Baseball officially added to the Olympics for 2028 and Major League Baseball needs to go all in

The International Olympic Committee made it official. Baseball is back in the Olympics for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles and this is genuinely one of the best pieces of sports news in a long time.

Now MLB needs to get out of its own way and actually show up for it.

Baseball hadded to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles

The @iocmedia officially announced that baseball has been added as a sport to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles ⚾️ @LA28 pic.twitter.com/tkEgWUi9ts

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 16, 2023

The USA Hockey gold medal game had the Phillies locked in and now it’s baseball’s turn

The blueprint has already been written.

The NHL just watched its players compete in Milano Cortina and the result was one of the most watched hockey events in recent memory, a gold medal game that had the entire country setting alarms at 5 AM to watch USA take on Canada.

The ratings were great, the buzz was enormous, and the sport got a massive boost in visibility at a time when it needed it. The NHL made the right call and everyone benefited.

Baseball has the exact same opportunity sitting right in front of it, except with a home game advantage that the NHL did not have. The 2028 Olympics are in Los Angeles. The United States of America.

This is not a situation where casual fans have to wake up before sunrise to catch a game in Italy. This is a prime time showcase of the best baseball players on the planet playing in front of a sold-out crowd in America’s second-biggest city during the summer. The sport would have to actively try to mess this up.

And yet, knowing MLB, it is worth keeping an eye on whether they actually commit to sending the best players or find a way to water it down. The easy solution is building participation into the 2028 All-Star break the way the NHL structured things around their schedule.

Give the players the window, make it work contractually, and let the game have its moment. Especially coming off whatever labor situation MLB is navigating between now and then, the goodwill alone is worth it.

The NFL is sending players to the Olympics. Baseball invented the All-Star break.

Figure it out.

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