Is Lacrosse an Olympic Sport? (LA 2028 Update)

Yes. After 120 years away, lacrosse is headed back to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and it's coming back faster than ever.

Connor Stifel · General Lacrosse · Updated June 26, 2025 · 5 min read

Lacrosse at the OlympicsLA 2028 · SixesJuly 24–29, 2028 · Exposition Park

The short version

YesBack at LA 2028

The IOC added lacrosse to the LA28 program in October 2023. Men's and women's Sixes run July 24–29, 2028.

3rdOlympic appearance

Lacrosse was a medal sport in 1904 and 1908. LA 2028 is its third time on the medal program.

Is lacrosse an Olympic sport? Finally, after years of waiting, yes. Lacrosse, a sport originating in New York and Canada, will return to the Summer Olympics in 2028.

After its debut at the Summer Olympics in 1904 (St. Louis) and later at the 1908 games (London), lacrosse will appear in the Olympics for the third time in 2028 (Los Angeles). For anybody who grew up with a stick in their hands, from the reserves in Ontario to the youth fields around Syracuse and the summer tournaments in Virginia Beach, that's a long time coming.

History of lacrosse

The Haudenosaunee people, located in New York and Canada, are credited as the creators of the sport as far back as the 12th century, and have continued to pioneer the game. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy's involvement in World Lacrosse competitions is illustrative of the sport's continued significance to Native American culture. To them, it's the Creator's Game, and you still feel that respect at every level of the sport.

Europeans were first introduced to lacrosse in the 1600s through French missionaries watching Native Americans play the game. It evolved with stricter rules and, by the mid-1800s, was being promoted as Canada's national game (it's officially Canada's national summer sport today). In the coming decades, it spread through New England and Europe, becoming a popular sport. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia were the pioneers in developing organized women's lacrosse in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Several different international federations emerged in the 1970s, only to unify in 2008 under the shared goal of reentering the Olympic fold.

What modern lacrosse looks like

Both men's and women's lacrosse will be played in Sixes at the 2028 Olympics, a hybrid of field and box lacrosse that promises to be exceedingly fast and tight. (Not sure how those two differ? Here's our breakdown of box lacrosse vs. field lacrosse.)

6v6Players per side, goalie includedNo dedicated long poles or FOGOs

30sShot clockFour 8-minute quarters on a 70m × 36m field

It features a faster, more open style of play with rapid transitions and nonstop, high-scoring action, and welcomes players of all skill and experience levels to the sport of lacrosse. Every player has to play both ends, so a kid who can catch, throw and get back on D is worth his weight in gold. If you're new to the positions in lacrosse, Sixes basically blurs them all together.

Sixes, developed in 2018, has facilitated worldwide expansion, boosted accessibility and friendliness, improved competitive balance, and decreased participation costs and event complexity. It's the game's evolution into the modern age.

Sixes rewards the stick skills you build in the backyard: quick hands, clean passes and the legs to run both ways.

Who decides what is an Olympic sport?

World Lacrosse's goal of becoming an Olympic sport became achievable when the International Olympic Committee granted the sport provisional recognition in 2018. Following a thorough study and proposal procedure, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on October 16, 2023 that Sixes is one of five new sports to be included in the LA28 Olympic Games. Baseball/softball, cricket, flag football, and squash were the other new sports included in the roster.

When deciding whether to accept a new sport, the International Olympic Committee considered factors including gender parity, athlete welfare, and ecological impact. IOC President at the time, Thomas Bach, stated that the selection of these five new sports was in keeping with American sports culture and would bring international sports to the United States while showcasing famous American sports across the globe.

Train like it's 2028Sixes is all stick skills and conditioning. Here's what we use to get the reps in.

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Lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports

One of the factors that drove lacrosse to be considered is the exceptional expansion in the past two decades. The sport's membership has doubled from 45 to 90 National Federations. There are teams from all five continents in the men's and women's top 10 in the global lacrosse rankings.

Along with the two previous summers where lacrosse was a featured sport, there were multiple years (1928, 1932, and 1948) where the Summer Olympics included lacrosse demonstrations. A demonstration of a sport at the Olympics does not compete for a medal, but rather is played to show off and promote the sport to the viewers of the games.

This is the major differentiation that will set apart the LA28 Olympics from previous ones. With them, the Olympic Movement can reach out to new communities of athletes and fans throughout the United States and the world. (If you're still sold on the game, see why lacrosse is the best sport.)

Hard work pays off

The inclusion of lacrosse signals a happy moment for several local stakeholders, like Johns Hopkins lacrosse great Paul Rabil, who had worked for years for the sport's return to the Olympics. Rabil's eight-team professional league, the Premier Lacrosse League, aims to raise the sport's prominence. (Curious what those pros take home? Here's how much professional lacrosse players make.)

The head of USA Lacrosse, the country's governing organization for the sport, was pleased with the verdict, according to CEO Marc Riccio. He remarked that after so many years of effort, it finally seemed like they'd made it to the end of the road.

The Premier Lacrosse League's 2024 Championship Series, featuring the league's top four teams, served as a preview of the Sixes format to be contested at the LA 2028 Games.

This is the start of a wonderful new era. The Olympics provide our sport with the prominence and platform it needs to go to new heights.

Update: lacrosse at LA 2028, what we know

Since this post first went up, World Lacrosse and LA28 have filled in a lot of the details:

When and where: July 24–29, 2028, at Exposition Park Stadium near downtown Los Angeles, with men's and women's gold medal games on July 29.
How many teams: Six men's and six women's teams, playing five days of round-robin before the medal games.
How teams qualify: Continental championships in late 2026 feed the 2027 World Lacrosse Sixes Championships, where the top four per gender qualify. The USA gets a host spot, and a final qualifier in early 2028 decides the last place.
The Haudenosaunee question: The Haudenosaunee Nationals are one of the best Sixes programs in the world, but they don't have a national Olympic committee, so whether they'll be able to compete in LA is still an open question. Plenty of folks across upstate New York and Ontario are pulling for a way to get the game's founders on the Olympic stage.