General public interest is one thing and country depth of participants is another. All of the traditional sports you mentioned, with the exception of synchro swimming and maybe diving have a much wider pool of competing nations. Sport interest isn't only about how many primetime viewers it gets.
To be fair, that goes for lots of sports. Looking at the Paris Olympics, are there really more than a small handful of countries where the general public - outside of the Olympics - tunes in to rhythmic gymnastics, artistic swimming, dressage, shooting, modern pentathlon, rowing, canoeing, weightlifting, judo, wrestling, taekwondo, track cycling, diving and so on?
Not saying those other sports have a large and broad international appeal, because I doubt they do, but that goes for lots of currently Olympic sports in terms of how much the general public has any interest in it whatsoever
Yes it bothers me, because it violates the fundamental principals of what is classified as a Winter sport and thus eligible to be included in a Winter Olympics. The same way "snow and ice" is ludicrous for you...
If they wanted to include cc running at the Summer Games, where it belongs, then there would be no discussion. Because we all know, that Coe, IAAF just want another piece of the pie and a place at the table at the WOG for their own personal benefits. It makes no difference if your event is being held in December, January or February, when you can have it without an ounce on snow and in the bright sunny day with 25+ degrees. That is not a winter event.
And yes, i too detest ice hockey, curling being played in late May, June, August, even September. Real winter sports season should be from October to early-mid May.
Lacrosse already had more than 40 nations competing at the last World Championship if you include the qualification round. Although taking a look at the results the difference between US/Canada and the other teams was huge.
Agree on the basis of this.
But let's take a look at the recently added sports.
For how many of them you could absolutely say they have gained interest and are trending positively. I can for only rugby and climbing. Of course rugby has been popular for decades, they only needed to figure out the perfect format for the OG. Sport climbing on the other hand is the only new sport, which has seen a rapid expansion in the past 10 years. No one was taking it seriously as a real sport a decade ago, but now it has grown in different parts of the World, the fan and media interesting is rising. And it gets more popular and popular.
I wouldn't say the same for skateboarding and surfing. I think their popularity isn't at all that high compared to the 90s and early 2000s. In that period they were much more popular in the American / Canadian zeitgeist from what i recall.
Many of the other sports are just host fodder and/or are basically a 3-5 country sports. Flag football, cricket, lacrosse, baseball, breaking have limited appeal. What is the justifiable reason for adding them, beside the host jerking for throwing a ton of money for organizing the Games.
And here lies the IOC's flow. Instead of firstly help growing and popularizing these sports before adding them, they first bring them on the OG in the hope that will automatically make these sports more trendy. It doesn't...
If you want to include lacrosse, then the IOC should work with the Governing body and all the National Associations in making a campaign to familiarize it around the World. Say you are including lacrosse, but in 3 Games time, so there is time to make an International footprint. After 8 years if you can make a Lacrosse World Championship with 24-32 teams, then including it at the OG makes it a much, much bigger factor.
Now they beat their drum "We are including new sports, look how modern and urban we are", when the truth is they are a joke event with 6 teams, which gives absolutely nothing for growing said sport and is just another statistic.
A lot of young people start rowing while at university so they do provide many of the rowers we see on the international stage. However, there are lots of rowing clubs that are happy to take in members of all ages and backgrounds and most if not all make their equipment available to them. They don't expect you provide your own boat although I'm sure you can if you want. My local club are content whether you want to be a recreational or competitive rower, whether you're a junior or a veteran.
Most of the costs are associated with international rowing teams but that applies across many of the Olympic sports. You mention the issue of venues but presumably this also applies to sprint Canoeing which invariably use the same courses.