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The universal popularity of softball will again be highlighted over the course of the next week as the fourth World Cup of Softball takes place in Oklahoma beginning the day after tomorrow.

In a further boost to the BackSoftball campaign for Olympic reinstatement, the event will be televised to 146 countries across the world by ESPN and its international network, reinforcing the increasing appeal of the sport to a global audience.

Current Olympic champions Japan will face 2008 Olympic bronze medalists Australia in their opening game on Thursday, with Italy, the Netherlands, 2008 Olympic silver medalists USA, and Canada completing the line-up. The Dutch and Canadian teams were participants in last year’s Olympic softball competition in Beijing as well.

The organizers are expecting sell-out crowds for this week’s World Cup, an invitational event sanctioned by the International Softball Federation that enjoyed audiences of more than 30,000 spectators when it last took place in 2007. The tournament ends next Monday, July 20.

ISF President Don Porter, who will throw out a ceremonial first pitch on Thursday, said, “The TV coverage and ticket sales that the World Cup of Softball will enjoy over the next few days will showcase the passion, fair play, and excitement of our sport to an international audience.”

BackSoftball Athlete Ambassador and 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Danielle Stewart said, “I am really looking forward to the chance to take on Japan and the USA again and show them what strong opposition we are. This is also a great opportunity to show the International Olympic Committee how important softball is for female sport. The teams are getting stronger, the competition is getting more intense, and returning to the Olympic Programme in 2016 would be the pinnacle for all of us.”

Stewart and her Aussie teammates have traveled from British Columbia to Oklahoma City from the just-concluded 16th Canada Cup, another ISF-sanctioned event, which saw the U.S. take the title this year. Japan, last year’s Canada Cup champion, did not compete in this year’s edition.

Softball was first featured in the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 and last year’s competition in Beijing was very successful with a total attendance close to 180,000 and a continuation of the sport’s excellent record of no positive doping tests at any of the four Summer Olympics that the sport has been a part of.

A final decision on which sports will be added to the current roster of 26 at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games will be made at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen in October this year.