New Sports at LA 28

[Victorian]

On 10/14/2023 at 9:14 AM, Sir Rols said:

A tid-bit lost amongst the main announcements.

Beach sprint rowing added to Olympic programme at Los Angeles 2028 but lightweight events dropped

 

Was meant to be part of the Vic 2026 Games

[Texas]

Lacrosse is interesting because of Iroquois Nation having their own Lacrosse team.  The most likely scenario is that the players on that team will be asked by the IOC to play for either USA or Canada.  

[baron-pierreIV]

7 hours ago, Texas said:

Lacrosse is interesting because of Iroquois Nation having their own Lacrosse team.  The most likely scenario is that the players on that team will be asked by the IOC to play for either USA or Canada.  

Not necessarily.  The "Iroquois Nation" is not a recognized entity per the IOC Charter.  The staging of the sport in 2028 will still be administered by the same official body that worked for its inclusion in '28.  If that includes members of the IN, then well and good.  The IOC works through the recognized, various federations of sport.  

[StefanMUC]

7 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Not necessarily.  The "Iroquois Nation" is not a recognized entity per the IOC Charter.  The staging of the sport in 2028 will still be administered by the same official body that worked for its inclusion in '28.  If that includes members of the IN, then well and good.  The IOC works through the recognized, various federations of sport.  

The IOC invites NOCs to participate, not other entities.

By the same logic, West Indies could field a cricket team, or the 4 separate UK countries could be in the football tournament (as that is FIFA organised and in FIFA competitions, they‘re obviously not Team GB).

The only exceptions so far have been the dubious „independent athletes“ in various denominations, e.g. from what remained of Yugoslavia in 1992 or of course Russia 2016 etc., and then the Refugee Team.

Let‘s see if the IOC is willing to make an exception again for Lacrosse.

 

[Durban Sandshark]

On 10/9/2023 at 6:08 PM, Sir Rols said:

Hmmm, I dunno. I’m not really fanatical one way or the other. Cricket’s one of the few sports I played with any success at school, but I think it’s boring to watch and don’t pay too much attention beyond noting results.

And, yes, playing at the elite, or professional, level? Yeah, 10’s about right. But in terms of organised amateur competition around the world, it’s far more universal than that. So universality isn’t really a problem. The same could be said of many sports at the games.

Look at Rugby. As the current World Cup highlights, there’s only about 8 nations that are competitive at the test level. But the 7s format, however, has drawn a lot more countries to participate in it, and the 7s circuit has bloomed, since it was introduced to the Olympics. I imagine the ICC would hope T20 (we’re not talking Test cricket) would have the same result from the Olympics in broadening the interest base. Plus, there’s the money. What was it? Cricket inclusion will increase the Indian broadcast rights from $20 million to $200 million? India sure does splash money at cricket coverage. 

It was a shoe-in for 2032 anyway. 

Exactly. Flag Football’s far more bizarre, but at least it makes sense to the broadcast appeal, and ensure some easy golds, for a US home games. It’s hard to see it included in non-US games in the future. Lacrosse is possibly a bit more established, but still obscure. Hard to see that survive beyond 2028 either.

Squash has been trying so hard for so long, so happy for them they finally made it.

My biggest concern is the competitor numbers all these are going to bring. If the IOC is so ken to cap competitor numbers, and ensure male-female parity, what events in other sports are going to have to be cut to make way for this deluge? Or have they given up on that? They really can’t resist the pull of gigantism.  

To your point about cricket's LA 2028 inclusion making India's Olympic broadcasting rights more lucrative, I recall watching Hasan Minhaj's now-defunct and missed Netflix show Patriot Act when touched on India's massive and outsized stranglehold power and bullying influence--and bringing corruption on the sport back in 2019. No coincidence I'm writing this as 2023 Cricket World Cup goes on in India, when Minhaj here below is talking about this as the 2019 edition was commencing. The game has especially grown in India with the creation of the flashy and explosive pro league IPL, producing big stars and actually nationally iconic, but that expansion also brought rotten corruption and at the expense of developing more nations' cricket growth in stifling it. Come by 2028, the likes of Star Sports, Sony Pictures Networks, Viacom18, Zee TV, and AirTel TV will obviously all fiercely bid for the top dollars in grabbing the massive eyeballs cricket coverage will without question bring being in the Olympic program with the Indian subcontinent broadcasting rights being up for sale then. Anticipate it will be the T10-20 format. That's my sport! many in the Indian subcontinent will say. Yet, there's always fear from the BCCI, cricket's now-Olympic inclusion would dilute its power. Anyway, let India's splashing of the cricket cash begin! 

I wouldn't sell lacrosse short on its long term Summer Olympic prospects, though. Australia, for example, does very well in the men's and women's games like in world championships in a sport dominated, yes, by the USA and occasionally Canada. If allowed for Brisbane, Australia will continue to be solid there. But it's sorta like women's ice hockey with just two nations deep in talent--Canada and USA--always expected and dominating at the top with several like Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and maybe Germany getting close but not being right there as the rest of the world's standards improve but not quite overnight. Agreed on flag football for the reasons you just mentioned. Not the least of which the limited appeal beyond North America. Haven't seen much institutional growth and development there in Europe, much of Latin America, and Asia. Maybe Australia. That will take lots of time.

What you just said in the end is a major reason why I strongly support the expansion of the Olympic Games to a month. Many won't lose interest beyond 18 days and give Olympic TV broadcasters more space time to schedule and viewers to watch events. Also add more sports like karate, among other things:

 

[olympikfan]

What happen to cost cutting ? Again the Olympics are getting to big and the costs go up and up. Agenda 2020 a failure.

[baron-pierreIV]

3 hours ago, olympikfan said:

What happen to cost cutting ? Again the Olympics are getting to big and the costs go up and up. Agenda 2020 a failure.

I think LA 28 crunched the numbers (after all, Wasserman is not CEO and owner of the world's biggest sports talent mgmt agency for nothing) and (#1) LA 28 will not lose out on the new sports even after the LA28 books will be closed. 
#2 - If the scuttlebutt is true, whatever broadcast rights $$ will come from India, Pakistan, and the UK for the cricket coverage alone -- will probably more than compensate for the cost of staging the other 4 (where OCOG could break even from squash, Flag Football & LaCrosse) but LA28 will certainly make oodles of $$ with baseball and softball back. 
And #3 - CW and the IOC are looking at the longer and larger picture, in that some of the sports down the line, will be $$ earners in the future -- if not on WOGs, then at least from a US perspective.  

[olympikfan]

Why not put Bodybuilding the IFBB has 203 affiliate nations. I'm sure that it has a bigger following than flag football. La Cross has 90.  Cricket has 104,  so by numbers the bodybuilding has a bigger following. Mr. Olympia is from Iran and the last one was from Egypt.   I remember seeing the the seats in Athens for baseball and softball empty. 

[baron-pierreIV]

6 hours ago, olympikfan said:

Why not put Bodybuilding the IFBB has 203 affiliate nations. I'm sure that it has a bigger following than flag football. La Cross has 90.  Cricket has 104,  so by numbers the bodybuilding has a bigger following. Mr. Olympia is from Iran and the last one was from Egypt.   I remember seeing the the seats in Athens for baseball and softball empty. 

Uhmmm . . . Body building is just too narcissitic and the "sport" is riddled with steroid abuse.  I mean weightlifting looks idiotic enough on TV, what about BB?   Empty seats in Athens baseball and softball because it is NOT a generic sport in Europe.  Base/soft played w/ USA, Cuba, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, Panama, Nicaragua teams will sell out (or fill the stadia 80%-90%) in 2028.  

Edited October 20, 2023 by baron-pierreIV
xx

[Sir Rols]

Am I the only one hoping Pat Cummins will still be around for Hot Bods of LA?

[FYI]

lol, that last name! 

[baron-pierreIV]

Who's he?  Never hoid of him.  

[Sir Rols]

3 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Who's he?  Never hoid of him.  

Captain of the Australian Cricket Team, or, as one former Prime Minister said, holder of the most important job in Australia. 

[arwebb]

On 10/13/2023 at 8:08 PM, yoshi said:

Is it bad that I'm a cricket fan and I love the Olympics and yet I don't like this at all? Is this going to have the kind of status within the game that the Olympics should have? How is the already stretched cricket calendar going to cope with all the best players going for at least 3 extra weeks? How are they gonna deal with the West Indies? Or GB, I assume it'll just be the England team but Scotland's still around...

The only way I can see it working, certainly for the men's competition, would be to run it on similar lines to football as an age-restricted tournament with a limited number of over-age players allowed in each squad. If it's not, you're going to have three franchise leagues (Major League, the Hundred and the CPL) all being disrupted and I wouldn't want to be the English cricket administrator who had to deal with the knock-on effects of that.

Ultimately, though, cricket needs to decide what it wants to be. If it wants to be a truly global sport, then being in the Olympics makes a degree of sense, particularly if it were to become the big prize for T20 in the way it seems to have done for rugby sevens. But if that comes at the cost of losing the heritage of the West Indies as a collective, for example, or the demise of other forms of the game, that will not be a price worth paying for a lot of people.

[arwebb]

On 10/29/2023 at 8:10 PM, Sir Rols said:

Captain of the Australian Cricket Team, or, as one former Prime Minister said, holder of the most important job in Australia. 

The politician was not wrong.

[baron-pierreIV]

Will Para-jumping be added at the last minute?  There seems to be a ready-made venue just beside the Crypto.com Arena! 

A broke Chinese real estate developer left Los Angeles with empty, graffiti-covered towers and a billion-dollar bill (msn.com)

[Bear]

LA28 has proposed the inclusion of Para Climbing to the Paralympic sports programme. The IPC will vote on whether or not to accept this proposal on June 26.

https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/paralympics-climbing-2028-los-angeles

https://la28.org/en/newsroom/la28-proposes-new-paralympic-sport.html

[baron-pierreIV]

3 hours ago, Bear said:

LA28 has proposed the inclusion of Para Climbing to the Paralympic sports programme. The IPC will vote on whether or not to accept this proposal on June 26.

https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/paralympics-climbing-2028-los-angeles

https://la28.org/en/newsroom/la28-proposes-new-paralympic-sport.html

If there is Climbing--regular or not, how come there is no Descending?  Wouldn't that make it more equal?   

[Sir Rols]

36 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

If there is Climbing--regular or not, how come there is no Descending?  Wouldn't that make it more equal?   

I think that’s called diving - which I’m surprised to see is apparently not a Paralympic sport.

[baron-pierreIV]

21 hours ago, Sir Rols said:

I think that’s called diving - which I’m surprised to see is apparently not a Paralympic sport.

Kinda hard to judge the "beauty" of diving if the divers are missing an arm or a leg.  Besides hardly any of the Diving towers are equipped with lifts --hence handicapped divers would already be breathless if they climbed the 10m platform 7 or 8 times an afternoon.  And you would have the spectacle of them, once reaching the 10m platform, throwing down their crutches to the platform below as they will need them the moment they come out of the water.  

Hence no diving events in PARALYMPICS.  But they should consider DESCENDING.  The upright Climbing wall will swivel to become a downward tilted surface at like 70 degrees.  

[Bear]

Para Climbing has been approved by the IPC Governing Board and is now officially in the LA28 Paralympic Sports Programme.

https://www.paralympic.org/news/para-climbing-be-included-la28-paralympic-games

https://la28.org/en/newsroom/la28-celebrates-addition-of-para-climbing.html

[baron-pierreIV]

/\/\  Wonder where the Climbing venue will be?  Griffith Observatory? 

Maybe Para-Climbing at Paramount Studios?  

[Bear]

2 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

/\/\  Wonder where the Climbing venue will be?  Griffith Observatory? 

Maybe Para-Climbing at Paramount Studios?  

My genuine bet is Sepulveda since that's where they're putting skateboarding and it appears the trend is grouping the "urban sports" together in one cluster

[hektor]

I find it fascinating that they decided to ditch breaking even before the event was run.

What if it is successful ?

Edited August 1, 2024 by hektor

[baron-pierreIV]

34 minutes ago, hektor said:

I find it fascinating that they decided to ditch breaking even before the event was run.

What if it is successful ?

Well, the Board of LA28 didn't want to host it.  (Or better yet, Mr. Wasserman sees no future in the management of breakdancers for his firm/bottom line.)