Equal team numbers for Baseball & Softball at LA28, underlining Olympic gender balance
The Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee approved on Wednesday the event programme and athlete quota for the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028. For the first time in Olympic history, all team sports will have at least the same number of women’s teams as men’s teams, with baseball and softball featuring six squads each.
"This is a very important step on our road to the LA28 Olympics," said WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari. "Baseball and softball are truly global sports known for their gender equality and athlete-focused approach, all core values of the Olympic Movement. We can't wait for the qualification process to begin."
Baseball and softball will feature a combined total of 234 athletes at the LA28 Olympic Games — 144 in baseball (24 players per team) and 90 in softball (15 players per team). This mirrors the number of teams and athletes that participated in the sport’s most recent Olympic appearance at Tokyo 2020.
With the team quotas for the LA28 Olympic Games now officially confirmed, the WBSC will proceed to establish the qualification systems for both baseball and softball. As the host nation, USA have secured automatic qualification in both disciplines. The remaining five berths per sport will be allocated through the respective qualification pathways to be announced in due course.
The LA28 sports programme is composed of 36 sports and 351 medal events, 22 more than at Paris 2024. the LA28 programme maintains the core athlete quota of 10,500, with an extra 698 quota places allocated for the five sports proposed by the LA28 Organising Committee (baseball/softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash). All four team sports proposed by the LA28 Organising Committee feature six teams in each gender.