Baseball to be Left Out of 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Despite its Return in 2021

 

Baseball to be Left Out of 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Despite its Return in 2021

The sports long and inconsistent history with the Olympics continues

June, 25 2021

By. Michael Troche

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will showcase countries competing against one another in baseball for the first time since 2008, and the seventh time in the history of the Summer Olympics. With baseball already retaining a scattered timeline in the Olympic Games, its return will be short lived, as the International Olympic Committee did not include baseball in the list of sports to be showcased in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Baseball is popular in Japan, which was key to its return to the games after 13 years without it. However, in France, there is a lack of interest in the sport altogether. The lack of accessibility to the proper facilities makes hosting major league-level baseball games difficult.

The MLB has had a long and odd relationship with the Summer Olympics, due to the fact that its season is usually reaching its midway point when the Olympic Games begin. This timing conflict has seen MLB teams and executives encourage its athletes to not participate in the Olympics and represent their home countries. This has often come to no avail, which has left a sour taste in MLB commissioner Rob Manfred's mouth for a long time.

“It would alter the competition in our everyday game,” Manfred said in a 2017 statement regarding baseball’s return to the Olympics. “I do not believe our owners would support some sort of a break in our season. Continuity is really important to our competition.”

With baseball not being a part of the 2024 Summer Olympics, multiple sports will be substituted. These sports include breakdancing, surfing, rock climbing, and skateboarding. It does seem likely that baseball will return to the Olympics in 2028, considering the games will take place in Los Angeles, where the sport has a huge following not only in California, but in the United States.