carlsson

From what I understood, previously when baseball was part of the Olympic games (up until 2008), the MLB provided players for it but this year when it made a comeback, they decided not to.

In comparison, I learned that the NBA still provides players for the Olympic basketball tournament, but perhaps that is a much smaller sport that to a bigger degree needs/gains from Olympic exposure.

Obviously, the men's football (soccer) tournament is not sanctioned by FIFA, so despite it is an Under 23 tournament (this year Under 24 due to Covid-19 postponing) with three overage players, clubs have no demand to release players to the Olympics, meaning several U23 players still may not participate if the clubs need them. So far the women's tournament doesn't have the same limitation, but perhaps FIFA still considers women's soccer to be a growing sport where all exposure is beneficial. We'll see in 20 years if they impose the same U23 rules on the women's Olympic soccer too, in case the FIFA Women's World Cup etc have grown enough in value.

Same can be said about NHL in the Winter Olympics. They took a pause for a couple of games but lately have decided not to bother, since USA and Canada didn't do so well in the Olympic ice-hockey tournament anyway and that NHL lost money on postponing the season for a month or whatever it takes including national team preparations.

Honestly I can't name a single player in baseball, but then again it is such a marginal sport here that it barely is mentioned in sports coverage unless it was some case of doping or possibly an obscenely big contract signed.

"Baseball was open only to male amateurs in 1992 and 1996. As a result, the Americans and other nations where professional baseball is developed relied on collegiate players, while Cubans used their most experienced veterans, who technically were considered amateurs as they nominally held other jobs, but in fact trained full-time. In 2000, pros were admitted, but the MLB refused to release its players in 2000, 2004, and 2008, and the situation changed only a little: the Cubans still used their best players, while the Americans started using minor leaguers. The IOC cited the absence of the best players as the main reason for baseball being dropped from the Olympic program."

Thanks for the summary. I suppose the re-inclusion is much due to Japan hosts the games, not that baseball and softball are popular sports among the younger generations unlike skateboarding, surfing and climbing supposedly are. I don't know about the events in Paris 2024, but I'd suppose that Los Angeles 2028 will have baseball, with or without MLB players. Everything else would be pure odd, to add an event and remove it right before one of the biggest nations in the particular sport are about to host the games.