OKLAHOMA CITY — Jessica Mendoza heard the rumblings early in the process that the softball portion of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games would be moved to USA Softball’s Devon Park in Oklahoma City. 

She immediately worked the phones, calling whomever she could to keep the tournament at the main Olympic site. The Olympics are a unique athlete experience. Mendoza recalled sitting with athletes from Iraq at the 2004 Athens Olympics after the U.S. invaded the country, a human moment of commonality she wouldn’t have had otherwise. 

She carries fond memories of Kobe Bryant playing video games down the hall at the 2008 Beijing Games and supporting teammates in sports of which she’d never heard. That wouldn’t have been possible if she played 1,334 miles away from the main site, at a location she visited regularly as the home of the Women’s College World Series. 

“You play in Oklahoma City all the time,” Mendoza, a two-time Olympic medalist, told Yahoo Sports. “What makes the Olympics the Olympics is everything that happens around that. So for those players, I wanted them to have that.” 

After LA28, the official Olympics organizing committee, made it official last year it would host softball and canoe slalom halfway across the country, planning began in earnest this week to support a type of true Olympic athlete experience in Oklahoma City. 

More than 40 officials from LA28, as well as personnel from USA Softball and the city’s Olympic planning arm, Team OKC, were on site this week to tour the locations. They spent three days at Devon Park from Monday through Wednesday, with a particular interest in how the ballpark operates at full capacity and throughout multiple sessions during the WCWS. 

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The Games hold the potential to supercharge softball’s rise in the same vein as the 1996 Atlanta Games. Location and interest matters, and Mendoza was not the only former Olympian to critique the situation. USA Softball CEO Craig Cress told Yahoo Sports he heard from many upset athletes who were excited to play in a true home Olympics in Southern California, a hotbed of the sport. 

He met with them to further detail the lack of viable options for either sport in Los Angeles. The committee is determined to use existing facilities in other locations to host competitions for a third consecutive Olympics.

“It seemed like a long road to travel, but I think it makes sense,” Cress told Yahoo Sports. “A lot of people can talk their way into it now.” 

Inside the search for an Olympic softball venue

The first task for softball and baseball is always to be in the Olympics at all. The “add-on” sports were left off in 2012, 2016 and 2024, but received approval by the IOC to be in Los Angeles. 

An ensuring search for a facility proved a similar challenge. The baseball tournament will be played at Dodger Stadium, but the committee didn’t like retrofitting it. Temporary fences need to be installed closer to the infield, creating a dead space beyond them. 

“They weren’t excited about that look for softball, which [we were] happy to hear, because we were happy to be in the Olympics [in Tokyo], but we weren’t happy about the look either,” Cress said. 

The most obvious softball spot was UCLA’s Easton Field, but its dimensions are small at 210 feet in center field, 190 feet down the lines and a capacity of 1,328 fans. Even if it had the desirable attributes, it became a nonstarter as the site of the Athlete Village. 

The best option the committee could come up with was a minor league baseball stadium around 70 miles from Los Angeles that would have forced the participating athletes to stay outside of the village anyway. Attention turned to Oklahoma City, where Mayor David Holt and former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti were already discussing holding river sports at OKC Whitewater Center, an official U.S. Olympic and Paralympic training site since 2009. 

With a venue still undecided at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Nico Campriani, the LA28 vice president of sports, set it up on a tee for Cress to hit when he asked for his top pick. 

“This is going to sound really biased,” Cress told Campriani. “No offense, but the best softball facility is in Oklahoma City.” 

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Devon Park is an international-standard 220 feet around the outfield with a capacity for at least 9,000, and up to more than 12,000. The fourth session of the WCWS on Saturday set an all-time record of 12,679

“That was one of the biggest driving points is [they] couldn't get a stadium that could fill the amount of demand of those that love softball in our country,” said Mendoza, who will call the WCWS championship series for ESPN this week. “So there's no place better than Oklahoma City if you’re talking about a true softball field that can host thousands and thousands of fans.” 

The entire process took about five months, with an announcement in March 2025. The Oklahoma City Council unanimously approved a preliminary $25.4 million indoor softball facility last month, with construction slated to begin after the WCWS. The athlete village will be at Oklahoma City University. 

USA Softball, which is based next to Devon Park, will make concessions for it to work. Team USA cannot play at Devon Park beginning March 9, 2028, and must vacate its offices throughout the duration of the Games, and will likely do so in April 2028. 

Cress said the committee wanted exclusive rights to the facility beginning in March, but USA Softball pushed back for the NCAA to host its 2028 WCWS as scheduled. LA28 will instead receive exclusive rights beginning June 12, 2028, the Monday after the tournament ends. 

Since the decision is solidified, Mendoza is among those looking to move forward and support a sport that is booming in popularity. 

“The fact that we are in the Olympic Games is something that we don’t take for granted by any means,” Mendoza said. “And these women are still going to be celebrated and should be celebrated at the end of the day.”

Ceremonies, logistics and making it ‘look different’

The 1996 Olympic team won its gold medal in Columbus, Georgia, more than 100 miles from the Olympic center in Atlanta. It was the sport’s first Olympic appearance and used existing facilities. 

The use of “satellite villages” is increasingly preferred to mitigate new builds that lay vacant decades later. The 2024 Paris Summer Games held its surfing competition 10,000 miles away in Tahiti, and the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games spread competitions out with Opening Ceremony festivities at every site. 

There are no plans to do that in 2028, but USA Softball and Team OKC both said they are pushing for softball athletes’ inclusion in the main event. 

“We're committed to one another to get Team USA out there, and I fully expect that we would make the same offer to the other five qualifying teams in softball,” Team OKC president Michael Byrnes told Yahoo Sports. 

The softball tournament will be played at the back end of the two-week schedule, allowing teams to travel to Los Angeles without impacting their tournament. Cress said USA Softball requested that athletes be able to stay in the Los Angeles athlete village the night of the ceremony, but ultimately it is the decision of LA28 and the U.S. Olympic Committee. They are also pushing to attend the closing ceremonies. 

The committees also want to ensure the Olympics are differentiated from the WCWS, which has been held in Oklahoma City since 1997. Only nine times in the NCAA’s history of the event has it been held elsewhere. In 1996, the NCAA hosted the WCWS in Columbus ahead of that summer’s Olympic Games.

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Nearly all of the players in the national team’s 36-player pool have competed at the WCWS in Oklahoma City, creating another component that both USA Softball and Team OKC are looking to solve. The Olympics can’t be a WCWS in July.

“That is an important piece,” Byrnes said. “Certainly the look and feel is going to be … there'll be a lot of consideration for how it will look different, but also just how we're creating an athlete experience overall.”

One of the major things Byrnes noticed when he attended the Milan-Cortina Games was the lack of a unifying identity citywide. In some pockets, it was clear a major event was taking place. Yet in other areas, it felt “kind of a day in the life.”

“That stuck with me, that we have to be very thoughtful and intentional about making it feel big throughout the community,” Byrnes said. 

Mendoza agreed, pitching an environment of restaurants and billboards that make it known the Olympics are here. Team OKC will tap into local creatives, similar to how the city adorns its windows and high-rise apartment buildings with branding for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder. 

“They’ve set the bar,” Byrnes said. “And so they’ll be great resources at helping us in that planning.” 

There will also be a natural environment shift from the WCWS with various cultures represented and necessary tweaks to the structure. 

How Olympic layout will differ from WCWS

Jordy Frahm’s indelible memory of three WCWS appearances is that it always smells like funnel cakes. The tournament takes on a festival feel with food trucks in the open concourse areas and behind the outfield bleachers. Fans arrive early to tailgate in the parking lots, and retreat to their setups in between sessions. 

It’s unlikely the Olympics feature either of those. The ballpark pulled back on available on-site parking this year, and will not have any for the Olympics. Vehicles will also not be able to park at the various nearby lots, including across the road at the Oklahoma Firefighters Museum. There is a 1-mile buffer zone around Olympic facilities. 

LA28 personnel monitored the various bus lines and shuttles bringing people on site to adjust for their own needs. The committee is also working to finalize a partner for the food and beverage experience after observing the front and back of house for Devon Park’s food service. 

As part of the upcoming renovations, netting will be installed on the baselines and the outfield scoreboard will be raised to accommodate higher seating. Cress said the committee isn’t “a big bleacher group” and would prefer chair backs. But bleachers can seat more people, and the committee will ponder it after seeing record sellouts this week. 

They also kept an eye on where people migrated, particularly on the hot and humid days. The feel-like temperature over the weekend hit 105 degrees, which is what fans can expect in late July. Attendees took longer in the bathroom with air conditioning, hid in the concourses and stacked five rows deep during the hottest part of the day. 

Everyone will return to Los Angeles and reconvene as plans evolve over the coming months. Concrete plans aren’t expected until 2027, but it is entering crunch time. 

“We’re on the right track now,” Cress said. “And obviously every year that we put on a quality World Series, it makes it easier to show that this is where the softball team should be.”

The ability to see a long-standing successful event at their site created a strong starting point for the committee. As Texas Tech pitcher and Team USA pool member NiJaree Canady said ahead of her fourth WCWS appearance, when you think softball, you think of Oklahoma City. 

OKLAHOMA CITY — Few things at a wild Women’s College World Series this week were simple. How Texas Tech head coach Gerry Glasco assessed his ace was one of the few no-doubters. 

“That was the 2025 version of NiJa Canady,” Glasco said. 

In a winner-take-all game against No. 1 Alabama on Tuesday night, Canady pitched her first complete game of the NCAA tournament to lead Texas Tech back into the Women’s College World Series championship series. The Red Raiders needed two wins on the day, first forcing the nightcap with a 5-4 win to give Alabama its first loss of the WCWS. 

“We've been on this plan,” Glasco said. “We took the whole fall off, and we said we'll peak in May and peak at the World Series. I don't have any doubt that was her best performance of the year, and that's a great confidence builder for our team and NiJa to go into the finals with that effort.”

NiJaree Canady allowed two hits with one walk and six strikeouts in a showing that couldn’t touch any other she’s had this postseason. The senior right-hander hasn’t been as dominant, and Glasco continuously opted to swap his aces out for one another throughout the tournament. 

He did so in the first game, starting junior Kaitlyn Terry and swapping to Canady in the second inning. When she gave up an inning-opening homer in the fourth that tied the game, he pulled her and dugout cameras caught a tense conversation in the dugout. 

“I just let her know,  I'm paying a pitching coach a lot of money to call pitches,” Glasco said. “If you shake it off, it better work. If it don't, you own it. You take accountability. We're in a close game.

Canady shook off the pitch call, opting for a change-up that bounced. She had boxed herself in, showing her hand. It was too much of a risk in a game they needed. Glasco gives his pitchers that privilege, but not too much or often. She called it off later and threw a change-up for a strikeout. Glasco and the coaching staff laughed. 

“That's the greatness of NiJa,” Glasco said. “I tore her up about it, I'm getting on her, and she still had the courage to do it a couple times in the game, and I don't mind that at all. I don't think you need to shake off 10. If you shake off 10 times, I need to get a different pitching coach. Two times, then maybe that's a great thing.”

The day turned on its head in the bottom of the fifth in Game 1, the score still tied at 2-2. Alabama freshman Vic Moten came in for Jocelyn Briski, who had been near perfect the last few weeks, and was one out away from closing the inning. Texas Tech’s Taylor Pannell took the third pitch to left, and Alabama left fielder Audrey Vandagriff missed a catch over the fence. She approached it as routine rather than jump for the out. 

Canady pitched the final two outs of the first game, still tied at 4-4, setting up Mia Williams for a season-saving home run to left center. Canady and Briski took the circle in a pitching duel for a second game that Canady won. 

That wasn’t expected a day ago. Briski was arguably the better pitcher this postseason, while the lights-out version of Canady that tore through last year’s field went missing. She allowed 21 runs off of 28 hits over 22 1/3 innings in eight games of the NCAA tournament entering Monday’s semifinals. She hadn’t pitched more than four innings in a game since the regional win over Ole Miss. 

“Obviously this postseason hasn't gone the way I wanted it to go,” Canady said. “I feel like I haven't been my best. But like Coach Glasco said, it's about when you peak. I don’t know, if I’m going to be good, at least it’s toward the end of the year.” 

Canady controlled the zone in her start and made Alabama chase. She threw 71 strikes on 99 pitches, moving the ball around in a way she’d missed on prior. The three-time consensus All-American kept reminding herself to go at hitters, instead of remaining timid. 

The Crimson Tide, who arrived here with one of the best pitching staffs, couldn’t figure it out even while Briski and Moten combined to allow only two runs off of 10 hits. 

“If [Canady] throws a mistake, you cannot miss it,” Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy said. “You cannot foul it back, and we had a couple of those. She's only going to probably throw four mistakes a game, and you've got to capitalize.” 

Jasmyn Burns hit a home run in the fourth and Mihyia Davis added an insurance run in the seventh on an outfield throwing error. 

Down to Alabama’s final out, Vandagriff scooted one up the right line and turned it into a double. Murphy still held out hope, thinking that yet again the fans would see extra innings late into the night. Canady drew a fly out, watched Lauren Allred snag it and delivered her final circle stomp of the night. 

But not the competition. The three-time consensus All-American will play in her record 19th WCWS game on Wednesday chasing a national championship that has eluded her in three straight trips to the final series. She lost the first two playing for Stanford before transferring to the Red Raiders ahead of the 2025 season. 

The double wins by Texas and Texas Tech sets up a rematch of the 2025 championship series that went the distance. Texas won the first game 2-1, but lost the second 4-3. The Longhorns sealed their first national championship 10-4 in the winner-take-all final game. 

There are slight variations in the roster from a year ago. Canady, given what she showcased in the semifinals, is back to herself.