Quote:
Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA
That's why I firmly believe that this would not have happened if the games were not in Tokyo where baseball and softball are extremely popular and, IMO, given a lot more attention in Japan than in the U.S.
In 2024, I believe the games have a shot to continue if in the right city. Obviously, if Los Angeles is awarded the games, softball is in. With the rest of the cities in Europe, all with baseball/softball programs, it is probably a 50/50 proposition as to whether they would accommodate those sports.
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This is really true based on how baseball and softball were returned to the Olympics. For the first time in 2020, the IOC is allowing host countries a certain number of additional sports to be included for their time hosting the Olympics. Baseball and softball are being included along with karate, sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding.
The two key factors in this are that these decisions are only for the 2020 Olympics and do not represent a change in the core Olympic sports. They are also not impacting the other Olympic sports athlete quota's, as these will be additional athletes on top of the current quota.
It will be very interesting to see how the baseball / softball organization does in attempting to influence the 2024 Olympics and beyond.
The cities in the running for the 2024 Olympics are Los Angeles, Rome, Paris and Budapest.
In my opinion, the two strongest candidate for the 2024 Olympics is LA. Why? LA has a long history of successfully hosting the Olympic Games, having done so previously on two different occasions. Also, there have to be safety concerns creeping into the minds of the IOC members who will vote on the host city. Finally, of the 4 cities bidding for the Olympics, three of them are in Europe, which last hosted the games in 2012. The United States has not hosted the Summer Olympics since 1996 in Atlanta, and that is also the last time North America has hosted. The world is generally broken up into regions, Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Oceania. Since North America lost hosted the Summer Olympics, they have been hosted in Ocenia (2000 -Sydney), Europe (2004-Athens), Asia (2008-Beijing), Europe (2012 -London), and S. America (Rio this year). Add in Asia again in 4 years and every region will have hosted at least once since N. America last hosted except for Africa, which has had 1 bid city (Cape Town, South Africa) since the last time the United States hosted the Olympics.
There is one huge thing that could be a negative to the bid for L.A. to host the 2024 Olympics. That negative could be politics. The current election cycle will determine who will be The President of the United States when the bid selection takes place. I could see a situation where the rest of the world would be very afraid to have a major event like the Olympics held in this country, based on who could potentially be president for a second term when the Olympics are held.