The 2028 Summer Olympic Games, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, are expanding with five new sports, including flag football, cricket, baseball/softball, lacrosse, and squash.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed the decision to include the new sports in an announcement on Monday.
“We want L.A. 2028 to have the same springboard effect for our five sports,” said Los Angeles organizing committee chairman Casey Wasserman. “In L.A. we are dreamers and doers.”
Flag football will be making its debut at the Olympics, and its introduction might lead to some of the best NFL players taking part in the Olympics. Full-contact football was previously played at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles as a demonstration sport.
Baseball/softball was a regular feature at the Olympics from 1992 to 2008. It was dropped from the list of competitions in 2012 before being brought back in 2020 as a one-time thing.
Cricket was originally supposed to be part of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens as the only team sport, but there were not enough entries to organize the competition. The sport ended up making the cut in 1900 at the Paris Summer Olympics, which ended up being its only Olympics appearance.
Lacrosse was featured twice at the Olympics, but not since 1908. Squash, on the other hand, will make its debut.
