American football could be the newest sport added to the Olympics, giving the United States a potentially easy path to a gold medal every four years. The International Olympic Committee gave provisional recognition to The International Federation of American Football on Tuesday, setting up a vote on whether the sport should be added to the events list, via FoxSports.
American football could be Olympic sport by 2024
Seven-on-seven is the most likely style of play.
Allison Joyce
The vote could take place as early as 2017, and the sport would potentially be added to the Olympic lineup in 2024. American football has not been at the Olympics since the 1932 Los Angeles Olympiad, when all-stars from Cal, Stanford and USC played against all-stars from Harvard, Yale and Princeton in an exhibition.
It’s likely that it won’t be NFL or even college-style football at the Olympic games. Due to roster restrictions, seven-on-seven is the most likely style of play to make it as a medal event (following the suit of rugby, which was recently approved for sevens play in the 2016 Olympics), and there very well could be both men’s and women’s events for the sport.
The NFL has tried to expand their global reach in recent years, most notably by playing regular-season games in London.
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