The Future of the Olympics: Less Sports or More Inclusion?

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THE future of the Olympics It is being decided now in meetings of the International Olympic Committee that rarely receive the public attention they deserve — because the choices about which sports are included and which are excluded define not only the Games' program, but the very identity of the most-watched event in human history.

Los Angeles 2028 will be the biggest testing ground for these decisions: five new sports are joining the Olympic program — baseball, softball, lacrosse, squash, flag football, and cricket — while breakdancing is being removed after a single edition in Paris 2024, and boxing awaits confirmation pending resolution of governance issues.

The IOC is navigating a structural tension that has no simple solution: keeping the Games accessible to all types of athletes and nations while attracting the young audience that streaming platforms have fragmented in a way that the traditional Olympic broadcast model can no longer capture on its own.

The 10,500-athlete limit set by the IOC creates a zero-sum game where each new sport requires a reduction in slots in another — a game of institutional pressures, national lobbying, and audience analysis that determines who competes in Los Angeles and who waits for Brisbane 2032.

The inclusion of flag football in the 2028 Games, a sport of American origin making its debut on local soil, and cricket, a sport with billions of followers in Asia and the Commonwealth, reveals that the IOC is simultaneously trying to please the American market and expand the global relevance of the Games.

What's at stake in the decisions the IOC is making now isn't just the sports schedule for Los Angeles—it's the answer to the most difficult question the Olympic movement has ever faced: for whom the Games exist.

The Current Model and Its Contradictions

The current Olympic program divides sports into two categories that reflect completely different philosophies about what the Games should be — and the tension between them is the driving force behind all decisions about inclusion and exclusion.

The core sports remain guaranteed spots from edition to edition — athletics, swimming, gymnastics, judo, and other disciplines that constitute the historical core of the Games and are rarely questioned, regardless of the audience numbers they generate.

The optional slots — between three and six per edition — are offered to the local organizing committee to choose sports that increase regional interest, creating an adaptation mechanism that explains why Los Angeles 2028 has flag football and why Tokyo 2020 had baseball.

The structural problem with this model is that it was designed for a world where television audiences were captive and the Games competed only with other live events—not with the endless digital entertainment options available at any time.

IOC research published identified that fewer than 401,300 young people aged 15 to 25 regularly attend the Olympic Games, compared to more than 601,300 from the previous generation in the same age group — a drop that is unprecedented in the modern history of the Olympic movement.

The inclusion of skateboarding, surfing, and climbing in Tokyo 2020 was the first structural response to this problem, and the audience numbers for the three sports among young people justified their continued inclusion in the Los Angeles program—but they also revealed that the appetite for novelty has limits defined by the Games' own schedule.

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The New Sports of Los Angeles: Strategy or Inclusion?

The selection of the five new sports for Los Angeles 2028 clearly reveals the logic the IOC is applying to the Olympic program and the criteria that determine who gets in and who gets left out.

Flag football is the most transparent case: it's an American sport included to maximize engagement with the local audience in the United States, the world's largest television rights market, where it has never been an Olympic sport because that opportunity never existed before.

Cricket represents the opposite and complementary strategy: it is the second most practiced sport in the world, with an audience of billions concentrated in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Commonwealth countries that rarely produce competitive athletes in the traditional sports of the program.

Squash has waited for this edition after almost two decades of failed bids — and its inclusion finally represents recognition that the sport has a global base, solid competitive infrastructure, and a history of bids that the IOC could no longer ignore.

Breaking was removed after Paris 2024, illustrating the risk of trend-driven choices without a solid sporting foundation—the discipline generated an audience but also enough controversy for the IOC to decide not to renew it for Los Angeles.

Sport	Reason for inclusion	Beneficiary countries	Global base
Flag football	American market	USA, Mexico, Japan	200+ million in the US
Cricket	Asian expansion	India, Pakistan, Bangladesh	2.5 billion globally
Baseball/softball	Return after Paris	USA, Japan, Cuba	500+ million global
Lacrosse	Native American culture	USA, Canada	Accelerated growth
Squash	Mature global reach	185 countries	20 million practitioners

The Boxing Question and Governance as a Criterion

The case of boxing at Los Angeles 2028 is the most revealing example of how the IOC makes decisions — and of what happens when a sport with a centuries-old Olympic history clashes with the governance criteria that the Olympic movement has come to demand.

Boxing has been present at the Games since 1904, with only one absence, and has produced some of the most memorable moments in Olympic history — from Muhammad Ali in Rome 1960 to Teófilo Stevenson in Montreal 1976 and Robson Conceição in Rio 2016.

The IOC withdrew its recognition of the International Boxing Association in 2023 after years of disputes over governance, financial transparency, and suspicions of match-fixing — and without a recognized international federation, the sport cannot officially be part of the Olympic program.

THE FIFA He navigated a different but equally revealing situation when the IOC questioned his plans to hold biennial World Cups, warning that any tournament in that format would directly conflict with the Los Angeles Games schedule.

The boxing case and the tension with FIFA reveal that the future of the Olympic program is not determined solely by popularity or inclusion—it is determined by the willingness of international federations to submit their structures to the governance standards that the IOC requires as a condition of participation.

Governance has become as important a criterion as popularity in IOC decisions — a significant shift from the previous period, when a sport's history and tradition at the Games served as almost automatic protection against exclusion.

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Real Inclusion or Market Inclusion?

The discussion about whether the Olympics are moving towards greater inclusion or a rationalization of the number of sports obscures a third possibility that the most recent data strongly suggest: the Games are moving towards selective inclusion defined primarily by market criteria.

Cricket is the clearest example: it is the second most practiced sport in the world, is based in densely populated countries, and was excluded from the Games for over a century not for technical or governance reasons, but because its geographical base did not coincide with the priority markets of Olympic sponsors and broadcasters.

The inclusion in Los Angeles is happening now not because the sport has become technically more suitable, but because India has become economically more important — and Olympic television rights in the subcontinent represent a market that the IOC can no longer ignore.

FIDE and the esports movement are submitting applications to the Olympic program with global participation criteria that surpass dozens of sports already included — but they face resistance based on the in-person delivery model that the Games still prioritize over the digital reach that these sports naturally possess.

The real debate that the IOC needs to have publicly — and which rarely happens transparently — is about which criteria should prevail when global popularity, inclusion of underrepresented nations, and attractiveness to advertisers point in different directions.

The honest answer is that the three criteria coexist without a clear hierarchy, and decisions about the Olympic program reflect the balance of power within the IOC as much as any stated philosophy about what the Games should represent for world sport.

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Brisbane 2032 and the Decision Horizon

Brisbane 2032 has already garnered bids from sports seeking to join the Olympic program — and ongoing discussions reveal that the IOC is increasingly willing to reform the program's structure rather than simply adding and removing sports on the sidelines.

Beach tennis is among the sports with an active bid for Brisbane, meeting the IOC requirements and receiving growing support from the International Tennis Federation — especially relevant for Brazil, where the sport has grown exponentially and where the bid finds resonance within the Australian organizing committee.

Esports remain a candidate in ongoing debate: the Esports Olympics were planned as a separate event in 2025, but integration into the main program faces resistance from sectors that question whether video games constitute a sporting activity in the terms that Olympism has historically defined.

THE International Olympic Committee The Olympics published the 2020+5 Agenda, which establishes guidelines for flexibility in the sports program — explicitly acknowledging that the rigid model of core and optional sports needs to evolve for the Games to remain relevant in a radically different entertainment environment.

The question that Brisbane will force the IOC to answer more definitively is whether Olympic inclusion will be expanded to sports that do not exist in the traditional physical form — or whether the Games will remain an exclusively in-person sporting event with a digital audience as a complement.

The period between Los Angeles and Brisbane is the most important for the future of the Olympic program in decades — and the decisions made in that interval will determine whether the 2032 Games will be recognizable as an evolution of what exists today or will represent a break with the model that the Olympic movement has built over more than a century.

Brazil and its position in the Olympic debate.

Brazil occupies a peculiar position in the debate about the future of the Olympic program: it is a country with a tradition in established sports, but also a producer of sporting practices — beach tennis, beach soccer, futsal — that compete for space in the program without the institutional support that sports from countries with more power within the IOC naturally receive.

Rebeca Andrade, Rayssa Leal, and Isaquias Queiroz represent the most visible face of Brazilian Olympic sport—athletes who arrived at Paris 2024 after years of preparation in established sports, but whose trajectory depended on public investment that historically favors sports with a greater guarantee of medal returns.

The Women's World Cup, hosted in Brazil in 2027, and the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 create a context that places the country at the center of the global sporting calendar for consecutive years — and that increases national interest in Olympic sports that previously only attracted attention during the Games.

The Brazilian debate about the Olympic program rarely focuses on which sports should be included globally—it mainly revolves around which sports Brazil has a chance of winning a medal in, which is understandable but limits the country's contribution to a discussion that affects world sport as a whole.

The inclusion of futsal in the Olympic program—a candidacy that appears periodically but has never progressed—would be the most direct example of how Brazil could contribute to a more inclusive program: the most practiced sport in the country, with a global base and proven potential for technical development, remains outside the Games while sports with a much more restricted base are included for market reasons.

What Brazil does with its influence within the Olympic movement in the coming years will determine whether the country is merely a beneficiary of the choices others make about the program—or whether it becomes a protagonist in a debate that defines the future of global sport.

Conclusion

The future of the Olympics will be neither one of fewer sports nor one of more unrestricted inclusion — it will be one of increasingly strategic selection that uses criteria such as audience size, geographic reach, and relevance to young people as filters to determine who gets a place in the most-watched Games in history.

Los Angeles 2028 demonstrates that the IOC has learned from Tokyo and Paris: the renewal of the program works best when new sports arrive with an established base and proven audience, not just with trend appeal that may evaporate before the sport completes its second Olympic edition.

The tension between fewer sports—to maintain the quality and focus of the Games—and more inclusion—to represent the true diversity of global sporting practices—has no elegant resolution, and the IOC will continue to make decisions that partially satisfy both sides without fully resolving either.

What the Games will be like in 2032, 2036, and 2040 depends on decisions being made now — and on the willingness of the Olympic movement to have a public debate about values that it has so far preferred to resolve in private.

FAQ

1. How many sports will be featured in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics? Los Angeles 2028 will feature 35 sports in its program, including five new ones: baseball/softball, lacrosse, squash, flag football, and cricket. Breaking was removed after Paris 2024, and boxing is awaiting confirmation pending resolution of governance issues with its international federation.

2. Why was breakdancing removed from the Olympics after only one edition? The IOC decided not to renew the inclusion of breaking for Los Angeles even before its debut at Paris 2024. The discipline generated enough controversy for the committee to opt not to renew its inclusion in the following edition, replacing it with sports with a more consolidated base.

3. Is cricket really returning to the Olympics? Yes. Cricket has been approved for Los Angeles 2028 after more than a century of absence. The inclusion reflects the IOC's recognition that the sport has billions of followers in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Commonwealth countries, representing markets that Olympism cannot ignore.

4. Will boxing be in the 2028 Olympics? Still uncertain. Boxing is off the initial 2028 program list because the IOC withdrew recognition of the International Boxing Association in 2023 due to governance issues. The sport could return if it demonstrates satisfactory changes in its organizational structure.

5. Will esports be included in the Olympics? The Esports Olympic Games were planned for a separate event in 2025, but integration into the main program faces resistance. Brisbane 2032 may be the most definitive decision-making moment on the subject, especially if the separate format fails to replicate the reach and legitimacy of the main event.