There won’t be a gold medal game under the lights in the City of Light in 2024 – not in baseball or softball, at least.
Ostensibly, the International Olympic Committee doesn’t include baseball and softball in the Olympic program when the host country doesn’t have deep ties to the sport, and so, without any significant infrastructure already existing, it was decided that baseball and softball won’t be played in Paris this year.
Of course, if you’ve taken, oh, five minutes to research the history of baseball in the Olympics, you know that baseball made its first appearance in the 1900 Games, coincidentally hosted by Paris. As so often happens, what constitutes deep ties are in the eye of the beholder – or the entity writing the checks.
It took 92 years after that first appearance for baseball to become a medal sport, joining the Olympic program in 1992 at Barcelona, and remaining a medal sport through 2008 before being dropped for 2012 and 2016 and reappearing in Tokyo for the 2020 games.
But with the Olympics returning to the United States in 2028, baseball (and softball) will have an opportunity once again to showcase itself on the Olympic stage, and Los Angeles, the host city for 2028, home to two of Major League Baseball’s best venues, there’s a lot to look forward to – and there could be even more, if MLB decides there should be a lot more to look forward to.
It’s time – long past time, really – for MLB to take the NHL’s lead and pause the season so players from around the world can represent their countries in Olympic competition.
And if you don’t want to hear me say it, Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper said it earlier this year.
“There’s nothing more worldwide than the Olympics,” Harper told reporters in London when the Phillies were there to play the New York Mets in the MLB London Series in June. “I watch the most random sports in the Olympics because it’s the Olympics, and that’s really cool. I love hockey. It’s one of my favorite sports to watch. To see (the NHL) take that three-week break and let those guys go play, that’s another big goal that we should have as Major League Baseball.”
While the World Baseball Classic and the WBSC Premier12 both provide high-level international competition and great moments for fans, neither happens during the MLB season. Thus, baseball fans in the U.S., who comprise a sizable plurality of fans worldwide, if not a majority, are focused on the other major U.S. sports when the WBSC Premier12 is being held in November, or they’re focused on spring training and watching the WBC casually.
An Olympic baseball tournament with MLB players during a short pause in the season would draw the baseball world’s focus, as well as draw viewers from around the world to a product sanctioned by MLB.
In February, the question of MLB participation in the Olympics was posed to commissioner Rob Manfred at the owner’s meetings.
“I think the pros are just the potential for association between two great brands … the opportunity to make a splash and attract the kind of attention that would be associated with a team — it would eventually be multiple teams, I suspect — of the best players in Major League Baseball in a short tournament like that,” Manfred said to the media. “You’ve heard me before: Love that combination of nationalism and sport. I’m good on that.”
The WBSC Premier12 was created, in part, to build international baseball and help spur a return to the Olympics, and viewed through that lens, it’s a success. Baseball came back to the games in Tokyo in 2020, though the games were played in 2021 and the stands were empty due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Every two years, the Olympics brings the world together to promote excellence, respect, and friendship through competition between the world’s best athletes in a wide variety of sports. Baseball, which now has 80 nations in the World Baseball Rankings, which are published by the sport’s governing body, the World Baseball Softball Confederation, a sign of how much the game has grown outside the United States.
We’re four years away from baseball’s return to the Olympics in Los Angeles, a city where it was a demonstration sport in 1984.
The 2028 Summer Games are a big opportunity for Major League Baseball to promote both its product and the game of baseball worldwide should they decide to let the players participate.
Let’s hope they don’t drop the ball.
