With the Olympic RR talk, I could not help but think a little about the bamboozle that is the Olympics.
The cost for exclusive media coverage in the U.S. for the 2008 Olympics was a little under a billion dollars if I remember right. The total money brought in by media contracts across the world is many billions. The Olympics do not pay the athletes anything. The athletes are left to sponge off the taxpayer or, for some fringe sports, their families. The venues are constructed by the host country at a cost of billions. China spent more than $40 billion building its facilities, a figure that works out to about $3 billion per day of Olympics. London's cost has ballooned to near $20 billion. The Olympics contributes nothing toward the construction costs. On top of that IOC members get to collect bribes from potential host countries. So where does the money taken in go?
To make matters worse, more and more pro athletes are competing, which allows the Olympics to profit from the pros' image without paying anything in return.
The Olympics look like a cynical play on nationalism to make a buck. It seems like the perfect scam. They get to collect big money while all the costs are covered by others.
The cost for exclusive media coverage in the U.S. for the 2008 Olympics was a little under a billion dollars if I remember right. The total money brought in by media contracts across the world is many billions. The Olympics do not pay the athletes anything. The athletes are left to sponge off the taxpayer or, for some fringe sports, their families. The venues are constructed by the host country at a cost of billions. China spent more than $40 billion building its facilities, a figure that works out to about $3 billion per day of Olympics. London's cost has ballooned to near $20 billion. The Olympics contributes nothing toward the construction costs. On top of that IOC members get to collect bribes from potential host countries. So where does the money taken in go?
To make matters worse, more and more pro athletes are competing, which allows the Olympics to profit from the pros' image without paying anything in return.
The Olympics look like a cynical play on nationalism to make a buck. It seems like the perfect scam. They get to collect big money while all the costs are covered by others.