PHILADELPHIA — The opening ceremony for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles is now exactly two years away, but the MLB players’ potential participation in those Games is still very much an open question.
There has long been conceptual agreement between MLB and MLB Players Association that big leaguers should be there, and that the Olympics being in the United States provides a unique opportunity to raise baseball’s profile. From there, though, the negotiations have remained bogged down on a series of contractual details. Beyond these two entities, the LA28 organizing committee, the IOC, and the World Baseball Softball Confederation are involved in the talks.
The still-unresolved issues vary widely, including player accommodations, insurance, tickets, and service-time implications, among others. More broadly, there are ramifications—both known and unknown—of shutting down MLB play for roughly two weeks in the heart of the season, something that heretofore has precluded big leaguers from being in the Olympics.
Another major sticking point between the league and union surrounds mandatory player participation for those selected to play—an issue that also has roiled throughout this week’s All-Star Game. MLB has gone so far as to even propose stripping more than three weeks of pay and service time accrual for healthy players refusing to participate in the Olympics.
