Bryce Harper wants MLB Players at the 2028 Olympics and he’s completely right
Olympics has stricter eligibility requirements for representing a country. You can’t just eat a pizza and represent Italy.
Isn’t it going to like an 8 team pool? Between Latin america, Asia, and the US, thats enough for at least a competitive small event.
6 teams apparently.
USA, 2 teams from the Americas, 1 from Asia, 1 from Europe/Oceania, and then 1 from some other tournament between 6 teams who haven’t qualified yetI think.
Lame, there’s enough good teams for at least 10-12.
The Olympics is only 2 weeks long so that’s a big factor in the number of teams. And usually all the games are played at the same stadium so that’s another issue
I get they want the whole world to be represented but it’s baseball, 4 teams from the America’s and 2 teams from Asia would’ve made the tournament so much more competitive.
Guess I’m out (not even remotely Italian)
Olympics are pretty easy to manipulate though. The bigger issue is the qualifying tournaments are during the season so you can’t use affiliated pro players.
Israel still managed to qualify in Tokyo for the spot over Netherlands because they had a number of Jewish Indy ball guys and recent retirees.
This sub is full of such fanatical MLB fans, they can’t see the very clear sense in having our top talent on the top international stage, simply because it would interfere with the season.
Very strange. Funny to see people unironically comparing the WBC to the olympics like they’re anywhere near the same level though. Irony is, the olympics with MLB would be the single biggest boost for future WBCs, but this sub is too shortsighted to understand that.
The format of the Olympics I just don’t think makes for a good baseball tournament, but I do agree, it’s good for exposing new people to the game. They only had 6 teams in 2021 and it’s still not included as a permanent sport regardless, so after 2028 the future inclusion is suspect.
It’s not a permanent sport. It was included because Japan and USA requested it for the 21 and 28 Olympics. Australia might request it in 32, but I doubt it.
The way I understand it is that the US and Australia made a deal such that cricket will be at 2028, and baseball will be at 2032.
Baseball seems to be picking up steam in Australia recently. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have it.
I think probably it’ll end up being that if the olympics are in a city with a baseball stadium already they’ll do baseball and if they aren’t they won’t
That’s what I said. It’s not permanent and it being included in the future is suspect
Doubt it will happen in 32’ pretty sure Australia will request the return of break dancing.
With all due respect, baseball at the Olympics is pointless. It has no history, it only ever comes back when it happens in a country that plays baseball (which is rarely), and it has no pedigree.
There are a litany of sports that have been at the Olympics for the last couple of decades that previously had no history. The Olympics has to evolve with the world. If baseball is becoming more popular on a global scale (which it is), then why not try to continue including it?
Snowboarding had no history at the winter olympics before ‘98, and you’d be hard-pressed finding a boarder that doesn’t credit those games as the single biggest stepping stone in the sport’s history.
You need to build up before the market adjusts sometimes. Traditions have to be set and reset occasionally, that’s just how things evolve naturally.
So then I would say it’s even more important to get the best players playing. If we half ass it and send a bunch of teenagers and minor leaguers it won’t be worth it.
I’m with you on this opinion. NPB sent its players - which obviously was helped by the last time since it took place in Japan - in 2021, whereas the MLB did not, but the MLBPA might be stubborn, not to mention managers.
I’m not bullish on the MLB being warm to the decision, but if the players push hard, seeing how the NHL sent their players during their own season, there’s a chance. If more guys like Harper make a fuss; maybe.
It’d be good for baseball, just not necessarily the MLB. You know some guys would love to have a chance to get an Olympic gold medal. That’s more significant than a WS ring given how few chances they’d ever have to get one.
Baseball has little history at the Olympics this is not hockey or basketball. It would be great this one time because its convenient in LA. Yeah nobody wants to stop the season for Australia in 2032 or the supposedly top contenders for 2036 Quatar/India/Turkey. The WBC is 100% better than a summer Olympics in a country that does not like baseball lmao
Even if its a one-and-done, the exposure to the olympic market would bring dividends to the sport for decades to come. Think about something like Lake Placid, that alone created so much momentum and fervor for hockey in the US, its still sending shockwaves decades later. Think about what the Dream team did for basketball globally in the span of a couple weeks.
It matters, even if there isn’t a tradition yet.
If MLB players are allowed to play in the Olympics, I will 100% support it
That being said, you really gotta temper your expectations. Baseball is just not as popular of a sport globally as basketball, and hockey’s benefit is that there are EUROPEAN countries that enjoy it.
People around the world knew who Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Barkley, Bird etc. were. No one in Poland or Pakistan or Finland knows who Bryce Harper is. Not only that, they don’t give a fuck about who Bryce Harper is.
The IOC at the end of the day is a Eurocentric organization. MLB realized that they would never really give baseball a fair chance, hence why the WBC was created in the first place back in 2004 in time for 2006.
I totally understand baseball’s current place in the pecking order, and I agree that it will not reach the peaks of more global sports for the foreseeable future. That said, if it were to ever become a global fixture, it would be through avenues like the Olympics.
I don’t think throwing your hands up and going, ‘this will never work, so why bother?’ Is good business practice for anyone involved, personally. Throw some shit at a wall, earn the US an easy gold, throw a parade, and see if anything sticks. If not, worst case, you have a cool, historic moment for the sport that will be talked about for decades and a delayed regular season. Doesn’t sound so bad, personally.
Since it’s a six team tournament it wouldn’t really interfere with the season if they did which makes it more comical. All they’d really have to do is schedule the all star break to coincide with the Olympics’ baseball tournament and add two to three days to the break
It would be nice if they’d schedule old fashioned doubleheaders, but I know that’s never happening.
Yeah some MLB fans just think small
Nailed it
Olympics more important than world series imo
Once every 4 years
Weird take given the Olympics currently have zero importance to baseball.
Their comment is great, it perfectly illustrates the difference in thinking between these different types of baseball fans.
I and this guy both believe in the macro sense, looking forward, Olympic baseball is much more important to the sport as a whole vs. Any single WS. The expected impact in attracting new fans, cooking up novel marketing opportunities, etc, is exponentially higher in an untapped market like the olympics vs one like the WS or WBC that already has a very well-established market and culture surrounding. From a business perspective, the Olympics are inarguably more important to the health of the sport in growing the game compared to another well-trodden series with largely the same market and opportunities as years prior.
One the other hand, if you’re a more traditional-thinking fan, the WS is objectively the single most important series in the world. It’s literally in the name, for crying out loud! It’s the single highest honor for a team, so its very counter-intuitive with that mindset to argue otherwise. Why do we need some mickey mouse olympic tournament when we already have established tournaments with more prestige?
This whole thing reminds me of the very loud, vocal minority of Smash Bros fans that were disgusted with the EVO tournament adding Melee to the roster. While it was amazing for exposure, the tournament ran in a very unorthodox way that threw competitors out of focus and caused what was seen as unbearably-high variance in results by some. It was seen as the community leaders ‘selling out’ and chasing greener pastures instead of continuing to cultivate what had worked for them in the past, at smaller scale. When all was said and done, however, EVO and the Smash community had their affair for a few years, then moved on, with Melee gaining thousands of new fans from the simple fact that the biggest stage was exhibiting it for those years. It was an objective net-positive for the scene, even if it wasn’t even close to a perfect product as an actual tourney and actively sapped from the traditional scene during.
Bottom line, this is really just a vast difference in perspectives and what we individually want to see grow out of the game we love. It’s important to keep in mind there’s no necessarily wrong solution, just different ways to skin the proverbial cat.
What is the Liberty Line?
Philly sports blog of questionable quality
AI written ad revenue generating spam
Hes completely right!
“Obviously the WBC is great, but it’s not the Olympics. That’s no disrespect to the WBC or anything. But everybody knows when the Olympics are on, everybody is watching. Doesn’t matter what sport it is. It could be the most random sport and it has all of the fans watching it.”
I don’t really understand this argument - way more people watched the last WBC than watched Olympic Baseball in 2021 because actual MLB players were playing in it. It’s the players people care about, not whether it’s the Olympics or the WBC.
Edited to add: “NBC Universal saw record-low ratings throughout the 2020 Olympic Games, forcing them to give advertisers extra airtime to make up for the loss.
Since the Olympics’ opening ceremony on July 23, a fraction of the audience that tuned in for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games returned for the Tokyo contests and viewership remained low throughout the 17 days of competition.”
It’s not really about the baseball comparison for the Olympics vs WBC, but just that the Olympics are viewed as more prestigious than the WBC when it comes to national pride. Yes, people care about what players are playing, and that played a factor in ratings, but if we have our WBC roster for the Olympics, ratings will either equal or surpass as more people care about how their country does in the Olympics.
Unless MLB does schedule a bigger break in the season like the NHL does when the winter Olympics happen, hard to imagine it happening though.
I actually kind of touched on this on the earlier thread about the WBC, but Olympic hockey and basketball post-Dream Team kind of support this. Breaking the amateur/pro barrier changed the dynamics.
People prefer to watch those sports in the Olympics with NHL/NBA players as opposed to without once it was no longer prohibited. People also prefer the Olympics to other international best on best competitions for those sports with pros because of the prestige. For casual/general fans, there’s at least some merit here that’s worth discussing.
Except soccer, where it’s not even comparable.
Genuinely it’s because all the sports that favor the Olympics are because it’s led by an American centric league who sees itself as the premier competition. They didn’t wanna have to do any of the legwork to set up a major international tournament so it just got passed off onto the Olympic Olympics and that’s why the Olympics is so big for basketball and hockey. It never took off as much for baseball because the Summer Olympics is during the MLB season. There’s been a baseball World Cup that existed for a long time before the world baseball classic but obviously without MLB participation it never had that much juice behind it.
Hockey at the Olympics predates the NHL’s first American team. Basketball as a medal sport predates the entire NBA by about a decade, longer if we want to count exhibition.
Is Olympic soccer bigger than the World Cup? The WBC is a relatively new tournament
Absolutely not, I don’t know shit about soccer but the world cup is way bigger
Cameroon won gold at the Olympics in soccer. So did Nigeria. Which is preeeetty much all you need to know about the comparison between the World Cup and the Olympics.
Not to shit on those countries, but the World Cup is a completely different beast.
Football at the Olympics is an U23 competition (with up to 3 exceptions per squad).
Yeah, it’s weirdness like that, overally, that is pretty offputting for the Olympics. I know it’s FIFA manipulation of course, but I also am not all that big a fan of the IOC using their platform to pressure regional sports into participation either. In the end, they’re all just trying to make some cheddar.
But you said it yourself, the WBC can’t hold a candle to the World Cup. I think in baseball Olympics & WBC would be very similar, but the World Cup is bigger than almost anything else in the world.
It is not. FIFA does everything to make sure the Olympics doesn’t over shadow the World Cup. It’s why the Olympics are a u-23 tournament with 3 senior squad players allowed. There’s definitely a level of national pride but if you asked an international soccer fan if they’d rather see the country win a World Cup or gold medal, it’ll mostly be World Cup.
The women’s tournament is closer but the men’s tournament is normally pretty ass and definitely a side show rather than a main event compared to basketball.
And this is why for LA the women’s tournament is growing to having 16 teams while the Men’s tournament is dropping down to 12, while in Paris (and earlier) it was the reverse.
Because they realized no one, not even the most football-hungry people were watching the men’s tournament but those people are starting to tune into the women’s tournament instead.
In return, LA will be the first Olympics where women will actually outnumber men, since due to that change, they’ll have about 100 more women spots than men.
As big, no, but it’s not that far off. The world cup is a different kind of beast where people kinda view it as a person’s individual accomplishment as well as national. When people talk about the greatest soccer players of all time, one of the things that are looked at is if they won a world cup. It’s the one blemish on Ranaldo’s legacy, and was the monkey on the back of Messi until the last one. Olympics is viewed as national for most people in contrast.
WBC being newish, to me at least, isn’t relevant. 20 years is enough time for it to be established. All of the Latin American and Japan really get excited about the tournament every time it comes around. What held the WBC back in America was, that a lot of our big name stars didn’t participate/were discouraged from playing. We called it a meaningless tournament. America is only just starting to get into it as a big tournament because we’re finally sending a lot of our best. Just not fully. Take Skubal for example. He’s participating, but only for 1 game. Does he do that for the Olympics? Maybe, maybe not, but it looks worse if he doesn’t play in the full Olympics than the WBC from an American pov.
Men’s Olympic soccer is mostly a u-23 tournament.
The World Cup is the main thing.
No. The men’s Olympic tournament is U23 and teams are allowed only a few overage players.
The women’s Olympic tournament is for the senior national teams so it carries more prestige than the men’s tournament but it’s still considered secondary to the World Cup.
FIFA kinda neuters the Olympics soccer tournament so it doesn’t compete with the World Cup. They only let u-23 players play and like 3 non u23 selections. For the women I would say it’s closer to be on par with the World Cup because it’s full teams.
Even in Women’s football, the World Cup dwarfs the Olympics. It’s not close.
Women’s Euro is closer to the Olympics than the Olympics is to the World Cup.
The World Cup is far more popular than Olympic soccer, it’s a bad argument from Bryce. A clown argument one could say.
Because FIFA made sure that Olympic football would not be important whatsoever, once the IOC stopped trying to have only amateurs compete in it. So that’s why there’s the 3 players over 23 rule, to allow it to have a few pretty recognizable older players, but not too much.
There’s also nothing in the FIFA calendar that would make clubs release players for the Olympics, in part because you now have the Euros and Copa America occurring a few weeks before the Olympics start. Hockey players certainly really wanted to go to the Olympics, and made sure that participation in 2026 and 2030 was baked into the CBA extension, and that’s with the World Cup of Hockey not being anything different from Olympic hockey, at least in terms of the age of participating players
A “Not Elite” argument, some may posit.
Where did he talk about the World Cup?
They’re saying that the World Cup is the soccer equivalent of the World Baseball Classic, so that proves it’s possible for one of these tournaments specific to one sport to be bigger than that sport is in the Olympics which makes Bryce’s point of needing the Olympics for popularity flawed
Yep, what this person said
I also think it’s flawed because I believe the Olympics have been declining in viewership overall and anecdotally I don’t see people around me care about them as much as they did maybe 10 or 15 years ago.
The Olympics being the premier competition for a team sport really doesn’t make that much sense. Realistically baseball has never been a headline sport at the Olympics, regardless of MLB participation so they might as well grow the world baseball classic. All of this literally just comes from basketball and hockey in the Olympics being so popular which mostly stems from NBA and NHL players simply participating. If every single one of the good NBA players decided to buy into the FIBA World Cup, that would be a more impotent event also. These guys trying to say that the world baseball classic doesn’t matter but yet they’re gonna somehow get pitchers to show up and participate in the Olympics is laughable.
It’s not, though. That’s like saying Disney World is the Florida equivalent of the Myrtle Beach Funplex. Sure, they’re both amusement parks. But, the magnitude and popularity is not comparable. Maybe someday, when the WBC is as historic and legendary as the World Cup is today, the WBC will be more popular than the Olympics. But, today, the Olympics is more popular and Harper is right. The Olympic tournament with MLB players would get much more attention.
No one is arguing that the WBC is on the same level of popularity as the World Cup or Olympics. The WBC and World Cup comparison was just because both tournaments are single sport and the World Cup has shown what’s possible. We’re saying that if we play it smart we can grow the WBC to the point where it becomes more popular than baseball ever was in the Olympics like the World Cup is with soccer. And a star player coming out and basically saying the WBC isn’t as good as the Olympics and that he cares more about the Olympics isn’t helping grow the WBC.
Where does Harper talk about anything beyond the 2028 Olympics? They’re saying the WBC will be more popular than the Olympics baseball tournament because the World Cup is more popular than Olympics soccer, to try to dispute what Harper is saying about wanting MLB players to be in the 2028 Olympics because it will get more attention than the WBC.
You’re talking about the future, which is a completely different subject.
I really don’t understand your point, I’m talking about how a top player making a statement like this isn’t good for the growth of the WBC. He doesn’t have to talk about the future for his words to have meaning. I am also saying that the WBC will be more popular that Olympic baseball, keywords “will be” indicating talking about the future, so I can’t wrap my head around how any of what I’ve said is a “completely different subject”
Where does he say the WBC won’t grow? He’s saying he wants to play in the Olympics and it will get more attention than the WBC is getting. That’s true and, by the way, that will help the next WBC too.
You’re creating a strawman to complain about Harper, which is silly because there haven’t been many more outspoken advocates for international baseball competition than him. There he is, in the WBC instead of Spring Training, using his name to get people to watch and help it grow, and advocating for taking a break in the middle of the season to play in the Olympics and help grow international baseball tournaments even more. Him saying the WBC is more popular than the Olympics wouldn’t help. That would just be delulu.
You cant compare the world cup to the WBC. The average person in this country knows about the world cup and is aware when it is ocurring. The average person in this country doesn’t eveven known the wbc exists. This is a clown argument.
Yes I can I just did and it’s not a clown argument yours is
Lmao really just hit me the nuh uh.
Care to explain? What did I say that was incorrect? You’d be a fool and willfully obtuse to try and compare the two
I’m good man, thanks though
Lmao thats what I thought. Have a good one buddy
Using 2020 as an example is a bit disingenuous, the schedule was off because of Covid and all that.
The Paris Olympics had great viewership and Milan was just the most watched Winter Olympics since 2014.
Obviously the combination of MLB players and the Olympics would be the best case scenario.
If MLB players decide they wanna care about the Olympics that’s fine. The players union could push for that in the CBA, but that doesn’t mean that they should diminish this event. The Olympics is good for introducing the sport to new people but they only ever have like 6-8 teams qualify which makes it a lot less interesting compared to the WBC.
Yeah but they didn’t play baseball at the Paris Olympics and it’s been in out of rotation as an Olympic sport for literally over a century. It’s not like basketball or Hockey, I don’t think people think of it as linked to the Olympics in the same way, especially without the pro players.
Sure, but with pro players being at the Olympics for other American sports, and it being a very international sport (certainly compared to other US major sports), it could be a very legit Olympic sport moving forward.
Right. WBC: an event COMPLETELY focused on baseball. Olympics: Baseball is more or less an afterthought, not a traditional sport for many, many countries.
Baseball is not even like a top 25 event in terms of what people care about at the Olympics.
Yeah… its on again off again nature as well doesn’t help it.
I also have a kinda crappy opinion that I’m not that big a fan of team sports at the Olympics. I think they even more unfairly give advantage to richer countries who can support organization at that level and excellence across an entire field of athletes. One single standout absolutely amazing pitcher from some small country will make no different, even if they are as good at their sport as a great figure skater (and so on…).
Meh, I mostly have crappy opinions about the Olympics that I doubt are popular. Not even sure why I am so nonplussed by the Olympics. heh
I watch every WBC, do not watch the Olympics nor care other than hockey.
I mean time zones are a big factor there, idk about you but I think more Americans would watch the Baseball at the Los Angeles Olympics as opposed to the Tokyo Olympics
Part of that problem is NBC’s shitty coverage.
Who the hell does he hang out with? I literally don’t know anyone below the age of 70 who gives a fuck about the Olympics. It’s just the medal count that people care about.
Wat
The unfortunate part about baseball in the Olympics is it takes place during the middle of the MLB season. However, there is one factor which might make MLB players taking part more possible:
It takes place, typically, around/during the ASB. And since the Olympics are gonna happen in LA, it’ll be the best chance possible for managers/MLBPA to make allowances for players to participate.
That’s only 4 days, while the Olympics last 2 weeks, but it’s the best chance we’ll get for the foreseeable future to see MLB players participate. If it doesn’t happen this time, it probably never will.
I don’t see a strong likelihood that it does happen, but it’ll be interesting if somehow it does. If the NPB sends their guys, there’s no way they don’t win gold.
Olympic hockey takes place in the middle of the NHL season, but the league is fine working around that.
True, but regarding the Olympics, Hockey was much bigger before the World Cup of Hockey was even a thing, and even then, it was basically the US and Canada who dominated the WC, and hosted mainly in Canada.
So the Olympics really was a stage for Hockey to have it’s ‘world-wide’ championship, albeit it wasn’t until the late 90s that the NHL allowed players (around the same time the WC was created too).
But yeah, I’m ‘hopeful’ that the MLB allows players to participate.
Because you can extend the season, you can’t do that for baseball. I don’t want to give up two weeks of baseball for it.
Those with the money and actual data to make the decision disagree with him.
It’s the same dynamic as in soccer. The Olympics is great and all, but the powers that control the sport would rather prioritize a tournament they can control and monetize. Why would FIFA or MLB surrender that power to the IOC whey can run their own event?
This is March and look at how much they tell players wat they can and can’t do.
Imagine how much more teams would be micromanaging their players in mid July. Skenes goes out and pitches game 1 for USA and has a sore elbow after. People would riot.
Pretty sure all the stars are asking for this. Ohtani asked to go to the Olympics as well.
Baseball is a bad Olympic sport and no one who isn’t a baseball fan would care. Let amateurs play it
Most people don’t care about the sports until it’s time to root for them in the Olympics. No reason that won’t apply to baseball, especially if the MLB guys are playing
Right. I don’t know anything about curling or skiing. I’m from Atlanta. We don’t have that. Sure is fun to watch the best do it though
I actually really like that the WBC is NOT the Olympics and am not all that excited about baseball being part of the Olympics. I love the WBC being its own other thing and generally dislike the entire environment surrounding the Olympics. I hate to be a naysayer on it and all because I want baseball to be more popular - but the Olympics are just going to undercut all the great advances that have happened with the WBC. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, I hope so I guess…but I’d probably have rather just had the WBC be kind of like the World Cup.
but the Olympics are just going to undercut all the great advances that have happened with the WBC.
How?
Will non USA MLB players be allowed to play this time or will they all be held out for “insurance”?
the WBC is like the final round of olympics baseball.
Team USA stacked with 30M+/year players
If you think it was hard for players to get insurance to play in the WBC, wait until the middle of a season when everyone is halfway injured already.
He’s not right. WBC is way better than the Olympics.
I understand it’s unpopular here, but I love the Olympics, always have always will. I saw Baseball in the Olympics only once in my memory and every 4 years I’m dissatisfied that it and softball are no longer apart of it. Baseball really should be in it too, it’s the only world sport that I know of that isn’t represented and that’s just a shame.
I don’t know if that means we should send college kids or what, I’ll leave that for y’all to discuss. But baseball belongs in the Olympics, you all know that it does.
No, my team cant even make it to ST without injuries.
How will this work? Amateurs put in the work for qualifying and big leaguers get to play in the main event?
Olympics just won’t work, no matter how much I want it to.
No he’s not
He’s right. The Olympics are the Olympics. Put just about any sport in there and it’s immediately the pinnacle of that sport. I love WBC, but honestly a lot of my love probably just comes down to timing. Baseballs on TV again, so I watch it and get into it cuz I’ve been itching for spring. Not that WBC is bad or anything. If Japan or someone non American wins, I go “nice good for them that was fun” but in the end, I don’t really care all that much, it’s just fun competition giving some extra ball.
Does there really need to be another dream team? The Olympics should try to stay as amateur as possible in my opinion.
If the Olympics are serious about getting all the major team sports competing in the games, it needs to soften its stance on what “makes” a Winter Olympics sport. That way you put team sports in the Olympics that align with the offseason of each major league.
While a baseball stadium might not exactly make sense in some Winter Olympics, they can always ship them somewhere nearby.
Hockey, basketball and soccer in between seasons in the summer. Flag football with NFL players (after season) and baseball (before season) in the winter.
We need to downsize the Olympics not make it bigger. Fucking trampoline is in the Olympics
Bryce Harper wants in on all the Olympic Village fucking he’s heard about
He’s married with four kids and is a serious enough Mormon to not drink booze, I don’t really think that’s his speed.
Not to say he couldn’t ignore his religion and sin, but I think if he cares enough to not drink…
Doesn’t mean he can’t get married to more women there
Okay, your first comment was fucking clown tier. But this, now this really gets what Mormons are all about.
Just about every Mormon I’ve known either drinks alcohol, coffee, and/or soda. They have the weakest strict rules in the history of religion lol
He ignores his religion on coffee. Pretty sure Mormons aren’t allowed to drink coffee but he was moonlighting as a coffee influencer a few offseasons ago.
I worked for a Mormon who was married with 2 kids and didn’t drink. Until he cheated on his wife, remarried, and would go to Vegas to gamble for our paychecks every month.
Not saying Bryce would ever do this, he seems like a “true to his word” type of guy, but religion isn’t a guarantee of morality. In fact we hear quite the opposite, comparatively, to how much religious people preach morality.