in place. The last time a North American city hosted the summer games was in 1996, when Atlanta hosted. The 2016 games will be in Rio, and the 2020 games will be in Tokyo.

For Comcast and NBCUniversal, which have the rights to the Olympics through 2032, Los Angeles also would have the advantage of bringing the games into the U.S. time zone, and they could potentially save production costs. According to the Los Angeles bid packet, the media center would be located on the Universal Studios lot.

Other cities submitting bids include Rome, Hamburg, Paris and Budapest.

“We are in this to win it, and I think we will,” said councilman Paul Krekorian, who nevertheless expressed concerns about the exposure to taxpayers and also said that other Los Angeles County cities that will host venues could be called upon for support.