Kubb should be the next great Olympic sport

It’s not uncommon for players of fringe sports to suggest their sport should be in the Olympics. I know I’ve heard such things said about kubb—in fact I’ve probably mentioned it myself. So with the Tokyo games just wrapped up, I thought I’d not only pose the question, “why isn’t kubb in the Olympics,” but also examine what it would it take to get there.

Requirements

So what does it really take? According to the Olympic Charter, a sport must be widely practiced by men in at least 75 countries across four continents and by women in at least 40 countries on three continents. Judging by Internet presence, there are kubb clubs and/or tournaments across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. The continent requirement seems met. 

Again, using Internet presence as an indicator, I was able to find kubb in at least 21 countries. Obviously that’s a bit shy of the 75 needed. It seems nearly all clubs are co-ed, so the women in 40 countries requirement should easily be covered once the men’s 75 countries threshold is met.

The logical next step is to continue spreading the game of kubb to more and more countries. Perhaps bringing a kubb set on your next international vacation is the answer?

Another requirement is an international federation to govern the sport. This is noticeably absent from kubb, but that’s not to say the sport is unorganized. With existing groups like the European Kubb Association, there’s a great model for forming a cross-nation coalition. 

Once the international governing body is formed, each International Olympic Committee country wishing to participate needs to form a national organization. Many nations already have something like this in place, or at least an organization that could morph into this. 

After the proper organizations are in place, then we get to the fun part—competitions. There will need to be more international tournaments. These type of international affairs will need to be held more often and in rotating locations. There will also need to be a bit more structure to national tournaments, with some sort of ranking and qualification system. We can look to existing Olympic sports for inspiration here.

Team Format

There are many variations to kubb. Rules aside, the number of players on a team isn’t even standardized. Should the Olympics pick just one (3v3, 6v6, 1v1)? Or possibly have a few different types (a la singles and doubles tennis). 

My personal choice would be to go with two styles of kubb—singles and doubles. If we take a tennis-like approach, we could see the following events:

• Men’s Singles
• Women’s Singles
• Men’s Doubles
• Women’s Doubles
• Mixed Doubles

This will provide a reasonable entry point for more nations. Finding a full six person team, and having that same team compete internationally leading up to the Olympics, could be tough and cost prohibitive. Only having to worry about yourself and/or one other teammate seems reasonable. 

Tournament Format

What type of tournament style should be played? Group play and brackets seems a popular choice, but does it result in the best team winning? For scheduling reasons, this is probably the most reasonable option and falls in line with other Olympic sports. Looking at soccer or beach volleyball for example, we could use world rankings to set groups that would eventually lead to a bracket. 

What’s Next?

There are some hurdles to getting kubb into the Olympics, but in my opinion, nothing insurmountable. With a little bit of uniting (kubb does unite people after all) our sport could find it’s way into the games in the near future. Here are the next steps as I see them:

1. Form an international kubb federation
2. Spread kubb to more countries
3. Encourage IOC countries to form national kubb organizations
4. Compete internationally, more often and in more places

I think a realistic goal would be an Olympic exhibition in the 2028 Los Angeles games. Maybe the L.A. Kubb Club has some contacts we could leverage?