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USA Baseball Already Preparing For The 2020 Olympics

Christina Monroe — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 18:59:27 +0000

12-15 pro scouts have been working with USA Baseball since April looking for talented minor leaguers.
A list of over 100 players has already made its way to the desk of Team USA for consideration.
The official roster for Team USA at the 2020 Olympics will have 28 players.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – USA Baseball has started looking at potential players for Team USA in the 2020 Olympics. The last time baseball made an appearance in the Olympics was in 2008. With 12 years between events, it is unlikely that any former members will be on the 2020 team making the entire squad a sea of new faces.

A formal ranking of possible athletes will be made through player evaluations and recommendations by the scouting staff. Teams will be contacted in August by USA Baseball seeking permission to use their players for the 2020 Olympics. An official public announcement of the 28-man lineup for Tokyo 2020 will be done by October.

The Premier12 Tournament will be the beginning of qualifiers to make it to the Olympics. The tournament is made up of twelve different teams that span the globe. Team USA will play in Mexico on November 2nd.

Should Team USA fail in the tournament, they will have 2 more chances to make it to the Olympics. After the Premier12 Tournament, there is an Americas Qualifier and then the third tournament in Taiwan. The qualifying rounds for Tokyo 2020 baseball are literally playing by the 3 strikes and you’re out rule.

With qualifiers, there are no guarantees that Team USA will be competing in the Olympics. They need to be able to advance in any one of the 3 tournaments they’re allowed. In 2004, they were unable to make the cut.

“We’ve had people say, ‘When do you go to Tokyo?’ and we’re quick to remind people we’re not in Tokyo yet. We have to qualify,” said Paul Seller, CEO of USA Baseball. “It’s going to be really, really difficult. Seven of the top 12 teams in the world are from our region. FIFA has the pools of death. We have the continent of death.”

Team USA

The last Team USA was comprised of both seasoned players and prospective ones that had not yet made their mark in the MLB. This new team will have the same makeup, taking the top players from wherever the scouts find them. In general, it’s good practice to have the varying age range for good chemistry; the older players can teach the newer players and the newer players boost the competitive side of the veterans.

“It’s about the best player in the moment, and that could be a lot of different guys,” said Sellers. “Obviously the minor league player is where the bulk of our team will come from, but if there is a player like a former pro pitching in Japan, that might be somebody who is attractive based on their familiarity of the landscape and where we might be going.”

OlympicBettingOdds.com thinks the United States needs to look long and hard for the right players and coaches to make it to Tokyo 2020. This could very well be their last chance for an Olympic medal for some time. The 2024 Olympics will not be featuring baseball as an event. Depending on the ratings in 2020, that could either help or hurt an appearance of baseball for the 2028 Olympics.

The winners for baseball in the 2008 Beijing Olympics were South Korea who took home the Gold, Cuba that brought back the Silver and the United States bringing back the Bronze medal. Practice for the qualifiers will begin in October. Team Japan already has a spot at the Olympics because they are the host country.

The post USA Baseball Already Preparing For The 2020 Olympics first appeared on Olympic Betting Odds.

Different Time Zones Pose Potential Issue For NBC, 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Christina Monroe — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 14:47:49 +0000

NBC is the main network for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
NBC lost money due to the low ratings of PyeongChang 2018 because of the time difference.
Tokyo, Japan, and PyeongChang, South Korea are in the same time zone.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The NBC network will be airing the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo but the difference in time zones is looking to be problematic. NBC has a three-event deal over the television viewing rights of the Olympics. Their first of the three-event contract was in 2018 for the Winter Games in South Korea. The 2018 Games recorded the worst viewership of any Olympic event in over 30 years, pulling in an average of about 19 million viewers daily.

No matter how many different ways NBC made the Olympics accessible to watch, the time difference is what caused the problem. Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of the United States. For people that wanted to watch the Games live, it was nearly impossible to fit into their daily schedule. Events taking place at noon in Tokyo would start at 11:00 pm ET on the other side of the world.

To make matters worse, the 2020 Olympics and NBC will be competing with the 2020 Presidential Election debates being aired during the same time. They did not have this problem in 2018. This could lead to potentially even fewer viewers than that of the 2018 numbers.

What’s The Game Plan?

NBC will employ the same ways for everyone to watch the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as they did in 2018. The Games can be streamed online through the network website; however, you must be a cable subscriber. If you do not currently have a cable account, you will not be able to stream from NBC’s site. With a cable package, streaming of the Olympics is a free service.

No Olympic packages will be sold like that of a pay-per-view event. In 2018, services like HULU offered live streaming of the Olympics. OlympicBettingOdds.com has not heard if that will be available for the 2020 Games. Tokyo 2020 will begin on July 24th and run through August 9th.

The post Different Time Zones Pose Potential Issue For NBC, 2020 Tokyo Olympics first appeared on Olympic Betting Odds.

Katrina Young and Murphy Bromberg Qualify For Tokyo 2020

Daniel Borjas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 20:54:36 +0000

The US now has a position in the Olympics for the synchronized 10-meter dive.
Katrina Young and her partner Murphy Bromberg will both head to the 2020 Olympics.
China and Malaysia won the gold and silver medals respectively for the FINA World Championships.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Former Florida State University student Katrina Young has qualified for the Olympics for the second time.

She was also in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Her partner for Tokyo 2020 will be Murphy Bromberg. This will be the first time that Bromberg will make it to the Olympics.

How Did They Qualify?

Qualifications happened at the FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea. Before the final dive for Team USA, the pair was in fourth place behind team Canada. They needed to overtake the Canadian pair to qualify for the 2020 Olympics.

In their final dive, the US pair performed a back 2 ½ with 1 ½ twists. This gave team USA a score of 69.12 points. That meant their final score was 304.86 points. Murphy was not confident that the dive was enough. Next up was the Canadian pair.

For Team Canada’s final dive, they performed an inward 3 ½ tuck to score 62.40 points. That left team Canada with a score of 304.05. Team USA overtook team Canada by .81 points and placed third in the FINA World Championships. This means that the US pair won bronze and most of all, qualified for the 2020 Olympics.

OlympicBettingOdds.com knows Young and Bromberg will not be the only Americans with a shot to qualify for Tokyo 2020. The FINA World Championships last until July 24. Ben Bramley and Steele Johnson will compete in the men’s synchronized 10-meter. Alison Gibson and Krysta Palmer will compete in the women’s synchronized 3-meter. They are hoping to compete in the 2020 Olympics along with Young and Bromberg.

The post Katrina Young and Murphy Bromberg Qualify For Tokyo 2020 first appeared on Olympic Betting Odds.

Swimmer Jordan Wilimovsky Is First Swimmer To Make U.S. Team For Tokyo 2020

Christina Monroe — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 17:58:11 +0000

Jordan Wilimovsky becomes the first swimmer on the Men’s U.S. Olympic team.
Fellow American swimmer David Heron came in twenty spots behind with a less than a two-minute deficit.
Wilimovsky has been the only American swimmer to qualify in both pool and open water events during his swimming career.

NEW YORK – Only the top ten swimmers in a 10km Olympic qualifier competition would place to make the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Among those ten was Jordan Wilimovsky, coming in fifth and becoming the first American to qualify for the male U.S. swim team. The 2019 FINA World Championships took place in the open waters of Gwangju, South Korea.

The qualifier allowed 74 competitors to swim for a chance of going to the Olympics. The 25-year-old from Malibu, California had a time of 1 hour, 48 minutes and 1 second to get him into fifth place. David Heron, the other American swimmer in the competition finished in 25th place with a time of 1 hour 49 minutes and a little over 57 seconds. Less than two minutes made the difference as to which American would be heading to Tokyo.

"Usually, I try to hang back a little more, but this being an Olympic qualifier and everything, the first half of the race I went a little harder than I normally do just to make sure I was in a good position and be safe and be at the front the whole way," said Wilimovsky. "So I changed my strategy a little bit compared to what I normally do."

What’s Next?

Wilimovsky has been swimming since he was 9 years old. He competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio where he placed fourth, missing the bronze by a little over 4 seconds. Wilimovsky will continue to compete in the remainder of the FINA World Championships. Next week he is scheduled for both an 800 meter and 1,500-meter freestyle competition, although he has already solidified his spot on the U.S. Olympic team.

“I’m obviously super stoked to get top 10 and make the Olympic Team,” said Wilimovsky. “Any time you get to represent the U.S. is super cool, so that’s awesome. I definitely wanted to do better than fifth, but I’ve got a year to work on that, so overall I’m happy.”

A few other swimmers to place for their countries Olympic teams were Marc-Antoine Olivier of France, Florian Wellbrock of Germany, and Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy. While Wilimovsky had hoped to place higher than he did, he’s happy to be heading to the Olympics. And now OlympicBettingOdds.com knows he has over a year to practice for that better score he was hoping for.

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