Tickets, rooms, mandates complicate MLB players in OlympicsJeff Passan
PHILADELPHIA — Major League Baseball has gathered support from owners to allow big league players to participate in the Olympics for the first time, but disagreements with the MLB Players Association over hotel rooms, tickets and a mandatory-participation agreement have complicated their involvement in the 2028 Los Angeles Games, sources told ESPN.
Emails and documents obtained by ESPN illustrate the conflict between the parties that has spanned months and left officials at LA28 seeking a prompt resolution. MLB likewise has pushed for clarity, sources stated, as it plans to shut down the sport for 11 days to accommodate an All-Star Game on the West Coast that would precede the six-team tournament scheduled to be played at Dodger Stadium.
The MLBPA has been loath to rubber-stamp LA28’s proposal, however, seeking a deal similar to what the International Olympic Committee struck with the National Hockey League and NHLPA that brought professional hockey players back to the Milano Cortina Games in 2026 after a 12-year absence.
With the smashing success of the 2026 World Baseball Classic and three powerhouse teams already qualified — the United States, Dominican Republic and WBC champion Venezuela — the desire for, and from, big league players to compete in the Olympics has grown.
The Twins’ Joe Ryan pitched for the U.S. the last time baseball was played in the Olympics, during the Tokyo Games in 2021. Koji Watanabe/Getty ImagesPotential complications have arisen during negotiations, which involve a complex web of issues that include hotel rooms, tickets, insurance, NIL rights and the mandatory-participation agreement proposed by the league that would place players who run afoul of requirements on the restricted list, without pay or service time, from July 12 to Aug. 3, according to a copy of the league’s proposal obtained by ESPN.MLB’s aim at mandating participation, sources stated, is to ensure a showcase on the world stage includes the game’s biggest stars, from Japan’s Shohei Ohtani to New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge. Beyond balking at compulsory involvement for all players, the MLBPA strongly opposes a deal that would allow placement on the restricted list as well as commissioner Rob Manfred’s ability in the agreement “to discipline for just cause” with “a fine and/or unpaid suspension,” according to the league’s proposal.
The union has not responded with its own proposal to address participation, sources stated.
One week prior to the mandatory-participation agreement MLB proposed May 27, LA28 had sent the MLBPA a memorandum of understanding that intended to serve as an outline for any deal. Players were told LA28’s friends-and-family ticket policy allowed athletes to purchase two tickets per game in which they participated. At the same time, the email stated, “we feel confident we can unlock the right to purchase additional for each Athlete … but we also understand if this group requires something more dedicated upfront.”
LA28 also offered 435 additional hotel rooms on top of the 100 reserved by MLB and another 100 for the Japanese national team, which is heavily favored to secure a spot in the tournament at the WBSC Premier12 tournament set to take place in November 2027. While it’s unclear who the rooms would service, four All-Stars told ESPN on Monday that they would stay in the Olympic Village on UCLA’s campus 20 miles west of Dodger Stadium and use hotel rooms for their families.
“It’s such a great opportunity for all athletes to come together in all different walks of life, all different cultures. I love it,” stated Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper, a longtime advocate of big leaguers in the Olympics. “I think it’d be great. I hope it works out. I grew up watching the Summer Olympics. I was in one of the greatest eras of Olympics of all time. Michael Phelps — are you kidding me? There was nothing like it. Our women’s team swim team was incredible. Gymnastics floor. It’s everything. You got it all.”
Even with the desire for players to participate — “You want to make that team,” stated Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber, who, like Harper, was on the United States’ WBC runner-up team this year — the union pushed back on LA28’s MOU. Ian Penny, a top lawyer and special adviser at the MLBPA, wrote in a June 26 email that “the MLBPA is seeking fair treatment for its members in consideration for the substantial financial value they would bring to LA28.”
“Ideally,” Penny wrote, “that consideration would closely align with the value created and include direct compensation. However, what these proposals are largely designed to accomplish is to prevent our members from losing money by participating, whether due to expenses incurred or commercial rights lost, both individually and collectively. Given the significant financial benefits flowing to non-athlete stakeholders in the Games, we view these proposals as particularly modest and imminently reasonable.”
In an email late last week, Niccolò Campriani, LA28’s vice president of sports, wrote that “while we do not anticipate further changes to the core teams reflected in the MOU, we are happy to discuss implementation details, work through questions around the edges, facilitate introductions where helpful/appropriate, and collaborate to make Olympic Baseball as successful as possible.”
Those included further conversations about a right to purchase additional tickets by Dec. 1 and an Aug. 15 deadline to secure the allocated hotel rooms.
“We believe this package appropriately recognizes the significance of MLB players participating in the LA28 Olympic Games while balancing the many interests involved,” Campriani, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in rifle, wrote to top officials from MLB, the MLBPA and the World Baseball Softball Confederation, the governing body of Olympic baseball. “No league is getting terms more favorable terms than this.”
The MLBPA cites the NHL and NHLPA’s deal with the International Olympic Committee as superior to its offer. While many details of the hockey deal have not been made public, it reflected, officials stated, the large role the sport plays in the Winter Games and convinced the MLBPA of the necessity for special dispensations such as allowing the NHL to post highlights of the tournament games on social channels. Baseball — which was removed from the Olympic program for 2012 and 2016, returned to the Tokyo Games in 2021 and again was not played at the last Summer Olympics in Paris — doesn’t have nearly the same resonance internationally, though the possibility of a jam-packed Dodger Stadium for a week would likely generate more than a half-million tickets sold.
The format of the tournament already has been declared by the IOC. Six teams will be split into a pair of three-team divisions. After the three face one another in a round-robin format, the countries at the top of the standings will advance to the semifinals while the other four teams meet in the quarterfinals.
To accommodate the Olympics, MLB would end its first half July 9, hold the Home Run Derby July 10 and the All-Star Game on July 11, start the tournament July 13 — one day before the Opening Ceremony — and host a pair of medal games July 19 before players return to their major league teams in time to restart the regular season July 21.
With each team made up of 28 players — 24 active and four replacement — major league rosters would likely be raided heavily by the Olympics. Teams have been loath to allow players, especially pitchers, to participate in the WBC because the intense competition can put them at risk for arm injuries. The fear of injuries similarly made insuring players particularly difficult at the last WBC.
The willingness reflects owners’ belief in the potential power of Olympic baseball to further grow the sport — and do so in advance of the 2028 expiration of MLB’s national TV deal. To facilitate the lost week-plus, sources stated, MLB proposed moving the start of the regular season back a week to March 23, 2028, rather than extend the postseason into November.
Though the urgency to strike a deal is strong from LA28 and MLB, hockey players didn’t sign theirs until July 2, 2025, just 209 days before the Olympics started. The first pitch of Olympic baseball in 2028 is scheduled 720 days from now. But with an All-Star Game that still needs scheduling and planning, the calculus is different for MLB.
“If I have an opportunity to put the American flag and USA on my chest again at the level of the Olympics, it would mean everything to me,” Harper stated. “I’ve wanted it for a long time, and I would love to be there. You’re trying to grow this game internationally, and I don’t think there’s a better place to do that than the Olympics.”
