The Olympics are truly not about money for the athletes.
And indeed, they cannot be.<p>Only a select few have any leverage at all to bargain for more money (think Husain Bolt and others at his level).
But these select few are already profiting big-time from the Olympics via endorsements, etc.
So the last thing they want is to put the games at risk.<p>The rest of the athletes are there because they love the competition.
And there's nothing wrong with that!
It's truly a win-win that hundreds of athletes are living out their dreams by competing for a gold medal in canoeing or archery or what-have-you, and that somebody will even be watching them do it.<p>Stepping back a bit, there's no reason that anybody should be getting a salary simply because they are one of the very best at their chosen sport.
Sports stars command large salaries to the extent that they <i>have dedicated fans</i>.
If you compete in a fringe sport, you're not going to have many dedicated fans.<p>(This is why every top-tier athlete makes more from product endorsements than from their team salary.)<p>((This is also why NBA players earn by far the highest salaries among U.S. athletes - basketball allows for much more player/fan connection than any other major sport.))
I'm pretty surprised at the HN comments and sentiment here of "if the athletes don't like it don't participate." It is a clear monopoly by the IOC. The IOC is a business. The athletes are the talent.<p>Look at any comparable business and the talent makes a way bigger % of the money, actors in the movie industry, musicians in the music industry, professional athletes in NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA etc. These are all "jobs" that people would gladly do for low pay just like the Olympics if that was their only choice. Does that mean that the other industries are overpaying their talent? No imo. It's reasonable to expect that the people that provide the talent and a large part of the value to the industry deserve a large portion of the rewards.<p>Professional athletes and hollywood have strong unions to fight for fair pay(they used to be exploited for low pay), the music industry is a semimonopoly and does screw artists, but at least there is some level of competition. If you don't like one record company you can always switch labels.<p>The problem with the Olympics and what makes them so valuable to begin with is their rarity. They only come around once every four years. A top tier athlete may only make one Olympics in his/her lifetime and perhaps as many as ~three. Are you really going to organize and "holdout" for a whole Olympic games with your fellow athletes to maybe better the financial position for all your fellow Olympians? It's one thing to sit out a season when your expected career is 10 seasons and you may only have to sit out 1/3 of one season, it's entirely different when you may have to sit out your entire career. The athletes are being exploited because<p>1. IOC is a monopoly<p>2. Their careers are short<p>3. It's too risky to organize because the risk of not competing is too high. They've trained so hard to get there, to not compete is not really an option.<p>4. Olympics only happen once every four years.<p>It's a very similar situation as the NCAA except for #4. If you want to make it "not about the money" that's fine by me, make tickets to attend these events cheap or free, let any network cover the games(why does NBC get a coverage monopoly?), get rid of the endorsements and ads, make all the IOC "volunteer" administrators unpaid, but it's never going to happen. When coaches and administrators are making millions and the talent is making close to zero, the talent is clearly being exploited.
The IOC gets the money because they bring the value to the table. All these same athletes are competing all year, every year. Which event does everyone watch?<p>A javelin thrower isn't making much money? I'm sorry, but I have all the javelin throwers in my life that I need. Not that I would have seen him on tv anyway since it isn't gymnastics, swimming, men's basketball or a track final with an American contending for gold.<p>Sure this level of performance is amazing, it's just not valuable.
What caught my attention in the article is where the high pay seems to be going. The first example of the president making 250k+high class living actually seemed _low_ if we compare to top executive compensation across the board, and actually made me raise an eyebrow at their whole argument. However, the low pay for athletes seemed both supported and reminiscent of the attitudes around college sports in the US. Later in the article additional points supported this, e.g. Nike sponsorship money. Converse incentives between execs and employees (athletes) should be something very familiar to those of us in tech, and I'd imagine an athlete has as little or less bargaining power than we do (citing many recent HN discussions on the topic) unless they are a rock star among rock stars, so I can appreciate that scenario.<p>I'm not sure if I had a point in this, but to try and wrap up the ramble: I think there's some interesting "lemma" in that the money is accumulating "in the middle" so to speak that someone smarter than me might make, and also that there seems to be a universal pattern for employee taking-advantage-of in situations of misaligned incentives.
Part of me really wonders why, considering all of the controversies with the Olympics and IOC over the years, why we haven't seen an alternative multi-category world athletic competition gain some support. Though I do understand it would be very, very hard to compete with the marketing of the official Olympics. But if the Rio Olympics end up being as terrible as some people fear, maybe that could be a catalyst for a new competition.
It's a shame that the article doesn't provide any info on what <i>percentage</i> of USOC income ends up going to the athletes, especially since the author(s) probably have that information.<p>If it's 10%, then you could probably easily make an argument that they really are underpaid relative to the revenue of the organization as a whole. OTOH, if it's 90%, then you can't credibly claim they're significantly underpaid unless you can also show that the IOC and/or USOC could charge more, which you would think they would already be incentivized to do.
From the point of view of what the Olympics were supposed to be about (independently-wealthy amateur athletes competing to be the best amateurs in the world), this actually makes perfect sense: none of the athletes needed to make money, and it is perfectly fine to give a volunteer executive travel expenses commensurate with his station in life.<p>Given what the Olympics have become, it makes no sense. The sooner they are dropped for good, the better.
That's horrible considering the sacrifices these people have made essentially their entire lives. Training to be Olympic level, basically means giving up your ENTIRE youth to it.
I think the missing point behind this argument is that the Olympics are not meant to pay the competitors a salary, much less a living wage. The amateur restrictions mean that Olympic athletes don't get any money directly from the IOC. They may be paid by the national team they compete with or get their own sponsorship deals, but the money given to the IOC was never intended to go to the athletes.<p>Plus, the Olympics last for a few weeks every two years. And that's assuming your sport is in both the summer and winter events. Most people don't rely on a gig as infrequent as that to make a living. If their sport is popular, they should be able to make enough money by competing in other events outside the Olympics.<p>Don't get me wrong, I think the IOC and the Olympics is a scam in general. And the fact that the executives are making bank off the sponsorship money is pretty disgusting. But it's unfair to blame the IOC for athletes living in poverty.
I enjoy playing sports just fine. And I enjoy some degree of spectator sports -- the more closely tied I am to the community and team, the better.<p>But some years ago, I made a simple decision: I no longer support any form of professional sports. And, sorry Olympic Committee, but what you have there are professional sports. With all the graft and corruption and self-centeredness I refuse to support.<p>As for the athletes? It has been quite apparent for considerable time what you're signing up for. And... many people lose their job, their career, every day. Individual, personal appeals are not going to sway me.<p>I do feel for those who use sports to climb out of disadvantageous situations. However, at this point society needs to find a better solution to this that the "going pro" lottery.<p>Not like my individual decision is going to lessen their chances, anyway. But if and when society starts to say "enough", maybe society will also find fairer means of providing opportunity.
> For members of Team USA — many of whom live meagerly off the largesse of friends and family, charity, and public assistance<p>This is not true in Canada, although it's a bit of a secret. I wonder if the reporter is ignorant about the situation in the USA as well.<p>Olympics hopefuls in Canada get generous stipends from the Federal Government to train all year. The amount they get is $25,000 to $50,000 (Canadian) per year depending on various factors such as their location. It's also apparently tax free; keep that in mind when comparing it to average incomes.<p>Hundreds (perhaps thousands) of "hopefuls" get these grants in Canada. Only a fraction of them get into the Olympics. It's a semi-secret use of tax payer money (and unnecessary and unfair in my opinion). Not a single person who've I mentioned this to was aware of it!<p>Source: I know two such hopefuls who got this money. (They didn't get into the Olympics.)
Also, it should be noted that many female athletes hit their peak marketability / competitive age much earlier than men. Not allowing teens to cash in is a travesty. Worse, looking at soccer, the men's team is much better treated than the more profitable women's team.
May be I don't get it but how does any sport can lead to "harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society". Sports is nothing but a form of entertainment and it is about money and of course the ego of being "better" than other humans at something.
What I find even more ridiculous is the whole "volunteer at the games" thing. Working for free at a multi-billion dollar event while corrupt politicians and cronies fill their own pockets is baffling.
Athletes are content providers on the Olympic platform. They also have no leverage to force a more equitable distribution of income.<p>Given how poorly most platforms compensate content providers, I see no inconsistency here.
It costs money to get good people to work for you. If you want to see how underpaid workers generates dysfunction just look at most government agencies where "if you're an intelligent hard worker you can walk across the street and double your salary in private industry".<p>The benefits of gov work such as unfettered job security and good pensions which draw people (although not necessarily talented people) are probably not available with IOC. So without good pay you're left it mostly altruistic reasons (loving sports) or for the 'fun' of it.<p>IOC needs smart business people like any organization. Running the biggest events in the world smoothly and coordinating a massive organization with thousands of people of different nationalities is hard work.<p>From that baseline of expectation, the numbers they are putting up (such as $250k for the president) don't seem very high at all.
Pretty bad deal for the athletes. The execs walk out multimillionaires, the athletes walk out broke. Smells like the proper thing to do is go on strike until the money gets spread around a bit more.
Where there's money there's corruption.<p>Also would have been interesting to hear more about these IOC positions, how are the people selected for these roles and how often do they change? I bet the answer is nepotism. FIFA is another rotten nest.
IOC, FIFA and UN are nothing but cesspools of corruption. The corrupt officials should get long jail terms.<p>The people doing the selections should be formal Olympic athletes.
For the athletes, the Olympics isn't about money. It about the glory of being an Olympian. And they are willing to sacrifice everything to get there.<p>Most are already making more than enough before the Olympics comes around, so whatever they make at the Olympics is just a bonus.<p>By the way, what the USA pays medal winners is not bad for a few days of work.
The athletes staying poor doesn't bother me. Whatever your sport, there is a pro-option if that's what you want to do.<p>The construction workers getting cheated of their wages in Sochi, and deported from Russia, however, is an obscenity the IOC should be taken to task for.
I don't know if there is any principle like this, if not I will coin it here...<p>xlayn principle:<p>Any organism conformed of several type of different units with one of them capable of political capabilities will transform itself to have a head (read it as president, board of directors, human head as brain, stakeholders, etc) and will transform itself such as that the head become the goal at the expense of the rest of the organism.<p>e.g.<p><pre><code> -head decides to overeat to enjoy the related pleasure
at the expense of other organs in the body
-company shift objective to make money to the board of
directors at the expense of the employees
-humans as the "reason de etre" of the world destroys
every other specie for the sake of their benefit...
-this article...
-corrupt governments
</code></pre>
edit: Please let me know if a principle that states this exists.