Is it just me, or does the Beijing Olympic stadium look a bit like a... Like a...... Nevermind, forget I said anything.
Quote of The Week
Alan Brazil: I like Cambridge City, not as much as Colchester but they're my second team.
Paul Hawksby: Ever been punting on your trips to Cambridge?
Alan Brazil: What do you mean? Cambridge Dogs?
Do you fancy throwing me a party? You know, a great big shindig in my honour, with my name plastered over everything...
Yeah? Great!
Couple of minor details, the party needs to be two whole weeks long. You’ll also need to buy in a whole load of expensive equipment and build loads of stuff that you’ll never use again - a permanent bouncy castle bunker, underground Mexican takeaway, stuff like that. Naturally this will be entirely at your own expense. There’ll be photographers and journalists everywhere so you’ll need to make sure the place is spotless and that any embarrassing friends and relatives are out of sight. Oh, and another thing, I’ve got loads of mates coming over to sell stuff in your back garden, that’s cool right? I wouldn’t ask, only they’ve already given me a load of money. I’d cut you in but, y’know I don’t want to.
Actually, come to think of it I’ve got a few other people interested in throwing this massive party for me so you’re going to need to kiss my arse and buy me presents for a year or two before I decide to let you hold it.
What’s that? What do you get in return? Well, you get the right to say you’re having my party. Isn’t that enough?
Still interested? If so, great! Don’t read any more of this and give me a call...
For anyone who isn’t completely daft, congratulations, you’re less gullible than all the governments of the developed world. The above is exactly the deal that the International Olympic Committee gives host nations like Beijing and London. You know the estimated £9.4 billion pounds of tax payer’s money that’s going to be spent on the 2012 games? Well, not one penny of that will be made back by the event itself.
Not that a lot of money isn’t going to be floating around the games. Olympic sponsorship is one of the most expensive endorsements you can buy (despite the fact that many, many more people watch the World Cup*). It’s impossible to quantify exactly, though it’s fair to say Olympic sponsorship costs more than it delivers in terms of increased sales, it’s just an exercise in corporate cock-measuring** a way of saying, we are the biggest company who do whatever we do.
Never ones to miss an opportunity to exploit someone, the IOC then makes the sponsors run the bloody games for them – that’s right they don’t do that either. Tag Heuer will handle the timekeeping, Lenovo will run the computer system and supply all hardware, McDonalds will be expected to flood the olympic village with their ‘restaurants’*** etc. After all that, the companies don’t even get to put their logos anywhere near the only thing that anybody is watching, the events - that would pollute the Olympic brand!
Right, so the host cities don’t see a penny of the sponsorship money however, they do get**** a load of sports facilities. Although if history’s anything to go by they won’t be used an awful lot. I’ve been to the Barcelona Olympic village twice now - it’s a very beautiful ghost town, Athens’s facilities lie unused and largely unfinished. Sydney still use theirs but let’s be fair, we’re talking about a nation so sport obsessed that 11 people randomly picked from in and around Darling Harbour could probably beat England at Cricket. London is not Sydney - somehow I don’t see East London having a tremendous amount of use for a vellodrome, do you?
What about the hundreds of people on the ground who work to make the Olympics happen, the stewards, the drivers etc? Surely they’re IOC employees. Well, no those people are - I shit you, not – volunteers. Yep that’s right, tragic individuals who have drunk IOC coolade.
So, all in all the IOC do nothing except pick a city and cash a cheque. They even have the nerve to call themselves “A catalyst for collaboration” and a “Service to humanity.”
This is a nice idea but it doesn’t really bear scrutiny. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that humanity was not especially well served by undermining decades of work to force the Chinese government to be less shitty to its people by giving it a great big international pat on the head. Oh yeah and then there’s the whole thing about letting a Nazi dictatorship host one in 1936 but we’re not supposed to mention that.
In any other situation the Olympics would be called what they are, a scam... Though to be fair it is a brilliant one, probably the greatest ever. IOC, I salute you
*300 million tuned in last December to watch the draw for the 2006 World Cup! That’s 300 million watching a fat man pulling balls out of a pot!
**The Olympic Games is one of those things that would cease to exist if there were a decent number of female CEOs. Just like team-building trips, or high class whores.
***Something the marathon runners are absolutely thrilled by!
****By get I of course mean pay for and build themselves.
1 comments:
Interestingly enough, I was in Sydney during the last ashes series, and there was a big screen erected for it in Darling harbour. (They can do that over there without rioting, because they can make the screen work)
Simultaneous to the match on screen where England were trounced, there was an impromptu game of cricket on the grass adjacent. England won that won quite convincingly, and I can only put out a plea for those guys to turn up to the next series in full kit..
Pete G
For more sporting witticism with impeccably clean language (matt, my work server blocks your page!!) visit..
www.tales-oftheexpected.blogspot.com
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