As per the latest news, the International Olympic Committee has put its Esports Commission's activities on hold. This decision was made by new IOC President Kirsty Coventry. Future involvement of electronic sports at the Olympics was seen as a possibility under the previous IOC President Thomas Bach, but the new IOC president has halted all the plans for Esports push and instead has placed more emphasis on existing sports.
Coventry, who took up this role last June, sent letters to the Commission members in January and suggested an impending review of the IOC's stance toward esports. Esports is most popular among younger generations but there has always been a mixed public opinion on whether they should be regarded as a sport.
During the previous tenure of Tomas Basch, an Olympic Esports Series was held in Singapore in 2023 , but the Olympic Esports Games scheduled for 2027 in Saudi Arabia were canceled last October. Following this decision, Saudi Arabia cancelled their 12 year contract with IOC which had a condition that it should host events regularly. Under new president Coventry, the IOC was looking at the idea to curb the expansion of the Summer Games, which will be having a record-high 36 sports at the 2028 LA Games.
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As per sources, Coventry and others in charge of the issue have already told its members that they will stick to the Olympic Charter's statement of "only those sports which are practiced on snow or ice are considered as winter sports" for the foreseeable future. When it comes to the Esports in Olympics as of now there is a complete halt on that decision and fans along with players are still unsure whether Esports will be part of the upcoming Olympics. Going by the recent decision to halt the Esports push it looks very unlikely that Esports might be included in the Olympics.
