“The entire funding model for Olympic sport is broken. The IOC generates now over US$1.7 billion per year and they refuse to pay athletes who attend the Olympics,”
The model for high level sports is entirely extractive, the IOC gets billions and the athletes risk serious injury for nothing.
Once upon a time, professional athletes weren’t even allowed to compete in the Olympics. While I think that rule was a bit silly, it underscores how it’s always been up to individual nations to fund their athletes; the IOC just provides a stage once every four years. In ages gone by, professional athletes would have second jobs or would work during the off seasons because of a lack of pay. I’m not sure how this is a modern or a new problem.
The point isn’t it being modern and new. The point is us knowing. Our beloved althetes, our heroes, some of the only public figures who love us back, are turning to sex work to make ends meet, and you know what? That’s something a lot of us can relate to. And the thing is with sex work is that it always exists, and is always present. In economic downturns we see it more because it becomes less separated from us and the wall between us and sex workers erodes. Right now, that wall is as collapsed as it has ever been, as is the wall between us and athletes. We can see now that everyone outside of the ultra-wealthy, the billionaires, has more in common than many realized. And we’re also starting to hear athletes say things we’ve never heard them say before. We have things like NFL running backs saying that the real reason they go on strike to get the worker benefits they deserve is to show us how powerful we are as people. They show us the absolutely most incredible things a human can do Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays, but they also show us the most incredible things humans can do when we don’t get the things we earn by creating value to society. “Without us,” they say, “there is no product.” And to a much more explicit degree than ever, right now, they’re saying “and ‘us’ includes you. You can stand up for what is right. There are so many of us and we don’t have to live at the whims of the ultra wealthy, the billionaires, if we choose not to.”
A lot of our heroes know they’re our heroes. And they’ve always known. And they know they have parasocial relationships with us, but the weird part for them, unlike many of our public figures, is that they see this love, and they return it. Our new degree of access to our celebrities has given them new access to us without the filter of ultra-wealthy, billionaire, media owners. And we, their brethren, have access to their messages in ways we’ve never had before. Look at the involvement Minnesota professional athletes had organizing Black Lives Matter protests. Look at Colin Kaepernick. Look at MLB pitcher Josiah Gray. They’re all on the same message and always have been. You and I are being taken advantage of. When we watch sports on ad supported television, we are not the customer, we are the product. The value the athletes create and the relationship they have with us entirely benefits the owners of the ad platforms. The only benefits the workers get, the ones truly creating the value, is won through refusing to make the product. And they want us to know that, too.
I just hope we hear them before its too late
Why does it matter if it’s a modern or new problem?
The athletes risk injury for glory. That’s all it’s ever been as far as Olympics go. Well, I guess endorsements too now. Not exactly a secret either. If you strive for something that has no guaranteed return, that’s on you.
I’d definitely have a different opinion if this contributed to society, but it really doesn’t. It makes no difference if all runners are 2 seconds slower.
Olympics does indirectly contribute to society. Countries who want pole positions invest more in sports programs, school participation for sport grows. generally more competition events are organized for picking the best players to represent. There are more sport facilities for athletes to train. Those facilities employ all kind of employees to operate.
And most people love sports afaik. That’s contribution in itself.
The olympic committee however rakes in all the profit off of the name, just like FIFA World Cup.
So, I do have more respect for olympic athletes than football players. Most top football players are full of themselves and will suck a dictators dick to rake in more money.
I didn’t do it for glory. No one even ever heard of me. All I wanted was to be the best version of myself. My friend who made it to the Olympics did it because when you love doing something you look for every opportunity to follow your passion even if no one knows the name of the bobsled brakeman who works at home depot and lives with his coach to make ends meet. Doing it for national glory is something our nations assign to our athletes. Don’t do let nations and capital holders trick you into believing that. They do it because they love what they do. They compete because competition through sport is something our species has ways done and always will do. Its part of us, just like singing, dancing, storytelling, and creating works of art. The Olympics by their nature as the most globally visible event are also the highest level of competition. When you do something, and you do it well, you want to see the other people who also do it doing it the very best they can.
No one deserves to be treated as less than just because what they do is different from us. JPEGMAFIA deserves the money he makes producing music and poetry. Silas House deserves the money he makes telling stories. School teachers deserve to eat for preparing the rest of us for the future. Don’t buy the narrative of “knowing what they signed up for.” Its a distraction that does nothing but benefit the predators really raking in the cash like Nike, the IOC, the USOC, and USATF. The corrupt systems that profit of benefits but do not mutually benefit them do not deserve our protection
Just FYI, I’m not saying the IOC deserves the money either. They don’t. None of it should be for-profit.
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