MoneyOlympics

This year's Olympic Games have been singularly dull (with the singular exception of the marathon, of course). Commercial logos are ubiquitous. Professional celebrity-athletes and wanna-be celebrities dominate the press coverage. Juicers have been caught in record numbers. (Probably even more juicers have eluded detection.) A plethora of junk pseudo-sports fill the weeks that the competitions stretch to occupy. Arguments and lawsuits about judging errors and corruption will continue for months or years to come. And, as far as I'm concerned, who cares?

What ever happened to simple running, jumping, and throwing? Whither faster, higher, farther? Now, it's all about cash flow. I'm going out for a walk in the park --- at least that's real ...

(see also SomethingToSell (14 Apr 2002), ForThemselves (8 Jun 2003), CircusSponsorus (10 Oct 2003), ProfessionalJuicers (28 Jan 2004), ... )

TopicRecreation - TopicEntertainment - Datetag20040829

Comment 31 Aug 2004^ at 08:14Z

Oh, the amateur, non-commercial version of the Olympics was perhaps but a short aberation (and even then, it was depressingly political and state-subsidied).

Seems even the games in antiquity were very much for profit. Winners were awarded large amounts of olive oil, which made them effectively millionaires for life -- they could buy villa, slaves, and the usual perks of the well-to-do.

Presumably, crass commercial interests surrounded the original event as well. It's been described as the "Woodstock" gathering of the day, and everyone wanted to hawk their wares to the crowds gathered in the middle of nowhere.

And advertising as such is not a modern invention.... -- BoLeuf

(correlates: ThirdPlace, XmasChrononauts, TutTut, ...)