Olympics
Olympic sports bodies worried about revenue share with addition of Cricket
The inclusion of five new sports in the 2028 Olympics has created ripples amongst the other Olympic sports bodies.
The Olympic sports bodies are in a new dilemma and have requested urgent talks with the IOC about the risk of cuts in their revenue shares and medal events at the 2028 Los Angeles Games because cricket and other newcomers were added to the program.
The International Olympic Committee last month approved cricket, baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse, and squash for 2028. It kept boxing, modern pentathlon, and weightlifting — three sports whose status had been in doubt.
Association of Summer Olympic International Federations, the umbrella group of current Summer Games sports, said Monday that the decision to increase to a record 36 sports “has raised several questions” among its members, who collectively shared USD 540 million of IOC-allocated money at each of the past two Olympics.
ASOIF's ruling council agreed Monday “to raise these urgent matters with the IOC leadership” after meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. The council includes the presidents of World Athletics, the International Gymnastics Federation, and World Aquatics — the top-tier Olympic sports.
World Athletics got a total of USD 38.5 million after the Tokyo Games, while gymnastics and swimming each got about USD 31.4 million of the IOC's total revenue from broadcasters and sponsors of USD 7.6 billion from 2017-21. Adding cricket is expected to raise the IOC's broadcast deal in India by at least USD 100 million.
The main issues as the games keep expanding are “revenue share, athlete quotas, Olympic qualification systems, and games optimization,” ASOIF president Francesco Ricci Bitti said.
“These are the issues that hugely impact (international federation) operations and have far-reaching effects on the entire Olympic Movement,” Ricci Bitti said in a statement.
Adding four team sports in 2028 is also set to break the IOC's preferred limit of 10,500 athletes at a Summer Games and likely will put pressure on the core Olympic sports to cut their quotas of athletes or even medal events. The IOC has set a target of early 2025 to confirm final quotas.
The Olympic body is set to confirm revenue-sharing funds from the 2024 Paris Olympics after the event.
