Golf and rugby sevens players may be able to compete for gold in the 2016 Olympic games. The International Olympic Committee’s executive board recommended on Thursday in Berlin that golf and rugby sevens be added to the Olympics. They came ahead of other sports like baseball, softball and Karate.
“Both sports are universal, offer absolute gender equity and have strong youth appeal.” Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates said today.
In another addition, women boxers will be able to compete in three different weight categories in the 2012 Olympics.
DO you think including more sports undermines the value of the Olympics or does it increase its popularity and ticket sales?
In this article Mike Celizicargues that Every sport needs the Olympics. He predicts that golf will do well as it will send big names like Tiger Woods ,who is said to be very enthusiastic about the Olympics, to the course. He also says that rugby sevens will sell more tickets because it is as he puts
“…a bloody and delightfully violent collision sport played by people who refuse to wear helmets or even as much padding as soccer players wear.”
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BBC World Have Your Say 
Personally I love sports but the inclusion of to many sports during the olympics will just produce a glut and place serious pressure on the organizing committees to formulate a working schedule. Definetely no more sports.
The bottom line for the IOC is money through sponsorship revenue so if any sport seems marketable they will include it.
Based on following, viewership and potential for revenue…..more and more commercially viable sports should be added…..that’s the dircetion Olympics are heading to…and that is the right direction.
T20 cricket will be in sooner.
I would like to see non-commerciall viable, limited-mass-appeal-and-following sports to be dropped also.
Cycling is one such example on the to-be-dropped-list
Though it’s good that athletes who have specialised in rugby sevens are being given the chance to compete for medals, I do think I would prefer the Olympics if there were no ‘sports’ at all – just time-tested measures of athletic achievement like running or wrestling.
Let’s face it The Olympics is simply a commercial project to fill the coffers of developers , organisers. and advertisers. Does it actually matter what sport is shown as long as money is made? 2012 will cost The British Tax Payer dearly while others laugh all the way to their banks. I believe Montreal is still paying for their olympics that took place some 37 years ago? Do correct me if I’m wrong but if I’m right is that sport?
RE “” DO you think including more sports undermines the value of the Olympics or does it increase its popularity and ticket sales? “”
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—————– The Olympics have been imploding on their own corrupt financing that sees the host cities steadily taking a financial bath from developing largely useless infrastructure for future use.
2012 in London may even be shelved if the global financial fraud of the millennium can’t be sorted. Western world is already awash in publicly financed pro sports it can no longer afford. Let the pharmaceutical companies start financing the Olympics, since that’s what’s been fueling the competition the past few years.
TV fully hit the Olympics in the mid 1970’s. By the mid 1980’s I lost all respect and interest due to money, both in the advertising and the advantages bought through technology. I can’t justify any level of involvement in an event that commonly charges over $1000US to see one event. There has been no respect for decades, just marketing.
This latest proliferation of “sports” in the Olympics is just laughable – synchronised swimming anyone? I find the Olympics a) the ultimate bore, apart from the athletics, and b) the ultimate naff-fest – those revolting opening/closing ceremonies that reached their ghastly nadir in Beijing. Only the truly brain-dead could actually watch the majority of the “events” so would it not be a better idea to deflate, rather than inflate the whole thing? The world’s most popular sports are massive enterprises, part of the entertainment industry and they need the Olympics even less than the Olympics need them and as for the rest, let the fans sort it out for themselves.
I’m not a total sport-hater, I’m football crazy – the proper variety – Serie A Italy, Prem. League UK, Champions’ League, European and World Cups, while Olympic football is totally irrelevant and a big yawn. I also love F1 which thankfully has kept well out of the fray, although its own management is worse than inept. Athletics are the only thing that really belong in the Olympics and by slimming this obese monster down the powers that be in the IOC might actually discover that the whole thing becomes more profitable.
In the 70s when I was a child, my whole family would gather in front of the TV to watch the Olympics, we would all be oohing and aahing at everything, but we all somehow lost interested and watched them less and less. It just started being like a show, like any other show.
The Olympics is a business and so it undermines the value of sports to normal people who actually participate in sports.
The Olympics promotes spectating, watching sports, instead of participating in sports.
Humans need exercise, not sitting on their butts and watching other people do sports on TV.
The Olympics use to be about a physical contest. So much of it today has been degraded by equipment, suites, shoes that has given the edge to a competitor who just might not be the best athlete, but has the best sponsor? It’s the pure sportsman people want to see again. If ten people are in a race. It’s a better race for the fan if all 10 have an opportunity to win! Fewer and fewer cares to watch, when we all know who the winner is before the race starts!
After a day in posting, there are nine originating posts. The consensus of those that even care to post basically say the Olympics are at best just another corporate entertainment venue. Since the BBC does not exist to promote corporate entertainment, I hope you will contact the IOC and inform them that you will not be covering them any more.
If the Olympics were dope-free and an annual event, it would have some credibility as a measurer of athletic prowess. It isn’t and it doesn’t.
What are they really saying? These are great because they’ll bring in even more money to this global moneymaker. Because in many ways that’s what the Olympics is.
How many billions are paid for the rights to cover it? And we all know the more gold medals you win, the more endorsements you’ll have. If Michael Phelps didn’t win any gold, would anybody hire him? Probably not.
Yes, the Olympics have been undermined for many years….
=Dennis Junior=
I’m heartened by some of the above replies. We Londoners weren’t consulted about the ‘Olympics’ and yet we pay for them.
Worse, we’re actually LOSING playing fields on Hackney Marshes to make way for spectators car parks. Same story for allotments and some family business on the Wick.
As for the ‘swimming centre’ if would have paid for a new swimming pool in many of the boroughs or renovation where feasible.
In short, this is a nauseating, undemocratic, corrupt, corporate land-grab, for which apparently the BBC is one of the cheerleaders/
But, the new sports are looking for an avenue of making money (and) bringing in new audiences….
=Dennis Junior=
What do you mean by value; Is it money-wise or the spirit-wise? Don’t get taken in too much by too many recommendations; Don’t let the words be put in your mouth, and don’t mouth too much intentionally for the readied ears and mouths. And, by the way, too many cooks do spoil the broth.