How many of us remember Mario and Sonic's friendship? For a long time, it felt like the IOC had killed theirs. But as of October 2025, the scene has completely changed.

It's been going all the way since 2007 (Beijing 2008). 2009 (Vancouver 2010), 2011 (London 2012), 2013 (Sochi 2014), 2016 (Rio 2016), 2019 (Tokyo 2020)... Sega and Nintendo have released SIX installments, and that's a total of TEN games across the Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and Nintendo Switch systems. That's quite amazing, to make a regular staple crossover franchise last for so long. But on 31/07/2024, Eurogamer broke the news. IOC had quietly CANCELLED the franchise back in 2020.

Why? They wanted to look into E-Sports and the much hated NFT games. We all know how that story goes: NFTs, which are a colloquialism for Non-Fungible Tokens, are blockchain-based video games, and in the gaming world, often, these games are free-to-play. NFT games often promise the world but deliver poor gameplay and community backlash. They rely on microtransactions, which means the actual fun stuff—storylines, engaging gameplay, graphics, soundtracks—gets sidelined. The Mario & Sonic series ticked all those boxes with zero microtransactions. Its only goal was to be fun and to bring the spirit of the Olympics to us gamers and also unite the Mario and Sonic fan groups, which tend to war from time to time. Think of how the Olympics brings people of all nations together - in this case, it's a parallel with bringing Mario and Sonic together and uniting gaming worlds.

So, all the way back in 2020, behind our backs in complete secret, the Mario and Sonic series was dropped by the IOC. They let the series lapse, and we had no idea it even did. Then, Eurogamer shared that news to us at last when a developer of the Mario & Sonic series finally shared their word: https://www.eurogamer.net/olympics-ditched-mario-sonic-series-to-explore-nfts-and-esports

> "They wanted to look at other partners and NFTs and esports," Lee Cocker, who worked on almost every entry in the series, told Eurogamer. "Basically the IOC wanted to bring [it] back to themselves internally and look at other partners so they would get more money."

They broke hearts of thousands of gamers. @DiscussingFilm had to be the bearer of bad news, sharing it to the world and the link to that article above, and their tweet had went viral. In less than 20 hours, it's received 2.7K+ comments, 15K+ retweets, 7.1K+ bookmarks. So many loved seeing Mario and Sonic together like they're best friends. As I looked in the comments I saw so many school memories, broken hearts, outraged gamers... seriously. The IOC shared zero empathy for us because we loved the series. SEGA missed the window for Pyeongchang Winter 2018, Beijing Winter 2022 (which was a golden opportunity for Mario and Sonic to reunite where it all started), and Paris Summer 2024 - that basically confirmed our fears of where the franchise was headed.

But now, we have an opportunity. On October 6, 2025, SEGA’s official Sonic the Hedgehog account announced that their partnership with the IOC has been restored! They’ve secured the "Olympic Rings" license and told us to "Stay tuned for more info in 2026!" The replies were full of excitement, with @Olympics saying, “So excited! Let’s go for gold together!” and Sonic’s account promising to “help make some dreams come true” on the IOC Media post of the announcement. This is the fantastic news we've been waiting for. But we have to look closely. The official press release describes a "multi-year licensing deal" that focuses heavily on a "co-branded merchandising programme" launching in 2026. It doesn't mention a new video game at all.

We can't let this amazing comeback end up as just merchandise. That's not the Olympic Dream we were hoping for. This is where our voices matter most. We need to show SEGA, the IOC, and a currently silent Nintendo that the real "gold" is in bringing the games back. And frankly, it makes perfect business sense for them. SEGA just launched Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds to massive success, and its roadmap is filled with third-party crossovers with huge names like Minecraft, SpongeBob, and PAC-MAN. This proves that SEGA is already in the crossover spirit and knows how to make it work. What bigger crossover is there than reuniting with Mario?

We're going to come together as Mario and Sonic fans, one and/or the other. Part one is complete: SEGA's reinstated the partnership with IOC, but part two, which is what we are here for right now, is to voice out loud and proud how much Mario & Sonic meant to us, and how it still matters today, especially in a world that feels like it's gotten worse and more hateful to each other. It was in our wildest dreams to see Mario and Sonic compete side-by-side, and now we have a real chance to see it happen again. Please sign this petition to show the IOC and SEGA just how much this series means to us, and to send a clear message: we want a new Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

The official announcement of a "multi-year" deal means Milano-Cortina 2026 and Los Angeles 2028 are both real possibilities. We will come together as fans and convince them to instead of exclusively selling us merchandise, they also need to let us play and and understand that a dream is a new game, not a t-shirt. We will show Nintendo there's a massive, passionate audience waiting for them to join the fun.

Thanks for supporting us. Let's do this.