When the Women’s College World Series (WCWS) broadcast went dark last weekend during the highly anticipated Texas Tech-Tennessee matchup, USA Softball (USAS) CEO Craig Cress was quick to assure everyone who would listen that no, this was not a facilities issue, and it wouldn’t happen during the 2028 Olympics.The so-called power outage — which was actually a generator outage in the ESPN compound that knocked the broadcast offline for more than 30 minutes — was a major talking point around Oklahoma City the last few days, as the fast-pitch capital of America hosts its 35th NCAA softball championship.“We had power in the stadium,” Cress told The Athletic. “Our scoreboards were working, our lights were working. ESPN chose years ago to run off generator power … they had some unfortunate equipment problems that day. We talked to the L.A. 2028 folks about it, and hopefully they will want to (plug in directly and) use the OG&E (Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company) land power.”Cress is hoping what happened Saturday isn’t a preview of what’s to come in two years, when Devon Park and Oklahoma City host the 2028 Olympic softball tournament.He’s already fending off complaints as it is.Softball has been growing in popularity across the U.S. over the last decade, evidenced by the burgeoning professional Athletes Unlimited Softball League, packed crowds at Devon Park each spring for the WCWS — even without local powerhouse Oklahoma in the bracket this year — and a significant uptick in TV viewership. The sport made its Olympic debut the last time the U.S. hosted the Summer Games, in Atlanta in 1996, and stayed on the Olympic program through 2008. It was removed for the 2012 and 2016 Games, returned for the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics (where Japan beat America for the gold), missed the 2024 Paris Games and is set to return for 2028. (Its status for 2032 is expected to be determined in 2027, Cress said.)But given that softball is trending up — helped by the recent explosion in women’s sports overall, with skyrocketing valuations and booming media rights deals — is sticking a premier women’s event 1,300 miles from the Olympic hub in Los Angeles a good idea?It depends who you ask.Several players initially weren’t thrilled with the decision, Cress acknowledged, though he said that when he explained the logistics, they were more understanding. Others have been vocal about their disappointment: In March, two-time Olympian and Irvine, Calif., native Natasha Watley, who played college ball at UCLA, told Front Office Sports she was “heartbroken” with the decision to stage the tournament so far from L.A., which she referred to as the “hotbed” of softball.Cress, who’s been in USA Softball’s administration since 2002, said when the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) decided to include softball and baseball — the Olympics, which are striving for gender balance, now consider them one sport as opposed to previous Games when they were separated and one could be scheduled without the other — in the 2028 Games, they also decided they didn’t want a repeat of Tokyo.“Take away the fact that it was COVID and we didn’t have fans. We were playing in a baseball field that wasn’t retrofitted for softball,” Cress said. “Like, we had a temporary backstop. We didn’t want that look for our athletes this time. We wanted to have a facility that looks like a softball facility that has the intimacy of a softball facility.”At the Tokyo Games, softball took place at a retrofitted Yokohama Stadium, complete with makeshift backstop and bench area. (Koji Watanabe / Getty Images)Summer Olympic host countries can propose new sports for the Olympic program, subject to IOC approval; that’s how breaking, or breakdancing, got on the Paris schedule. For 2028, Los Angeles and the USOPC are adding baseball/softball, cricket, lacrosse, flag football and squash.Patty Gasso, the 2028 Olympic coach, is thrilled the ’28 Games will be in Oklahoma City. She’s used to winning there.“This is the Mecca,” said Gasso, who has led Oklahoma to eight NCAA titles, all of them at Devon Park. “Every softball player knows what this stadium means and they want to play here … and I think international athletes feel the same way, because I know they watch the Women’s College World Series, too.”Texas Tech ace NiJaree Canady, who is trying to lead the Red Raiders to their first-ever national title this week in the championship finals that begin Wednesday, is currently in the USA Softball national team player pool and could very well make her Olympic debut in 2028. To her, the Games being stretched all the way to Devon Park is a natural fit.“When you think softball,” Canady said during the WCWS, “you obviously think of Oklahoma City.”Others have doubts, including two-time Olympian Jessica Mendoza.Mendoza, who won gold in 2004 in Athens and silver in 2008 in Beijing, is the first to gush about the atmosphere at Devon Park. She knows the state-of-the-art facility will get even better in the coming years, with $50 million of upgrades planned before July 2028. (The majority of that money will go to build a new indoor facility, though they’re also planning to increase seating from 13,000 to 15,000.) But the Olympics are about a lot more than the facility in which you’re playing.“What makes the Olympics special is that it’s not just an international competition,” said Mendoza, now a broadcaster who called the 2020 Olympics and is on site to call the WCWS again this year for ESPN. “A lot of people have played in those. At the Olympics, you are living and breathing Team USA — in Beijing, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were in the athlete village with us playing video games every day. You can’t replicate that.“When you go out and play with ‘USA’ across your chest, you aren’t just representing yourself or your sport, but every single athlete from your country, many of whom you’ve met and built relationships with.”That’ll be harder to do halfway across the country.“When you think softball, you obviously think of Oklahoma City,” Texas Tech’s NiJaree Canady, a potential Olympic player, says of Devon Park. (Bryan Terry / The Oklahoman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)Mendoza said that when the discussions started about including baseball and softball in 2028, organizers made it clear that building a new softball facility wasn’t in the budget. LA28 is already on the hook for hundreds of millions in upgrades, including at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, which will host Olympic track for a record third time, and SoFi Stadium, which will be converted into the swimming venue.Meanwhile, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the sports’ international governing body, had concerns about retrofitting a baseball stadium for softball, partially because it can look bad on TV, which doesn’t help sell the sport as one that should be a permanent Olympic fixture. That took the iconic Dodger Stadium, where baseball will be staged, and Angel Stadium, 30 miles away in Anaheim, off the table.If softball stakeholders wanted the sport back in the Olympics, they’d have to be able to work with existing structures — which instantly limited other options in Southern California.The region hosts dozens of travel-team softball tournaments each summer, but many are played at public parks, where seating and parking are limited. UCLA’s Easton Stadium is famously compact, with outfield fences sitting just 190 feet from home plate (for Olympic softball, the corners and center field must be 67 meters, or roughly 220 feet). And because Easton Stadium backs up to Sunset Boulevard, expanding the field isn’t possible.Retrofitting a minor-league baseball stadium wasn’t ideal either, Cress said, because while smaller than an MLB park, most of them are located at least 50 miles outside of the L.A. city center, which would make commuting from the athlete village a traffic headache.Mendoza, who was involved in LA28 conversations, said they looked everywhere to find a suitable stadium before giving in.“If the demand was we wouldn’t have (softball) if we had to build a new stadium, our attitude was, ‘We’ll play anywhere,'” Mendoza said.After all, somewhere is better than nowhere.“I know we’re going to have some diehard (softball) fans in OKC, but the greatest part of the Olympic Games is the international flavor,” said two-time Team USA coach Mike Candrea. “I don’t know that we’re going to get that being so far away. It’s great that we have such a nice facility already, but I wish we could have moved it for these Games.”Gasso admitted that when she learned LA28 wasn’t willing to invest in a new softball facility, she was “disappointed.” But she took the Olympic head coaching job, she said, largely because the Games will be staged in OKC.“I know this field like the back of my hand,” she said. “That’s a huge advantage.”Cress said there are already signs that Oklahoma City is going to “knock it out of the park” when 2028 rolls around. Softball sold out in the first Olympic ticket drop (more tickets will be made available for future drops), Gasso has her own devoted fan base in the state, and being centrally located means thousands of additional American fans can drive to Devon Park to catch a game. Because softball is scheduled for the latter half of the Games, Cress said USAS athletes will be able to attend the Opening Ceremony in L.A., which was a priority for everyone involved.Olympic events being stretched across a country isn’t necessarily new, either. Milan and Cortina, located roughly 250 miles apart, were the two official host cities for the 2026 Winter Games, but there were different “clusters” all across Northern Italy. The 2030 Games in the French Alps are planning a similar spread-out approach. In 2024, several events took place outside the Paris metro area, most notably surfing, which was hosted in Tahiti, nearly 10,000 miles away.Oklahoma City takes pride in being known for staging world-class softball events, and mayor David Holt has been one of the sport’s most vocal supporters.“There isn’t a fan base in America that knows more about softball and supports softball better,” Holt said in a text message to The Athletic. “… The softball athletes who come to the Olympics in OKC in 2028 will leave with some of the greatest experiences they’ve ever had.”Texas pitcher Teagan Kavan, whose Longhorns will face Texas Tech in the WCWS finals and who is also in the current USA Softball player pool, didn’t realize that if she makes the team, she won’t be playing in L.A. But she’s not convinced that’s a bad thing.“When I found out, I was surprised for sure,” she said of Oklahoma City hosting. “But this is where we dream of and where we think of the best softball being played. We’re gonna get just as many fans, if not more, being here.“I think it’ll grow the sport no matter where it is.”— The Athletic‘s Molly Keshin contributed to this story.