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With the approval of five new sports for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles on Monday morning, the International Olympic Committee is continuing its revamp of the games in hopes of attracting new fans. Cricket, flag football, squash, lacrosse, as well as baseball and softball will be added to the LA Olympics, giving the 2028 Games a significantly different look than the recent Summer Olympics.
Squash and flag football will be included in the Olympics for the first time. Cricket and lacrosse are returning after appearances at the inaugural Games, while baseball and softball were regulars at the last Olympics. None of them are guaranteed to remain in the Olympics after 2028, but newer sports such as skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing have found a permanent place in the summer program.
The five new sports are joined by two others that were not included in the IOC’s original plan: weightlifting and modern pentathlon. IOC officials were concerned about recent doping problems in weightlifting, but said late last week that the sport had taken steps to address those problems. The modern pentathlon was in danger of being canceled after equestrianism was dropped as one of its events, but the IOC appears happy with a steeplechase as a replacement. The IOC also plans to continue boxing, although the sport’s potential new governing body, World Boxing, has not received IOC recognition.
The five new sports, plus weightlifting, modern pentathlon and boxing, result in LA 28 exceeding the IOC limit of 10,500 total athletes for the Summer Games, a fact that IOC officials acknowledged late last week when putting the new program up for vote presented on Monday. Some disciplines within current summer sports could be eliminated and athlete caps adjusted before the Los Angeles schedule is finalized in 2025.
How did squash make it to the Olympics?
Before this long-awaited victory, squash made several failed bids to participate in the Olympics. The World Squash Federation was stung by the snubs in London and Paris – two European capitals where the sport has long enjoyed popularity – and had previously expressed frustration with the Tokyo organizing committee for calling the rejection “severe “understandable”.
People familiar with the 2028 process said squash’s pitch was based on its history and international appeal. The fast-paced sport originated in England in the 19th century and is played in more than 150 countries, according to the Professional Squash Association, which oversees squash’s professional tour. Previous world champions have come from Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan and Australia.
Although squash is not widely popular in the United States, American investment in the sport is increasing. US Squash opened a $65 million public facility in Philadelphia in 2021 and college sports has around 60 varsity programs. The PSA hosts major tournaments in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.
The addition of squash could offer Egypt, which dominates the top echelon of professional squash, a big opportunity to contribute to the country’s total of eight Olympic gold medals. The U.S. could compete in the women’s division, where four American players are currently ranked in the top 15.
People familiar with the selection said squash will likely have fields of 48 or 64 athletes, split evenly between men and women. Squash’s Olympic bid emphasized its affordability and flexibility – professional squash tournaments are often played on outdoor glass courts in makeshift venues built around local landmarks such as the Great Pyramids of Giza or New York’s Grand Central Station. The Olympic event could take a similar form if organizers find a suitable setting in LA
How did flag football get into the Olympics?
In 2019, Izell Reese, a former NFL player who had been selected by the league to lead its youth program, had a crazy idea: What if the league could bring flag football to the Olympics? The global attention and rush by countries to build their own flag programs could be a link the NFL is looking for in its ongoing search for foreign fans.
In early 2020, Reese pitched his idea to league executives, who thought it was crazy enough to try it out. By the end of the year, bringing flag football to the Olympics had become one of the NFL’s top three priorities. The league publicly pushed its case as only the NFL can, with a massive campaign that included, among other things, turning the Pro Bowl into a flag football game and running a series of flag football commercials.
Flag Football: This year the Pro Bowl; Are the Olympics coming up next?
The NFL likes to point out that flag isn’t just an American sport, as 20 million people play it in 100 countries, including Mexico, where there are 100,000 new players, according to the league, and Japan, where it is part of some curricula. Flag is also a high school sport for girls in some places in the United States
But the main reason the Los Angeles Games will feature two six-team men’s and women’s tournaments is because the NFL is behind the event. The NFL is the most lucrative sports league in the world, which should help LA 28 organizers sell more Olympic sponsorships, which they claim will pay for themselves and maybe even make money.
How did cricket make it to the Olympics?
Bach said he first brought up the idea of cricket to LA 28 chairman Casey Wasserman at a dinner during the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, and noted that Wasserman “already saw the great potential.” . [of cricket] and highlighted it myself.”
The IOC is fascinated by cricket because it wants to find a way into India, which is now the world’s most populous country with a thriving economy and is among the top five in the world in terms of gross domestic product. India has little Olympic history with a total of 35 medals, including 10 gold. But cricket, its most popular sport, offers the IOC a perfect entry point.
In cricket, Olympic officials could add a sport and 1.4 billion fans
The rise of the shortened, three-hour version of cricket called Twenty 20 or T20 enabled the creation of the hugely successful India Premier League 15 years ago. The number of television viewers for IPL matches is so large that Forbes last year valued seven of the league’s franchises at more than $1 billion. The IOC hopes that the popularity of the IPL, new prosperity in India and the support of powerful American technology executives with Indian backgrounds who want to grow the game in the United States will bring an additional source of revenue for the Olympics. The IOC has not yet sold the television rights to the 2028 Games in India, and the inclusion of cricket has the potential to increase the value of that deal by more than $200 million.
Olympic cricket allows the IOC and LA 28 to sell corporate sponsorships in India that they would not otherwise have been able to win. It is no coincidence that the IOC approved the inclusion of cricket at a meeting in India this week.
Cricket is also growing in the USA with a new league, Major League Cricket. Portions of the Men’s T20 World Cup will take place in the United States, with games in the Fort Lauderdale, Dallas and New York regions.
The Olympic Games feature both men’s and women’s tournaments, each with six teams. However, it is unclear whether the governing body that governs cricket will automatically award the United States a spot at the Games – a favor often granted to the host country when a new sport is introduced.
How did baseball/softball make it to the Olympics?
Advocates for the other sports seeking inclusion in the 2028 Olympic program say they knew from the start that LA 28 planned to add baseball and softball to the Los Angeles program. There was no way the American game would be ignored at the U.S. Olympics. After a few early Olympic appearances, baseball returned at the last Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984 and enjoyed a successful run at the next six Summer Games until the IOC rejected it before the 2012 London Olympics.
The 1996 Atlanta Olympics introduced softball, appearing in the next three games before being eliminated at the same time as baseball. It took another baseball and softball country, Japan, to bring the two sports back for the 2020 Tokyo Games, but it was clear that baseball and softball would disappear for the 2024 Paris Olympics, with the idea that they would go Angeles would return.
The popularity of this year’s World Baseball Classic has helped baseball and softball’s case at the IOC, but Major League Baseball has never made its players available for the Olympics nor has it indicated it will in 2028. Last week, Wasserman told Sportico that LA 28 executives had a “very engaged, ongoing dialogue” with the league and the Major League Baseball Players Association about attracting major league players to the 2028 Olympics.
“We believe the best players in the world will want to play baseball at the Olympics and have the chance to win a gold medal for their country,” he said.
Like Tokyo in 2020, there will be a six-team tournament in each sport.
How did lacrosse make it to the Olympics?
Although lacrosse hasn’t had the same booming marketing campaign as cricket or flag football, the sport appears to have captivated LA 28 executives, partly because it is North America’s oldest sport, having been played by Native Americans for centuries, and partly because of the people who committed to lacrosse, were well-organized and had Olympic experience. The Olympic version of lacrosse is faster and more compact than college lacrosse. Six players per team play 45-minute games on a 75-yard field, allowing lacrosse to use the same stadium as rugby sevens – a cost savings for LA 28
Lacrosse was one of the stars of last year’s World Games in Birmingham, Alabama – a global competition for non-Olympic sports that regularly drew some of the largest crowds. The night LA 28 officials went to review lacrosse, there were lines of people waiting to get into the stands.
Lacrosse has its own wealthy patron in Alibaba founder and chairman Joe Tsai, who owns the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty. Tsai, who played lacrosse at Yale, is an active supporter of the sport and owns two professional teams in the United States. People familiar with the process for selecting 2028 Olympic sports describe Tsai as active in pushing the game to the top of the LA 28.
Although the IOC is currently considering men’s and women’s tournaments with six teams each, Olympic officials must decide whether to include the Haudenosaunee national team, which represents the six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederation in upstate New York and lower Canada . The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is not recognized by the IOC as an Olympic organizing committee, although it competes as a nation in lacrosse and its men’s six-man team is ranked fifth in World Lacrosse. The women’s team of six took seventh place.