Flag football is a better fit for the Olympics than it might seem

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The International Olympic Committee has officially added five sports to the program for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Flag football, cricket, lacrosse, squash and baseball/softball were proposed by the local organizing committee a week ago, then recommended by the IOC executive board on Friday before receiving the final seal of approval today from the full membership at a meeting in Mumbai, India.

Each of these new Olympic sports comes with its own backstory — starting with the fact that most of them are not actually new to the Olympics.

Cricket was played at the 1900 Games in Paris (where the "tournament" consisted of one match between a club from France and a club from Great Britain) before disappearing from the Olympics for more than a century, even as its global popularity soared. According to The Associated Press, the value of India's Olympic broadcasting rights could rise by more than $100 million US now that the favourite sport of the most populous country on Earth is on the program. The expectation for 2028 is that there will be six-team tournaments for men and women played under the Twenty20 (T20) format — the faster-paced, TV-friendly version of cricket that takes about 2½ hours to play.

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Lacrosse — Canada's national summer sport — appeared in the Olympics multiple times before being dropped from the program a long time ago. Canadian teams won gold in both 1904 and 1908 before lacrosse appeared as a non-medal demonstration sport in 1928, '32 and '48. In Los Angeles, lacrosse will follow suit with