Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have expressed mutual interest in getting big leaguers involved for the 2028 Summer Olympics. There’ll need to be a formal agreement between the league and players union for that to happen.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported on Tuesday that there are various issues to be sorted out. Some of that is related to logistical concerns that also need to be ironed out with the Olympics and LA28 themselves — e.g. hotel amenities and the number of tickets available to participating players (link via Evan Drellich of The Athletic). The most interesting element, as first reported by Passan, is that the league proposed a mandatory participation clause.
That would require players who are chosen to suit up or face stiff penalties. MLB proposed that any selected players who didn’t want to partake would be subject to undisclosed fines and a three-week stint on the restricted list spanning July 10 – August 3, 2028 unless they have an excused absence at the discretion of the league office. That’s essentially a suspension, as players on the restricted list do not receive service time or salaries. A player on the injured list would be excused from the restricted list but would be barred from playing any regular season games until August 3 — a clear attempt to preemptively shut down the possibility of teams using a “phantom IL” stint as a workaround.
Unsurprisingly, MLBPA executive director Bruce Meyer wasn’t keen on the mandatory participation. He told reporters (including Drellich) that the proposal was “extreme.” Commissioner Rob Manfred responded by noting that the in-season Olympics break would be “a disruptive undertaking” for the league, so “we want our very best out there so that people see how great our game really is.”
The ’28 Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles. If there’s an agreement on involving major league players, the league would like to pause regular season play after July 9. They’d hold the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game on the 10th and 11th, respectively.
The tentative plan would be for the baseball phase to run from July 13-19, even though the Opening Ceremony of the overall Olympic Games isn’t scheduled until July 14. The MLB regular season would resume on July 21, nine days before the Olympics themselves conclude.
According to the IOC, the baseball tournament would be a six-team field split into two groups of three teams. Those teams would play a round robin, with the top team in each group automatically qualifying for the semifinals. The remaining four teams would play a quarterfinal round with single elimination games the rest of the way to determine the medalists.
Three of those teams are already locked in. The U.S. automatically qualifies as the host country. Venezuela and the Dominican Republic qualified based on their placements in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. Venezuela won that event by defeating the U.S. in the final. The Dominican Republic lost in the semifinals but earned the other allotted spot for a country in the Americas as the next-best finisher.
The remaining three teams will be determined by future tournaments, the first of which is scheduled to take place in November 2027. One spot will go to a team from Asia, with Japan the on-paper favorites to secure that berth. One will go to either Australia or a European team, while the final is a Wild Card spot to be determined at a later tournament.
MLB plays the World Baseball Classic every two years. The event has attracted more star talent over the past few iterations and has clearly taken on a lot of importance for the participating players. However, it remains an optional event. It’s fairly common for players to decline the invitation while preferring to keep their focus on Spring Training.
Manfred differentiated the WBC, which takes place in March, from an in-season Olympics. “The schedule for the Olympics is going to cover days that players otherwise would be playing in major league games. If they’re not on an injured list, they’d be out there playing,” the commissioner said on Tuesday.
Drellich writes that the MLBPA has not officially responded to the league’s proposal on mandatory participation. The union could try to leverage that into more accommodations for those who play in the tournament.
The majority of selected players will likely want to play regardless. The NHL had no issue getting strong excitement for the Winter Olympics this past February. If anything, the more irritating hangup could be insurance issues similar to those that prevented some players from participating in the 2026 WBC. Most teams weren’t willing to allow players whose coverage was denied to play in the World Baseball Classic. The league would need to sort that out to get best-on-best competition for the Olympics.
MLB players have never appeared in the Olympics. Baseball has been a medaled sport six times, most recently the 2020 Tokyo Games. All players on a 40-man roster were prohibited from participating. The U.S. will be hosting the summer games for the first time since 1996, making it a more realistic possibility without shortening the 162-game regular season. The league would rather move the start of the ’28 season up a few days to make up for longer break as opposed to stretching the postseason well into November, Passan reports.
