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Flag Football confirmed for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics
October 09, 2023
The NFL’s global outreach received a boost as organizers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics proposed adding flag football to the Summer Games, marking their return to the U.S. in 32 years. The International Olympic Committee will vote on this in Mumbai, India, this week. LA’s proposal also includes baseball, softball, lacrosse, squash, and cricket, which is not well-known in the U.S. but popular worldwide.
Flag football, a less-violent version of American football, has been promoted by the NFL in Europe, Mexico, and Japan for years, with recent games in London and Germany. It’s a 5-on-5 game played on a 50-yard field.
Cricket, popular in India, Australia, and Britain, is less known in the U.S. A shorter format called Twenty20 is proposed for the LA Olympics, with cricket last played at the Olympics in Paris in 1900. Notably absent from the LA program are breakdancing (debuting in Paris) and other sports like motorsports, kickboxing, and karate.
It’s unclear if other sports will need to reduce disciplines to stay within the IOC’s limit of 10,500 athletes at the Summer Olympics, given the addition of five team sports.
