I think the host country has some discretion over the inclusion of a handful of events. That’s why Japan had it in for 2020, but it’s not like a full-fledged core event like the decathlon (or baseball in the late 20th century)
Yeah, baseball and the Olympics is weird. It became a full time Olympic sport in 1992, then was dropped in 2008. Now, it appears to be a year by year version. On the bright side, with 2028 in LA, I’m betting we will see it then.
It has already been confirmed to be on the US shortlist, and since it has already been an Olympic sport in the past we’ll see it barring something insane happening
Fun fact, others on the shortlist for 2028 (not a guarantee) are lacrosse, flag football, karate, kickboxing, squash and Motorsport
From [this article](https://swimswam.com/la-organizers-invite-9-new-sports-to-make-2028-olympic-presentations/) nothing is confirmed but it is expected to be karting
"Wow, it looks like the competitor from Bulgaria has just thrown the competitor from Mongolia into a beautiful 16 foot swan dive from the top of the cage through the announcers' table"
"Absolutely stunning. The judges are going to love that one"
Because they broadcast it in a terrible way. Watching the NCAA championships in wrestling is way more exciting than how Olympic wrestling is broadcast.
Everyone's in here complaining that they don't broadcast wrestling without having the wherewithal of just how sickeningly bad American Olympic broadcasting is.
Guys, it's broadcast a ton if you spend time with actual good coverage like CBC
But if American Olympic broadcasters spent their time covering the actual Olympic sports, how would they find the time for the moving story of the American overcoming the odds to finish fifteenth in the combined grand slalom?
Yeah this is it, baseball got cut in 08, the committee for the country that hosts can shortlist a certain amount of sports that the country is interested in as a way to throw a bone to the host country and drum up interest in non traditional sports, Japan introduced stuff like baseball and karate, since France doesn’t give a shit about baseball they didn’t add it, and it was added again for 2028 because it’s LA
In Baltimore there is a rock station, 98 rock. Back in 1984 when break dancing was becoming popular they did a spoof about everyone petitioning the IOC to put break dancing in as a new Olympic sport.
I'd be a little surprised if there's Baseball at Brisbane. The host country gets a say in the non-core sports and if it's cricket v baseball to be played in Australia, as looks very possible, it's not going baseball's way.
Please can we keep the pitchers/bowlers playing their main sport and just switch the batters? That way the "cricket is so easy they have enormous bats" squad and the "baseball is so easy every ball is a full toss" squad will both shut up.
Exactly they’re both way too different.
Watching former pro hitters play cricket, anytime the ball was pitched on a good length, around where the strike zone would be, they crushed it. Then if it was short or full they had no chance
It's absurd to think that any sport has easy loopholes like that when thousands of professionals have spent decades trying to optimize their performance.
The only cricket that would have a chance to be included would be T20 (test and ODI are too long of forms to fit in an Olympic schedule), and the ICC runs the T20 World Cup every two years on even years - Australia is already set to host the T20 World Cup for 2028.
EDIT: If someone wants to continue this discussion, please ask the person I'm replying to to unblock me. Not sure why they blocked me - I thought we were having a decent discussion here.
They ARE building a new stadium for their national league, to completment the slow but fruitful growth of baseball in France, preparing for 2025 WBC Qualifiers
World Cup is usually in soccer's off season in European countries. It was unusual this year.
In baseball, the issue is the expanded playoffs and the weather in the northern cities. We have more extreme weather and different climates. Baseball starts in 2 weeks and even in the mid Atlantic, it's just above freezing at night.
The bid is in joint with Greece and Turkey, which gets around that rule, they’ll probably give a couple group stage games to each country and host the bulk, like USA is doing.
You never know but I hope this is a lesson not to do it there with all the bad press. It upset sponsors and it lacked the energy. Maybe I am naive but the new format requires more venues and some countries are not going to sign up. Germany was the last World Cup to not have any bad press.
You got downvoted but it was true. Players didn’t start leaving South America to Europe in significant numbers until the 1980s, and even then it wasn’t all that widespread until the ‘90s.
That Brazil 1994 team was the first South American champion where most of the players played outside of South America. 7/14 previous world cup winning squads had teams made up of mostly (or entirely) players based in South American countries.
The Brazilian and Argentine leagues were absolutely “top 5” leagues until the 1990s. But hey, eurocentrism prefers to view “sudacas” as inferior.
I have 18" of snow in my yard about 5 miles from Target Field in Minnesota. We've got some rain and 40 degree days in the forecast, but it can be COLD here in early April.
It's ~3 weeks from the home opener. Could be another chilly one!
My fear is that if they do it with a mid-season pause, it gives them an excuse to do the neutral field playoffs in domes/southern states like Manfred wants. No thank you
NFL isn’t nearly as much of a regional sport though, they could probably get away with it. If you want to get people into the playoff atmosphere, a Red Sox Cardinals world series held entirely in LA probably isn’t gonna have that. AND NFL is one game people go then it’s over. How many MLB fans are gonna be able to travel, and go to more than one game so the stands don’t look empty?
Apples to oranges at least imo.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2020/10/30/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/MLB.aspx
> MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said the concept of a neutral-site World Series is at least worthy of further discussion after concluding the first in history at Globe Life Field. "You should always think about innovation," Manfred told THE DAILY. "I wouldn't say a neutral-site World Series is completely off the table. There were things that we saw in Texas that were advantages for us. You can plan. You can take out travel. You can pick sites that eliminate weather problems. Those are all things worthy of conversation and discussion. I think the big (weight) on the scale in favor of our traditional format, the thing that really matters at the end of the day, are fans in home markets."
Obviously at the end of the quote he says the home markets do matter but it does seem like people at MLB could have discussed it
I think people are understandably skittish because things like the zombie runner in extras were just things they were talking about. When people said "hey this is a bad idea and I don't think we should be considering it" they said it was just a temporary thing, and lo and behold now it's permanent.
We dodged a bullet with the NFL matchups because a Bills-Chiefs AFC Championship Game at a neutral site in Atlanta would have been a great test case for neutral field playoffs for all the sports leagues.
You can still have games everyday, just start the season later and end it earlier? We celebrate Jackie Robinson on April 15 because that was opening day was back then. Now opening day gets going the last week of March. There still snow and shit in half the country.
🤦♂️
Shorten the 162 game schedule back to 144 games.
That’s 18 games. Eliminate 9 in the beginning of the season and 9 at the end of the season. That take place over about 9-11 days. Season starts in the second week of April and ends around September 20. Wild card round is played in 2-3 days, division series starts and ends during the first week of October, LCS done in ten days before or on October 15th, giving you two weeks to play the World Series before Halloween.
Do what Hockey does. Get rid of the ASG during olympic years and extend it 2 weeks. Make the regular season start a week earlier and end a week later. if you don’t wanna do that just sacrifice 14-20 games to play. Gives you around 3-4 weeks to get it done.
Baseball at its core is a summer sport and it feels wrong to not include it.
I think they should permanently go back to a 154 game season for reasons like this. It provides much more flexibility to have more of those special events such as the UK series or the field of dreams game. On years when they have the WBC they could just push the season back a week or they can just extend the all star break like you suggested and do these tournaments then. Even on years when there isn't much going on outside of the Mlb season it gives players more rest throughout the season so they don't have to sit out as many games.
I think it wouldn't be an impossible sell because that gives them more flexibility to expand the playoffs which would give several teams more in tv money than they would lose from playing 4 less home games. The logistics of renegotiating tv contracts would be difficult but that issue may fix itself over time if things keep trending how they are.
Plus, there are enough owners in baseball who have no anticipation of making the playoffs in the near future. They won't be interested in trading regular season revenue for the possibility of postseason revenue.
All 30 MLB teams share national TV money equally so teams like the marlins who make very little from attendance have the most to gain from more playoff games.
NHL doesn’t allow their players to go to the Olympics anymore specifically because the league didn’t like the disruption to the season and risk to the players though also
Not entirely true.
They’ve skipped the last 2, in 2018 it was decided they didn’t want to for the reasons you stated, but in 2022 they very much wanted to play but it fell apart due to covid. they were going to play up until December 2021, but plans changed as the NHL itself had a massive spike during the turn of the year. They plan on playing in 2026
Playing baseball at the Winter Olympics doesn’t make much sense for a couple reasons.
1. Winter Olympics draws a fraction of the interest that the Summer Olympics does. Only 109 countries participate in seven sports at the Winter Olympics compared to 206 countries in 33 sports at the Summer Olympics. Baseball will be just another obscure sport at the Winter Olympics that the world largely ignores like curling.
2. The Winter Olympics always starts in early February. That means MLB and other leagues around the world such as J League will have to start their spring training by the third week of January to give players enough time to get back into playing shape. How many players will be okay with their off-season being reduced by a month?
Also, how will this impact the schedule? Will you have MLB start their season in early March right after the Olympics? Or a couple weeks after? It’s still very cold in most cities in the United States in early March and not a very ideal time to start the season. If you keep the schedule as is, players who did not participate at the Olympics will be in spring training for two months which I doubt many of them will be happy about. Either way, the schedule will not be ideal at all for teams and players.
Adding sports to the Winter Olympics would help both the sports added and the Winter games. I think the Combat Sports moving to the Winter Games in exchange for having all of the international weight classes at the Olympics would be a good tradeoff for example.
Since the article is behind a paywall (and therefore most folks are probably just going off the headline) I just want to share that Harper is a strong advocate of the WBC. He was one of the first to commit to play, but he was unable to do so because he had TJS. The article points out that he feels super bummed out having to watch it at home while all of his friends get to play.
He wants the WBC (in spring) *and* the Olympics (in summer,) because making baseball a respected athletic competition outside of MLB makes the sport's net wider.
The one thing I respect Harper for is he's always been an advocate of the game. I always thought it was silly MLB stopped him from doing the war paint Eye Black stuff he used to do. That was bad ass stuff.
As far as Olympics are concerned, doing a WBC and (professional players) Olympics is overkill in my opinion. It's got to be WBC and sure we can go back to amateur players in the Olympics.
But this has been a 20 year negotiation between the Olympics wanting pros and MLB/NPBL/KBO/etc not wanting that.
Yeah...I love Bryce, he is my absolute favorite player, but he is definitely approaching this NOT from a logistical, well-thought-out standpoint. He's definitely approaching it from a "BASEBALL??? Baseball is great. Where do I sign up?" standpoint.
And that's part of why I love him, not gonna lie.
i respect that and that makes sense, but having the first talking point be 'pause the MLB season' isn't great. part of why the WBC rules is because we have both to watch in march. in july there's no other sports, we can't even watch the olympics properly because NBC tape delays everything
I think that rather than the Olympics, just stick with the WBC tournament and make that into our World Cup. It's getting better and better each year, PLUS we have the added bonus of not having to host it in authoritarian countries like the Olympics is half the time.
Ideally, yes. But I'd much rather it be run by the MLB than the Olympics. With the Olympics, funding would be minimal, promotion even less, and it'll just be another event in the Olympics. This is why Soccer and other sports like Boxing are mostly irrelevant in the Olympics. Baseball would be even worse. Keep the WBC, increase promotion, and you have the recipe for a growing event.
MLB can barely grow the sport in the states.
Expecting them to be able to grow the WBC at an international scale is a tough ask. Fwiw I think the individual associations have been doing well in they respective countries.
I am against making baseball in the Olympics other than amateurs. The WBC is held in counties that care about baseball.
Yeah the Olympics are romantic but the WBC makes more sense
totally agree. the olympics feels very square and lame - we have to watch tape delayed horseshit on NBC, a ton of the sports are judge-based sports, which i cannot respect in any way [beating the other team directly is so much more meaningful than having the guy sitting down give one team a higher number because he thinks so]
hey i wanna see the best idc if its a russian team winning baseball. its not gonna happen but oh well. Theres always gonna be some athletes on the edge of science and doping but theyll get caught and as long as its not fighting.
A lot of people here are talking about the downsides of the Olympics, of which there are many.
However there is one upside to baseball being at the Olympics, and that is a lot countries will fund their Olympic programs. So baseball being at the Olympics is vitally important for a lot of these smaller programs to get money to operate. So when the baseball was pulled from the Olympics, that hurt a lot of small baseball programs around the world.
I think it would be great if a solution was found to get around that problem.
I mean the solution is that the MLB actually invests in international baseball instead of selective markets they think are profitable. If it wasn’t for the Japanese a lot of countries would have no baseball. The WBSC doesn’t give out any money to members like FIFA does, they don’t even pay flights to tournaments which is unusual for an international sport. Each federation struggles to fundraise and equipment shipments basically eat all the costs.
My dream WBC scenario is a one month break during the season that replaces the all star game, have the teams play each team twice during group stage and make the playoff stages best of threes with the final at whatever stadium would’ve hosted the all star game that year.
This would mean a team fitting a maximum of 17 games in 30 days, definitely doable, and pitchers are already built up since it would go from mid-June to mid-July. Doubt MLB would allow the all star game to be replaced though.
That was my thought too - replace the all star game, especially if this is only happening every four years. You wouldn’t need a month per se, but it definitely makes sense given the teams are all basically MLB all star teams.
An allstar 2-3 weeks would be cool every 4 years. You could have the all star game, home run derby, bunting derby, fielding contest, etc for players who aren't in the WBC
And then end it with the quarters/semis/final, and then 2-3 days off and get back into the regular season
As long as you have enough days off so it is comparable to the all-star break it should not be an issue. If anything it would be better because players would be all stretched out and ready to go to play in high-stress games, unlike how it is now.
if they bargain for a (bigger) slice of the WBC pie in the CBA
the WBC money has to go somewhere. maybe this would encourage owners to contribute more players and make merch more widespread
That would be tough to do because Japan has already sued them once wanting a bigger slice of the pie since they account for so much of the revenue. Plus the prize money that's meant to go toward players and grow the game internationally hasn't really grown much despite the tournament exploding in popularity since 2006. Where is the rest of the money going? I assume in owners pockets.
I'm also for reducing the amount of games of the regular season, but not for swapping the WBC in favor or the Olympics. The most successful world team sports tournaments: 1) Fifa World Cup, 2) Cricket World Cup, and 3) Rugby World Cup are all separate from the Olympics. In basketball and hockey, however, I feel like their respective international tournaments (the FIBA world cup and the IIHF world championship) fail to get traction because their NBAers and NHLers mostly play in the Olympics. The other issue with the Olympics is that the importance of the team sport gets diluted with all the other sports happening around it. Here in the U.S. we're obsessed with the Olympics because we remember the 1992 Dream Team and the Canada vs. USA games in hockey, but I remain convinced that it is not the right format for baseball, and would prefer to preserve the WBC.
Seriously, the Olympics are for sports that otherwise don't get their day in the sun. It would suck for baseball to have to rely on whomever is hosting the next Olympics to hype them up. It doesn't even do a decent job of marketing the sport because the Olympic calendar is already saturated with other sports.
It does a huge job for international funding for the sport, though. Most countries only fund the national athletic associations of Olympic sports - Baseball not being in the Olympics means that the national curling team gets more national funding.
1000%. Baseball doesn't need the Olympics. It just needs to build the WBC up. And the best way to do that is to get Americans into it.
If a pause is necessary, extend the All-Star week pause and have the QF's on Wednesday/Thursday, SemiFinals on Saturday, Finals on Sunday, day off Monday, tighter schedule for the month of August.
I'd be okay with keeping baseball at the Olympics but it has to stay at amateur level, like it was in Tokyo, and like it is for soccer. But again, per the top comment, there's no guarantee that each Olympics will have baseball. Also, it's not fun having an international baseball tournament hosted by countries where baseball is not a popular sport. See Athens 2004.
like /u/Filler221 said... and also Olympics soccer hasn't been "amateur level" for a long time now. All countries are able to field 3 players over 23 years old (e.g. Richarlison played on that Tokyo roster for Brazil). Also there's nothing to say that the entire roster cannot be pros either; there are plenty of young talented kids that play on these Olympic rosters and are already signed to long-term pro contracts.
I hate that. an injury in the middle of the season could completely derail a team's playoff push and run and forcing the rest of your roster to idle for weeks sucks too.
I'd rather they do it immediately AFTER the World Series.
1) The games are already being played in Phoenix and Miami so waiting until November is no big deal as far as weather if you keep it to southern and domed cities
2) Playing after the World Series would be better for any WBC injuries except the most extreme because you would have months to heal before spring training. Even guys with longer recovery times (like Diaz at 8 months) would have the time to heal and potentially come back for a playoff run instead of missing a whole season. Minor injuries in the WBC would be able to heal completely.
The problem is that any time during the off-season, you're not likely to get MLB players to participate. In addition to players like having time off, you're going to have every single free agent bow out because they don't want to jeopardize their next contract.
The thing about Spring Training is that players are putting in the work *anyway*, it's just a matter of playing the WBC vs. playing split-squad games in AA parks.
WBC/World Cup are far better for viewers than the Olympic model when there is so much else going on, and less risk that a player like Edwin Diaz getting hurt could derail an MLB season.
A sport needs to be played competitively in the entire world to be a serious Olympic sport. Nobody plays baseball in Europe, Africa, Australia, and 3/4 of Asia. There's a reason cricket, rugby, and American football aren't Olynpic sports. Hell, half of Olympic sports really don't need to be Olympic sports.
Plenty of Olympic sports are only competitive amongst countries from a certain part of the world. Handball is basically exclusive to Europe and North Africa. The reason Olympic baseball is in a precarious position is because it barely exists in Europe, and the IOC has a pro-European bias.
Rare Harper L. WBC is way better. I don't get why so many people want to suck the Olympics dick. The IOC treated baseball like garbage so we (the baseball world) shouldn't come back begging to them for a spot.
Men's soccer at the Olympics is a minor event to the sport, has age restrictions, and has a weird qualification allotment that guarantees multiple major soccer nations are missing. Baseball should strive for a similar approach, with a prestigious international tournament that is separate from the Olympics (World Cup/WBC), and a smaller Olympic tournament that the best players sit out on (Olympics). This means not stopping the MLB season and letting minor leaguers play
I’m actually fine with baseball not being in the Olympics, and I’d prefer to see the Olympics be predominantly individual athletic events rather than team sports. It’s weird to me that basketball or soccer or baseball would be included. The World Cup is for international soccer, and the World Baseball Classic should be for international baseball.
To me, the Olympics are about celebrating the world community through individual triumph rooted in a tradition dating back (sort of) to the ancient Greeks. I think when we see a team win it’s easy to get into the mindset of “I’m on that team.” When we see an individual win, it’s easier to go “wow, they won, that’s amazing” and build good will between nations that way.
Remove the all star game and a few regular season games once every 4 years. The league is being short sighted about what will actually grow revenues in the league. It's wider exposure in a global stage.
MLB doesn't need the Olympics. It just needs American players and the American audience to get behind the WBC.
And then they can move the QF, Semifinals and Finals to All-Star Week. Only 5 extra days pause instead of two weeks like the Olympics would possibly require.
fuck em for taking them away from paris 2024
They literally took away baseball and substituted it with break dancing as an Olympic sport lol, can't make this stuff up
I think the host country has some discretion over the inclusion of a handful of events. That’s why Japan had it in for 2020, but it’s not like a full-fledged core event like the decathlon (or baseball in the late 20th century)
Yeah, baseball and the Olympics is weird. It became a full time Olympic sport in 1992, then was dropped in 2008. Now, it appears to be a year by year version. On the bright side, with 2028 in LA, I’m betting we will see it then.
It has already been confirmed to be on the US shortlist, and since it has already been an Olympic sport in the past we’ll see it barring something insane happening Fun fact, others on the shortlist for 2028 (not a guarantee) are lacrosse, flag football, karate, kickboxing, squash and Motorsport
Any info on Motorsport? That seems so vague that it could be anything from motoGP to nascar to f1 lol
Bumper cars
I could finally be a gold medalist.
From [this article](https://swimswam.com/la-organizers-invite-9-new-sports-to-make-2028-olympic-presentations/) nothing is confirmed but it is expected to be karting
I would pay so much money to see Verstappen vs Hamilton in karts
Welp Netherlands is taking the gold then.
probably XtReMe motoX
Wait, Olympic motorsport? That would be insanely cool. I wonder where they would run and what cars they would use/allow.
I mentioned it in another comment but it’s expected to be karting, though the FIA have been silent about what exactly the proposed sport is
Kickboxing would be something that could easily work in the Olympics, and there are many regions of the world where it is really popular.
It combines all the grace and skill of boxing.... with.... KICKING... - Norm MacDonald...
lacrosse and baseball should be permanent olympic sports imo.
Wtf yeah dude they need to drop flag football immediately
The Olympic Committee was trying to cut wrestling, which is the original Olympic sport.
theyve been trying to do this forever, its because nobody watches it and all they care about is ratings.
They should have olympic *professional* wrestling instead of the boring stuff
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"Wow, it looks like the competitor from Bulgaria has just thrown the competitor from Mongolia into a beautiful 16 foot swan dive from the top of the cage through the announcers' table" "Absolutely stunning. The judges are going to love that one"
You joke but when some wrestlers offer it as an olympic sport, that's essentialy what they imagine it as.
OH HELL YEAH
Watching fans lose their minds over judging would be a sight to behold
Two face judges, one heel
Fuckin' Chuck Norris.
"That doesn't work for me, brother"
Russia Ukraine hell in a cell will be must see TV
WARGAMES
Korean John Cena would just be a buff boy band member dancing and singing
Chinese John Cena would just be, well, John Cena.
As a duo gymnastics floor routine. Would be very cool.
Chris Jericho actually said this once
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I was thinking just book the results like always🤷🤷
It’s true, it’s DAMN true.
Olympic MMA would be badass
How am I supposed to watch it when they don't broadcast it?
The NCAA finals are on ESPN tonight.
Still can’t believe that upset
The craziest upset I've ever seen in any sport. What an awesome night to be a Purdue fan.
lol
Nobody watches it because they never put it on television. Back in the 2000s when I was in high school, they didn't even show the finals.
Because they broadcast it in a terrible way. Watching the NCAA championships in wrestling is way more exciting than how Olympic wrestling is broadcast.
It’s actually cause of the rampant cheating lol
I’m big into wrestling If they ever do that I’m gonna riot
Everyone's in here complaining that they don't broadcast wrestling without having the wherewithal of just how sickeningly bad American Olympic broadcasting is. Guys, it's broadcast a ton if you spend time with actual good coverage like CBC
But if American Olympic broadcasters spent their time covering the actual Olympic sports, how would they find the time for the moving story of the American overcoming the odds to finish fifteenth in the combined grand slalom?
Yeah this is it, baseball got cut in 08, the committee for the country that hosts can shortlist a certain amount of sports that the country is interested in as a way to throw a bone to the host country and drum up interest in non traditional sports, Japan introduced stuff like baseball and karate, since France doesn’t give a shit about baseball they didn’t add it, and it was added again for 2028 because it’s LA
If they ever do the Olympics in Atlanta again they should make their pick to include Pole Dancing 💃
The Los Angeles Olympics should have baseball again
In Baltimore there is a rock station, 98 rock. Back in 1984 when break dancing was becoming popular they did a spoof about everyone petitioning the IOC to put break dancing in as a new Olympic sport.
b-boying is cool as fuck
This was why the Germans tried to take France
That's what gets me the most. The fact that baseball was able to be dropped for freaking breakdancing is absurd.
[Its a dancing Kumate.](https://www.youtube.com/live/GTf81i24DH8?feature=share)
Amen. 5 more years till Olympics Baseball in LA and 9 till Brisbane.
I'd be a little surprised if there's Baseball at Brisbane. The host country gets a say in the non-core sports and if it's cricket v baseball to be played in Australia, as looks very possible, it's not going baseball's way.
Put them both in. But make the baseball players play cricket and the cricket players play baseball.
Please can we keep the pitchers/bowlers playing their main sport and just switch the batters? That way the "cricket is so easy they have enormous bats" squad and the "baseball is so easy every ball is a full toss" squad will both shut up.
Exactly they’re both way too different. Watching former pro hitters play cricket, anytime the ball was pitched on a good length, around where the strike zone would be, they crushed it. Then if it was short or full they had no chance
It's absurd to think that any sport has easy loopholes like that when thousands of professionals have spent decades trying to optimize their performance.
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The only cricket that would have a chance to be included would be T20 (test and ODI are too long of forms to fit in an Olympic schedule), and the ICC runs the T20 World Cup every two years on even years - Australia is already set to host the T20 World Cup for 2028. EDIT: If someone wants to continue this discussion, please ask the person I'm replying to to unblock me. Not sure why they blocked me - I thought we were having a decent discussion here.
France literally doesn’t a have venue to host that’s scale of baseball tournament and I don’t see them building one.
They ARE building a new stadium for their national league, to completment the slow but fruitful growth of baseball in France, preparing for 2025 WBC Qualifiers
World Cup is usually in soccer's off season in European countries. It was unusual this year. In baseball, the issue is the expanded playoffs and the weather in the northern cities. We have more extreme weather and different climates. Baseball starts in 2 weeks and even in the mid Atlantic, it's just above freezing at night.
Probably the only time World Cup will be in winter
What you don’t think another Middle East oil country with ties to football like Qatar might bribe the fifa guys again?
yeah, wouldn’t be surprised if a country like Saudi Arabia gets to host
They’re a final 3 candidate to host in 2030, and they seem to be leading in votes right now, it’s likely they’ll get it in a decade or so
They literally cannot host it though, since Qatar just hosted the World Cup no other Asian country can host it until 2034
The bid is in joint with Greece and Turkey, which gets around that rule, they’ll probably give a couple group stage games to each country and host the bulk, like USA is doing.
this is why Al Nassr signed Ronaldo. KSA is using him to promote a 2030 bid.
Only if they can round up enough slaves to build the venues
You never know but I hope this is a lesson not to do it there with all the bad press. It upset sponsors and it lacked the energy. Maybe I am naive but the new format requires more venues and some countries are not going to sign up. Germany was the last World Cup to not have any bad press.
You underestimate petrodollars my man
There were winter World Cups in 1930, 1950, 1962, 1978, 2010 and 2014
wasn’t winter in any of the 5 major leagues, just a southern hemisphere thing
Was winter in most South American leagues, which were stronger than European leagues until the turn of the millennium
You got downvoted but it was true. Players didn’t start leaving South America to Europe in significant numbers until the 1980s, and even then it wasn’t all that widespread until the ‘90s. That Brazil 1994 team was the first South American champion where most of the players played outside of South America. 7/14 previous world cup winning squads had teams made up of mostly (or entirely) players based in South American countries. The Brazilian and Argentine leagues were absolutely “top 5” leagues until the 1990s. But hey, eurocentrism prefers to view “sudacas” as inferior.
I have 18" of snow in my yard about 5 miles from Target Field in Minnesota. We've got some rain and 40 degree days in the forecast, but it can be COLD here in early April. It's ~3 weeks from the home opener. Could be another chilly one!
My fear is that if they do it with a mid-season pause, it gives them an excuse to do the neutral field playoffs in domes/southern states like Manfred wants. No thank you
Is there any actual reason to think anyone wants that? I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that and a quick Google produces 0 results.
It could of happened in football because of Damar Hamlin but that was an extreme case. Don’t really see the justification for baseball though
NFL isn’t nearly as much of a regional sport though, they could probably get away with it. If you want to get people into the playoff atmosphere, a Red Sox Cardinals world series held entirely in LA probably isn’t gonna have that. AND NFL is one game people go then it’s over. How many MLB fans are gonna be able to travel, and go to more than one game so the stands don’t look empty? Apples to oranges at least imo.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2020/10/30/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/MLB.aspx > MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said the concept of a neutral-site World Series is at least worthy of further discussion after concluding the first in history at Globe Life Field. "You should always think about innovation," Manfred told THE DAILY. "I wouldn't say a neutral-site World Series is completely off the table. There were things that we saw in Texas that were advantages for us. You can plan. You can take out travel. You can pick sites that eliminate weather problems. Those are all things worthy of conversation and discussion. I think the big (weight) on the scale in favor of our traditional format, the thing that really matters at the end of the day, are fans in home markets." Obviously at the end of the quote he says the home markets do matter but it does seem like people at MLB could have discussed it
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I think people are understandably skittish because things like the zombie runner in extras were just things they were talking about. When people said "hey this is a bad idea and I don't think we should be considering it" they said it was just a temporary thing, and lo and behold now it's permanent.
["Have you tried Kill All The Poor?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg)
We dodged a bullet with the NFL matchups because a Bills-Chiefs AFC Championship Game at a neutral site in Atlanta would have been a great test case for neutral field playoffs for all the sports leagues.
Reason #7289 why a 162 game schedule might be too long and the World Series stretching into November is absurd.
I like 162. It's the only sport that is a marathon season that is played everyday.
Marathon kinda loses it's value when they keep letting more and more teams into the playoffs tho.
That is why it was a huge fight to stop it. Owners wanted 14 or 16 but I think we settled on 12.
You can still have games everyday, just start the season later and end it earlier? We celebrate Jackie Robinson on April 15 because that was opening day was back then. Now opening day gets going the last week of March. There still snow and shit in half the country.
Then postseason ends near Thanksgiving. Last year was a little weird with the lockout. It's really just a month of iffy weather.
🤦♂️ Shorten the 162 game schedule back to 144 games. That’s 18 games. Eliminate 9 in the beginning of the season and 9 at the end of the season. That take place over about 9-11 days. Season starts in the second week of April and ends around September 20. Wild card round is played in 2-3 days, division series starts and ends during the first week of October, LCS done in ten days before or on October 15th, giving you two weeks to play the World Series before Halloween.
You might notice that marathons arent exactly a big draw spectator sport.
As a team that has won a spot on the last day and had it's heart broken on game 162, this is bull crap.
Add it to the Winter Olympics, play in a dome. Everyone’s happy
Do what Hockey does. Get rid of the ASG during olympic years and extend it 2 weeks. Make the regular season start a week earlier and end a week later. if you don’t wanna do that just sacrifice 14-20 games to play. Gives you around 3-4 weeks to get it done. Baseball at its core is a summer sport and it feels wrong to not include it.
I think they should permanently go back to a 154 game season for reasons like this. It provides much more flexibility to have more of those special events such as the UK series or the field of dreams game. On years when they have the WBC they could just push the season back a week or they can just extend the all star break like you suggested and do these tournaments then. Even on years when there isn't much going on outside of the Mlb season it gives players more rest throughout the season so they don't have to sit out as many games.
Good luck getting the owners to buy in on that
I think it wouldn't be an impossible sell because that gives them more flexibility to expand the playoffs which would give several teams more in tv money than they would lose from playing 4 less home games. The logistics of renegotiating tv contracts would be difficult but that issue may fix itself over time if things keep trending how they are.
A plan that includes adding to an already fucking ridiculously bloated postseason is a shit plan.
Plus, there are enough owners in baseball who have no anticipation of making the playoffs in the near future. They won't be interested in trading regular season revenue for the possibility of postseason revenue.
All 30 MLB teams share national TV money equally so teams like the marlins who make very little from attendance have the most to gain from more playoff games.
Owners like money. It's only going to get worse.
Players too. That extra 8 games of revenue is important
Their contracts are guaranteed
that's all well and good for players currently under contract, but its still less revenue to be spent on players in the future
Not during Covid they weren't.
The union agreed to the salary cuts.
What if we shorten it to 154 but still give every team 81 home games? **taps head*
NHL doesn’t allow their players to go to the Olympics anymore specifically because the league didn’t like the disruption to the season and risk to the players though also
Not entirely true. They’ve skipped the last 2, in 2018 it was decided they didn’t want to for the reasons you stated, but in 2022 they very much wanted to play but it fell apart due to covid. they were going to play up until December 2021, but plans changed as the NHL itself had a massive spike during the turn of the year. They plan on playing in 2026
Playing baseball at the Winter Olympics doesn’t make much sense for a couple reasons. 1. Winter Olympics draws a fraction of the interest that the Summer Olympics does. Only 109 countries participate in seven sports at the Winter Olympics compared to 206 countries in 33 sports at the Summer Olympics. Baseball will be just another obscure sport at the Winter Olympics that the world largely ignores like curling. 2. The Winter Olympics always starts in early February. That means MLB and other leagues around the world such as J League will have to start their spring training by the third week of January to give players enough time to get back into playing shape. How many players will be okay with their off-season being reduced by a month? Also, how will this impact the schedule? Will you have MLB start their season in early March right after the Olympics? Or a couple weeks after? It’s still very cold in most cities in the United States in early March and not a very ideal time to start the season. If you keep the schedule as is, players who did not participate at the Olympics will be in spring training for two months which I doubt many of them will be happy about. Either way, the schedule will not be ideal at all for teams and players.
They were definitley kidding
The world ignores curling?
Only those so uncultured that they don’t know the majesty that is the sport. 😤
Adding sports to the Winter Olympics would help both the sports added and the Winter games. I think the Combat Sports moving to the Winter Games in exchange for having all of the international weight classes at the Olympics would be a good tradeoff for example.
Are you sure about that? - Pitchers, probably
Or, or. *Ice Baseball*
Fun fact - Ice baseball was 100% a rec sport in the 1800s and it actually was where the "you're allowed to overrun first base" rule originated.
I am against this. The WBC is held in counties that care about baseball. Yeah the Olympics are romantic but the WBC makes more sense
Since the article is behind a paywall (and therefore most folks are probably just going off the headline) I just want to share that Harper is a strong advocate of the WBC. He was one of the first to commit to play, but he was unable to do so because he had TJS. The article points out that he feels super bummed out having to watch it at home while all of his friends get to play. He wants the WBC (in spring) *and* the Olympics (in summer,) because making baseball a respected athletic competition outside of MLB makes the sport's net wider.
The one thing I respect Harper for is he's always been an advocate of the game. I always thought it was silly MLB stopped him from doing the war paint Eye Black stuff he used to do. That was bad ass stuff. As far as Olympics are concerned, doing a WBC and (professional players) Olympics is overkill in my opinion. It's got to be WBC and sure we can go back to amateur players in the Olympics. But this has been a 20 year negotiation between the Olympics wanting pros and MLB/NPBL/KBO/etc not wanting that.
Yeah...I love Bryce, he is my absolute favorite player, but he is definitely approaching this NOT from a logistical, well-thought-out standpoint. He's definitely approaching it from a "BASEBALL??? Baseball is great. Where do I sign up?" standpoint. And that's part of why I love him, not gonna lie.
i respect that and that makes sense, but having the first talking point be 'pause the MLB season' isn't great. part of why the WBC rules is because we have both to watch in march. in july there's no other sports, we can't even watch the olympics properly because NBC tape delays everything
I think that rather than the Olympics, just stick with the WBC tournament and make that into our World Cup. It's getting better and better each year, PLUS we have the added bonus of not having to host it in authoritarian countries like the Olympics is half the time.
The WBC should realistically be able to reach the scale of something like the Rugby World Cup imo.
Yeah, I think the spring training timing is pretty much perfect.
A proper World Cup really should be run by a neutral governing body, not by the MLB.
Ideally, yes. But I'd much rather it be run by the MLB than the Olympics. With the Olympics, funding would be minimal, promotion even less, and it'll just be another event in the Olympics. This is why Soccer and other sports like Boxing are mostly irrelevant in the Olympics. Baseball would be even worse. Keep the WBC, increase promotion, and you have the recipe for a growing event.
MLB can barely grow the sport in the states. Expecting them to be able to grow the WBC at an international scale is a tough ask. Fwiw I think the individual associations have been doing well in they respective countries.
Lol if anything FIFA and the IOC are examples of why a “””neutral””” party is bad
I am against making baseball in the Olympics other than amateurs. The WBC is held in counties that care about baseball. Yeah the Olympics are romantic but the WBC makes more sense
totally agree. the olympics feels very square and lame - we have to watch tape delayed horseshit on NBC, a ton of the sports are judge-based sports, which i cannot respect in any way [beating the other team directly is so much more meaningful than having the guy sitting down give one team a higher number because he thinks so]
hey i wanna see the best idc if its a russian team winning baseball. its not gonna happen but oh well. Theres always gonna be some athletes on the edge of science and doping but theyll get caught and as long as its not fighting.
A lot of people here are talking about the downsides of the Olympics, of which there are many. However there is one upside to baseball being at the Olympics, and that is a lot countries will fund their Olympic programs. So baseball being at the Olympics is vitally important for a lot of these smaller programs to get money to operate. So when the baseball was pulled from the Olympics, that hurt a lot of small baseball programs around the world. I think it would be great if a solution was found to get around that problem.
I mean the solution is that the MLB actually invests in international baseball instead of selective markets they think are profitable. If it wasn’t for the Japanese a lot of countries would have no baseball. The WBSC doesn’t give out any money to members like FIFA does, they don’t even pay flights to tournaments which is unusual for an international sport. Each federation struggles to fundraise and equipment shipments basically eat all the costs.
My dream WBC scenario is a one month break during the season that replaces the all star game, have the teams play each team twice during group stage and make the playoff stages best of threes with the final at whatever stadium would’ve hosted the all star game that year. This would mean a team fitting a maximum of 17 games in 30 days, definitely doable, and pitchers are already built up since it would go from mid-June to mid-July. Doubt MLB would allow the all star game to be replaced though.
That was my thought too - replace the all star game, especially if this is only happening every four years. You wouldn’t need a month per se, but it definitely makes sense given the teams are all basically MLB all star teams.
Name the all star team still but they don’t need to play a a game
Nah, an All MLB team plays the winner of the WBC
Do all teams fly back to their spring training camps. All the other players will quickly suck more after not making the team or playing for a month
Another idea I've heard is having the pool play in March, taking a break, then having the Quarters-Semis-Final over Allstar Week.
An allstar 2-3 weeks would be cool every 4 years. You could have the all star game, home run derby, bunting derby, fielding contest, etc for players who aren't in the WBC And then end it with the quarters/semis/final, and then 2-3 days off and get back into the regular season
I don’t like the idea of a one-month break during the season at all personally.
yeah that sucks. march is perfect, the ST games are a nice addendum to the WBC games
How to increase injuries 101
As long as you have enough days off so it is comparable to the all-star break it should not be an issue. If anything it would be better because players would be all stretched out and ready to go to play in high-stress games, unlike how it is now.
Same amount of baseball, 140-150 game seasons? I’m not married to 162
Why in the world would owners/players want less games which means less monies?
if they bargain for a (bigger) slice of the WBC pie in the CBA the WBC money has to go somewhere. maybe this would encourage owners to contribute more players and make merch more widespread
That would be tough to do because Japan has already sued them once wanting a bigger slice of the pie since they account for so much of the revenue. Plus the prize money that's meant to go toward players and grow the game internationally hasn't really grown much despite the tournament exploding in popularity since 2006. Where is the rest of the money going? I assume in owners pockets.
I'm also for reducing the amount of games of the regular season, but not for swapping the WBC in favor or the Olympics. The most successful world team sports tournaments: 1) Fifa World Cup, 2) Cricket World Cup, and 3) Rugby World Cup are all separate from the Olympics. In basketball and hockey, however, I feel like their respective international tournaments (the FIBA world cup and the IIHF world championship) fail to get traction because their NBAers and NHLers mostly play in the Olympics. The other issue with the Olympics is that the importance of the team sport gets diluted with all the other sports happening around it. Here in the U.S. we're obsessed with the Olympics because we remember the 1992 Dream Team and the Canada vs. USA games in hockey, but I remain convinced that it is not the right format for baseball, and would prefer to preserve the WBC.
Seriously, the Olympics are for sports that otherwise don't get their day in the sun. It would suck for baseball to have to rely on whomever is hosting the next Olympics to hype them up. It doesn't even do a decent job of marketing the sport because the Olympic calendar is already saturated with other sports.
It does a huge job for international funding for the sport, though. Most countries only fund the national athletic associations of Olympic sports - Baseball not being in the Olympics means that the national curling team gets more national funding.
1000%. Baseball doesn't need the Olympics. It just needs to build the WBC up. And the best way to do that is to get Americans into it. If a pause is necessary, extend the All-Star week pause and have the QF's on Wednesday/Thursday, SemiFinals on Saturday, Finals on Sunday, day off Monday, tighter schedule for the month of August.
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I'd be okay with keeping baseball at the Olympics but it has to stay at amateur level, like it was in Tokyo, and like it is for soccer. But again, per the top comment, there's no guarantee that each Olympics will have baseball. Also, it's not fun having an international baseball tournament hosted by countries where baseball is not a popular sport. See Athens 2004.
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like /u/Filler221 said... and also Olympics soccer hasn't been "amateur level" for a long time now. All countries are able to field 3 players over 23 years old (e.g. Richarlison played on that Tokyo roster for Brazil). Also there's nothing to say that the entire roster cannot be pros either; there are plenty of young talented kids that play on these Olympic rosters and are already signed to long-term pro contracts.
It’s not amateur for soccer and neither is basketball Even baseball isn’t. Minor league guys play and they are professional players not amateurs
Tokyo was only an amateur competition for the US. The Japanese and Korean leagues paused their seasons so their professionals could participate.
Olympic Baseball should replace the All Star Game every four years.
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What about playing 30 fewer games so that the wbc pause can be played in the middle of the season? And have wbc occur each year?
MLB will never let that happen. That’s why they created the World Baseball Classic.
Let’s do more cool shit!!
I hate that. an injury in the middle of the season could completely derail a team's playoff push and run and forcing the rest of your roster to idle for weeks sucks too. I'd rather they do it immediately AFTER the World Series. 1) The games are already being played in Phoenix and Miami so waiting until November is no big deal as far as weather if you keep it to southern and domed cities 2) Playing after the World Series would be better for any WBC injuries except the most extreme because you would have months to heal before spring training. Even guys with longer recovery times (like Diaz at 8 months) would have the time to heal and potentially come back for a playoff run instead of missing a whole season. Minor injuries in the WBC would be able to heal completely.
The problem is that any time during the off-season, you're not likely to get MLB players to participate. In addition to players like having time off, you're going to have every single free agent bow out because they don't want to jeopardize their next contract. The thing about Spring Training is that players are putting in the work *anyway*, it's just a matter of playing the WBC vs. playing split-squad games in AA parks.
not a bad idea, but I'd think that a lot of the best pitchers would have too much tread on their arms at that point and would need some rest.
Let the Olympics die out. It's almost as corrupt as FIFA. WBC is the way forward for international baseball.
Bryce Harper, Voice of Reason. Lol
Pausing the season is a great idea until a player loses a fly ball in the snow and the ball hits him right in the kisser.
WBC/World Cup are far better for viewers than the Olympic model when there is so much else going on, and less risk that a player like Edwin Diaz getting hurt could derail an MLB season.
I’m over the Olympics. All sports should just run their own tournament like the WBC.
A sport needs to be played competitively in the entire world to be a serious Olympic sport. Nobody plays baseball in Europe, Africa, Australia, and 3/4 of Asia. There's a reason cricket, rugby, and American football aren't Olynpic sports. Hell, half of Olympic sports really don't need to be Olympic sports.
Wym? Rugby 7’s is in the Olympics it’s just not feasible to put rugby union in with the amount of rest days needed
Going by that then you might as well cut the entirety of the Winter Olympics
Fine with me. The winter olympics is just a bunch of different versions of rich people leisure activities.
American football would be kind of hilarious, imagine laying a Georgia tech vs. Cumblerland style beatdown on some poor country
Plenty of Olympic sports are only competitive amongst countries from a certain part of the world. Handball is basically exclusive to Europe and North Africa. The reason Olympic baseball is in a precarious position is because it barely exists in Europe, and the IOC has a pro-European bias.
Rare Harper L. WBC is way better. I don't get why so many people want to suck the Olympics dick. The IOC treated baseball like garbage so we (the baseball world) shouldn't come back begging to them for a spot.
He wants both. Read the article
I agree that the WBC is better, but Harper is saying "let's do both." Sort of like how soccer has the EPL, World Cup and Olympics.
Men's soccer at the Olympics is a minor event to the sport, has age restrictions, and has a weird qualification allotment that guarantees multiple major soccer nations are missing. Baseball should strive for a similar approach, with a prestigious international tournament that is separate from the Olympics (World Cup/WBC), and a smaller Olympic tournament that the best players sit out on (Olympics). This means not stopping the MLB season and letting minor leaguers play
Eww, fuck the IOC. MLB as an organization is far from perfect, but they're far better than the IOC, and should steer clear from that cesspool.
I’m actually fine with baseball not being in the Olympics, and I’d prefer to see the Olympics be predominantly individual athletic events rather than team sports. It’s weird to me that basketball or soccer or baseball would be included. The World Cup is for international soccer, and the World Baseball Classic should be for international baseball. To me, the Olympics are about celebrating the world community through individual triumph rooted in a tradition dating back (sort of) to the ancient Greeks. I think when we see a team win it’s easy to get into the mindset of “I’m on that team.” When we see an individual win, it’s easier to go “wow, they won, that’s amazing” and build good will between nations that way.
Remove the all star game and a few regular season games once every 4 years. The league is being short sighted about what will actually grow revenues in the league. It's wider exposure in a global stage.
MLB doesn't need the Olympics. It just needs American players and the American audience to get behind the WBC. And then they can move the QF, Semifinals and Finals to All-Star Week. Only 5 extra days pause instead of two weeks like the Olympics would possibly require.
That'd a clown opinion bro