I Bet Out of These 50 Potential Olympic Sports At Least One Will Be A Real Olympic Sport At Some Point

Every game has merit

I took a couple weeks off after finishing my huge Special Meter series on the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games and the culture around them. My regular job that I do all day every day has been busy, and I had an unexpected (but not unwelcome) amount of freelance work fall into my lap, which monopolizes a lot of my free time. You’ll see more on that soon. But I’m excited, and it’s fun to have a lot of irons in the fire, even if I feel a little burnt out.

Speaking of that burnout, though.

After work hours, I’ve pretty much been doing what everyone has been doing this last week or so: Watching whatever Olympic sport is on TV. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sport I care about. When it’s the Olympics, I do care.

With the addition of sports like skateboarding and breakdancing to the games, the Olympics is expanding into territory that seems to upset some traditionalist that would argue that the only valid Olympic sports are ones where you are A) racing someone to a finish line and B) nude.

The thing with the Olympics is that they’re just games though. They’re all games. They were invented to pass the time. Each sport is equally as important and pointless as the other. Basketball has the exact amount of merit as racewalking. The 400 meter dash is just as crucial to society as fencing. Every single sport can have a Simone Biles or Michael Phelps who changes what we all believe was possible. Any competitive act can have controversy and drama to keep even the most cynical TV viewer enthralled if for only a few minutes.

With that, I have compiled what I think are 50 valid sports to be added to the Olympics.

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1. Simon says

2. Rock, paper, scissors

3. Tag (different varieties, but really I just want to hear some classy, established sports media person like Mike Tirico say like “and now that means Estonia is It” with the straightest face imaginable.)

4. Floor is lava 

5. Balloon keepy-uppies (friend suggestion)

6. Pogs

7. Charades

8. Swimming pool basketball

9. Flicker football

   I originally posted this on a thread on Twitter. My friend asked if “Flicker Football” was some Pennsylvania term for Paper Football, which brings me to:
   

10. Paper football

11. Canadian Rules Football

12. Pinewood derby

13. Bloody knuckles

14. Hot dog eating

15. Boogie boarding

16. Sack race

17. Three legged race

18. Capture the flag

19. Tech deck

20. Dodgeball

21. Yo-yo

22. Skee-ball

23. Horseshoes

24. Holding your breath

25. Juggling

26. Rock skipping

27. Quarters 

28. Double Dutch (they’ll have to come up with a new name for it, like “Dual Rope Team Routine.”

    I told Michele I was doing this, and she had a couple of ideas:
    

29. Chess

30. Math 24

31. Unicycle racing
    
    I told her I had already thought about incorporating unicycle, but was unsure if it’d be freestyle or racing. So:
    

32. Freestyle unicycle 

33. Close up magic

34. Foosball

35. Rams (A classic sleepover game my friends and I invented. Think Sumo wrestling but you start on all fours with your heads locked on each other’s shoulders, and you push until the opponent submits, like rams locking horns and fighting for dominance.)

36. Dizzy bat

37. Crab walk racing

38. Air hockey

39. Arm wrestling 

40. Thumb wrestling

41. Mud wrestling

42. Tylerball (a game my roommate invented in college)

43. Wallball

44. Wiffleball

45. Kickball 

46. Tennis baseball (baseball played on a tennis court with a tennis ball. If you hit the tree across the street or go over the fence of the adjoining court, it’s a home run automatically.

47. Slamball

48. Musical chairs

49. Red light - Green light (which has a wave of new players after “Squid Game.”)

Realistically, the most likely choice for a game that will become popular enough to join the olympics is:

50. Pickleball

It’s like betting on the next city to get an MLB expansion team (Nashville). It seems just like a foregone conclusion. Soon we’ll all get to watch husband and wife teams take to the court to scream at each other on the international stage.

Cornhole will not be allowed. That would just be the worst people the international community has to offer.

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Do you have a suggestion for an Olympic sport? Let me know below:

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Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is the Hard Quartet.