
Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps athletes poor - vmateixeira
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/olympic-executives-cash-in-on-a-movement-that-keeps-athletes-poor/2016/07/30/ed18c206-5346-11e6-88eb-7dda4e2f2aec_story.html
======
strommen
The Olympics are truly not about money for the athletes. And indeed, they
cannot be.

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.

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.

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 _have dedicated fans_. If
you compete in a fringe sport, you're not going to have many dedicated fans.

(This is why every top-tier athlete makes more from product endorsements than
from their team salary.)

((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.))

~~~
TelmoMenezes
> 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.

Indeed. They should be getting a salary because they provide the extremely
rare talent (developed through incredible effort and dedication) that makes
the multi-billion dollar business that is the Olympics possible to begin with.

The reason they do not get it is very similar to what you see in other fields
like science and art: because the sociopaths that run our society know very
well how to take advantage of the love that talented people have for their
respective fields.

~~~
strommen
The extremely rare talent is _not_ what makes the Olympics possible. The
marketing machine (which is run by the executives) are what make it possible.

The top 100 athletes in every sport could sit out the Olympics, and the TV
ratings and corporate sponsorship would take only a slight dip.

~~~
TelmoMenezes
That is all fine and dandy, except that what really makes the Olympics-as-
media-circus possible is tax payer money.

Given that it is not a free market operation to being with, but rather a money
extraction operation based on political pull, we could do without the supply
and demand lessons.

It would be interesting to ask the tax payers if they think that executives
deserve to take home all of their money while the athletes that they actually
enjoy watching get none of it.

~~~
notahacker
The IOC's revenue _isn 't_ tax revenue, it's sponsorship revenue[1] Same goes
for Team US: as the article itself points out, one of the reasons the US
Olympic athletes are so poor is because unlike many other countries the US
teams' budget _isn 't_ topped up by the tax payer (but is topped up by a bunch
of sponsorship salespeople who bring in more money than they get paid but
expect close-to-market compensation in return). And yes, like any free market
organization, the management and the salespeople are better compensated than
the people who are just _really, really_ glad to be there.

If everyone on the IOC executive worked for free without any access to their
expense accounts there still would be barely anything left for each individual
athlete just for competing, _especially_ if like Team USA their local
government wasn't prepared to subsidise things either. So it's really nothing
to do with monopoly power either. Olympic athletes are poorly compensated
because there are an awful lot of them, and most of them only get a few
minutes (sometimes only a few seconds) exposure at the highest level per
decade in front of audiences that enjoy watching other sports on a weekly
basis

As for the athletes people enjoy watching well enough to know their name and
buy their preferred hair gel, the free market means they're compensated pretty
well for their brand in individual sponsorship deals. Trouble is, there aren't
many Olympians that are household names, especially the ones that really need
the money.

[1]sure, local taxpayers often end up underwriting an Olympics after the
planners overspend on infrastructure, but that's nothing to do with what goes
into the IOC president's expense account, or indeed what the athletes get

~~~
ktRolster
_but that 's nothing to do with what goes into the IOC president's expense
account_

It does actually, unfortunately:
[https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/11/tokyo-
olympic-...](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/11/tokyo-olympic-
games-2020-ioc-international-olympic-committee-corruption-bid-scandal)

~~~
notahacker
That's the story of a massive bribe [allegedly] paid to an individual rather
than the source of the IOC's funding though. It was _never_ likely to be
directed to the part of the Olympic movement that most needed it.

Actually, I suspect that part of the justification for the IOC executives'
lavish officially-sanctioned, sponsorship-funded expense accounts is to limit
the ability of bidding nations to curry favour with less obviously corrupt
"free hospitality" arrangements that apparently were common in the 90s.
(You're less likely to feel obliged towards someone for the offer of free
flights and a five star hotel for your fact finding mission if you could
charge it to your Amex card anyway) Whether it actually works is another
question...

------
andr3w321
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.

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.

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.

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

1\. IOC is a monopoly

2\. Their careers are short

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.

4\. Olympics only happen once every four years.

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.

~~~
notahacker
I'm not sure there is really any comparable business. I mean, if you look at
the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA then (i) the executives make orders of magnitude more
(ii) the expenses are spread around a much smaller pool of people and training
facilities and (iii) the sportspeople play more than once every four years and
the second and third tier players are much more widely recognised.

The thing is, you could take away the president of the IOC's not-exactly-FIFA-
esque expense account featured in this article and you've got just enough
money to pay stipends - the meagre stipends the article complains about - for
10-12 more Olympic hopefuls. And there are 10,200 athletes competing in Rio,
and for every athlete that made it, there are several more that devoted years
of their time and their local federation's expense budget to trying to get
there. Even if the IOC and the Olympic organizing committees had no costs at
all and simply passed on all its 1.4bn per annum income on to local
federations, there's really not that much to share between training and
developing 50k athletes that might make the cut in facilities in 200
countries; certainly not enough to give them proper cash salaries after
expenses.

Sure, some executives might be overpaid, but that's really not why most
Olympians are poor or indebted until they medal or break into the media and
most of them aren't rich afterwards. [It doesn't help that the article
conflates the IOC with how the individual US sporting associations choose to
divvy up their cash, which I'm sure is more favourable to the senior
executives and less favourable to the athletes than the vast majority of
national associations.] It's not the monopoly that's keeping athletes from
earning an adequate living from Olympic revenue, it's that there's simply not
enough money to go around, unless governments or individual sponsors decide to
chip in to pay athletes on top of that. Needless to say, athletes already
living on the breadline aren't going to be very enamoured with the suggestion
of getting rid of the endorsements and ads so they have to pay all their
training costs too.

------
LanceH
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?

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.

Sure this level of performance is amazing, it's just not valuable.

~~~
Bartweiss
This is more than a bit unconvincing.

I have all the basketball forwards I need, but Channing Frye isn't living on
food stamps. He's not the one people come to see, but he helps keep a
competitive organization running so that there's a platform for LeBron (who
people _do_ come to see). Your personal interest in a mid-range competitor
doesn't determine their value, because they're helping to enable the higher-
profit performers.

If the Olympic competition isn't a value generator, then the coaches and
functionaries enabling the athletes are even less valuable than the athletes
themselves. God knows the spectacle and ceremony part of the Olympics isn't a
money-maker, that's why cities aggressively resist having it come to town.

The assumption that any of this is a function of market forces is funny to me.
Sponsorships are probably the only free-market aspect of the whole program (or
they would be if they weren't exclusive and determined above the athlete
level) - the IOC operates as a 'charity' drawing money from national
governments. As a result they're completely un-accountable to market forces,
and athletes can't make any effort to collect their value. The highest-profile
competition in the world is funded by donations, and they can't escape it.

Jack Warner and his ilk at FIFA weren't making a fortune because they were so
efficient and talented, they were making money because principal-agent
problems and regulatory capture are real. If the people raising player funding
are also deciding how to spend it, they're likely to declare themselves
invaluable and keep it all at the top.

~~~
Domenic_S
> _because they 're helping to enable the higher-profit performers._

But it's the other way around in GP's example. The basketball/running/whatever
athletes are enabling the javelin athletes to even have a venue of this
magnitude in the first place. If javelin/archery/whatever was cut from the
olympic roster, would the Olympics have substantially fewer viewers?

~~~
Bartweiss
Javelin perhaps not, although track and field as a whole is one of the most
watched part of the Olympics.

But I'm not sure these are conflicting narratives - without LeBron less
popular basketball players wouldn't get viewers, but without a base of less
talented players LeBron wouldn't have a platform. Javelin's contribution to
Olympic popularity is less direct than, say, a weak sprinter who races against
Usain Bolt, but it's nonzero.

Bringing so many sports and athletes together is part of what helps the
Olympics maintain reputation compared to other narrower events like
international track races or swim meets. Phelps competed far more places than
the Olympics, but that was still the contest that earned him the most
attention and sponsorship.

More broadly, though: even the star performers are getting underpaid unless
they get outside-the-Olympics sponsorships. IOC funds don't trickle down
anywhere near as much as revenue does for other sports, so Olympians big and
small are relying on external revenue to make a living.

------
existencebox
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.

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.

~~~
maxerickson
You presume there is a functional market for executives.

An alternative explanation would be that poor governance leads to
organizations spending more for qualifications that are defensible if a
mistake is made.

------
thearn4
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.

~~~
strictnein
I'd be interested in a set of games that had minimal rules governing doping.
Let's see what the human body can achieve with science.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
I'd be curious myself, but the argument against this type of competition is
that it creates enormous pressure on competitors to do things that could have
serious negative impacts on their long-term health for the sake of winning.
Even if participants are adults of sound mind, it seems unethical to create a
situation where people are encouraged to risk crippling or killing themselves
in pursuit of fame, no?

~~~
jrockway
> it seems unethical to create a situation where people are encouraged to risk
> crippling or killing themselves in pursuit of fame, no?

But think of the millions you could make! Donald Trump could be the host! Make
sports great again!

~~~
thrownblown
NBA, NFL, MBA, UFC.... all make loot while only paying lip service to doping
controls.

UFC has only recently brought in WADA, and NBA, NFL and MBA all have strong
enough players unions that actually protect the athletes desire to use PEDs.
There is some testing in the major US professional sporting leagues, but IMHO
it is only there to constrain the guys from going buck wild with the steroids.

Most high level athletes in sports that fall under IOC umbrella are enrolled
in the biological passport program and have many, many, annoying, out of
competition doping controls where they take urine, blood and hair samples.
Think of being woken up at 5 am for a blood test while on vacation. They have
to supply there exact whereabouts for months in advance and if they can't be
found they will suffer a suspension equal to a failed doping control. Vastly
different than Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds.

------
usefulcat
It's a shame that the article doesn't provide any info on what _percentage_ of
USOC income ends up going to the athletes, especially since the author(s)
probably have that information.

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.

~~~
Fuxy
That aside honestly I don't see why anyone would bother to even do it for such
low pay.

Being in the Olympics sound prestigious but I wouldn’t bother putting the
effort for such low rewards.

~~~
humanrebar
> That aside honestly I don't see why anyone would bother to even do it for
> such low pay.

Aren't athletes routinely given room, board, gear, and free coaching from
their governments? Aren't many events mainly for upper-class types anyway
(events with horses or expensive winter gear, for example)?

If making a living isn't a concern, prestige is a really nice job perk.

~~~
thrownblown
not in the US. the article states:

"Unlike national Olympic committees in many other countries, Blackmun noted,
the USOC receives no government support to help it pay athletes."

the Olympic Training Center has some limited housing for athletes but you have
to live in Colorado Springs.

------
wtbob
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.

Given what the Olympics have become, it makes no sense. The sooner they are
dropped for good, the better.

------
overcast
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.

~~~
richardwhiuk
Just because someone sacrifices their lives to do something doesn't inherently
make that valuable - there is no society in the world where that is true.

There's a significant argument to be made that the Olympics were originally
setup to demonstrate who was the greatest in the activities of the day, and
the activities now are no longer relevant.

~~~
douche
Classic Olympic events are not much more than stylized version of military
training for Hoplite warriors. We may not do the _Hoplitodromos_ [1] any more,
but the running, jumping, throwing, lifting events go straight back to
infantry training in antiquity.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplitodromos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplitodromos)

~~~
tokai
So in a way military pentathlon is the true successor to the classic olympics.

------
zhemao
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.

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.

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.

~~~
chrisseaton
> that's assuming your sport is in both the summer and winter events

Are any sports in both?

~~~
zhemao
I thought indoor sports like basketball were in both. But I guess that's not
the case. So basically, you can only participate in the Olympics once every
four years if you're lucky.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I thought indoor sports like basketball were in both. But I guess that's not
> the case. So basically, you can only participate in the Olympics once every
> four years if you're lucky.

Well, you can do it every two years if you are a multisport athlete with at
least one sport in each summer and winter games.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_athletes_who_competed_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_athletes_who_competed_in_both_the_Summer_and_Winter_Olympic_games)

------
pasbesoin
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

------
mysterypie
> For members of Team USA — many of whom live meagerly off the largesse of
> friends and family, charity, and public assistance

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.

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.

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!

Source: I know two such hopefuls who got this money. (They didn't get into the
Olympics.)

~~~
dguaraglia
This is true in Brazil as well. Not necessarily considered a "waste" of money,
but Olympians are paid somewhat generous grants. It's still hard to qualify,
which kind of creates a Catch-22 scenario, but at least hopefuls don't need to
live on food stamps.

------
protomyth
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.

~~~
selectodude
The women's team is far more successful, however the men's team brings in
about twice as much revenue

~~~
protomyth
That would be wrong: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/united-states-
womens-soc...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/united-states-womens-
soccer-equal-pay_us_56fd37e3e4b0daf53aeee5d7)

"USWNT will generate $8 million more in revenue for U.S. Soccer than the
USMNT."

~~~
selectodude
USWNT is projected to generate $8M more in FY2017. They only generated 2M more
the year after they won the World Cup. If you look over the last 4 years the
Mens team does far more in ticket sales than the Womens team.

On that note, I do agree that the Womens team should be paid equally, if not
more, if only for the reason that their earning power during their career
isn't anywhere near what the Mens team.

~~~
protomyth
Let me also point out some of the ticket sale difference can be attributed to
inferior venues (the women had to cancel games because of poor turf in 2015),
but the point remains they are now generating more money and more profit. They
also have worse accommodations (flight and hotel) than the men.

------
Retric
There is so much wrong with the Olympics that I suggest you join me in just
not watching.

~~~
bitwize
Agreed. I stopped caring about the Olympics after 1988, when a pair of
hometown girls won the silver in synchro swimming.

------
hashkb
Do Olympic executives have to finish their staff meetings under a certain
qualifying time to keep their jobs every 4 years?

------
ankurdhama
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.

~~~
ajamesm
How often do HN job postings talk about "changing the world" when they're
really talking about getting underpaid to develop a food review app?

------
mateus1
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.

------
mfringel
Athletes are content providers on the Olympic platform. They also have no
leverage to force a more equitable distribution of income.

Given how poorly most platforms compensate content providers, I see no
inconsistency here.

~~~
chopin
The athletes could stop participating. A boycott of the best ones should have
a great impact of what the IOC can charge.

~~~
maxerickson
The masses that contribute the attention that makes advertising attractive
would have little idea if you subbed in second tier athletes. Just keep
telling human interest stories and praising them for being great.

~~~
wccrawford
In fact, we have no way of knowing if that's already happening!

It could very well be that the _best_ athletes are already just going where
the money is, and we're getting those that have a burning desire to be in "The
Olympics" rather than making a lot of money.

American Ninja Warrior (and the Japanese show that it came from) show some
amazing athletes in every contest. If those people trained for the Olympics
instead, I think they could be rather good at it. And many of them are just
regular people who decided to try this crazy contest. Now that people have
started training specifically for Ninja Warrior, the obstacles have gotten a
lot harder. This year's are pretty hardcore, IMO.

~~~
jerf
My wife and I just got into that show again recently. (I prefer the Japanese,
honestly, because IIRC they don't waste as much time on human interest
stories, but YMMV.)

One of the things that I sort of like about it is that most of them do seem to
have jobs and such. _Most_ people aren't IMHO-wrecking their lives to compete.
Though the description of what it takes to "walk on" is a bit BS; people
literally quitting their job to camp out for a week or two is a problem, ANW,
not something to brag about. Most people don't quit their job, but still, that
is an awful lot of time to ask people to piss away to show up on your show.

------
dmix
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".

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.

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.

From that baseline of expectation, the numbers they are putting up (such as
$250k for the president) don't seem very high at all.

------
gadders
Did anyone really expect them to be any better than FIFA? Send the FBI in
already.

------
pnathan
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.

~~~
MichaelGG
I doubt that will work. Just like other prestigious or enjoyable things people
do (like photography) there is basically an unlimited supply. The only strike
that can work is countries boycotting it.

------
ensiferum
Where there's money there's corruption.

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.

------
vaadu
IOC, FIFA and UN are nothing but cesspools of corruption. The corrupt
officials should get long jail terms.

The people doing the selections should be formal Olympic athletes.

------
finid
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.

Most are already making more than enough before the Olympics comes around, so
whatever they make at the Olympics is just a bonus.

By the way, what the USA pays medal winners is not bad for a few days of work.

~~~
sdenton4
Yeah, but it's crap pay for years of work. People need to eat...

~~~
zhemao
Most people don't rely on a two week gig that comes around every two to four
years in order to eat.

------
ocschwar
The athletes staying poor doesn't bother me. Whatever your sport, there is a
pro-option if that's what you want to do.

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.

------
xlayn
I don't know if there is any principle like this, if not I will coin it
here...

xlayn principle:

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.

e.g.

    
    
      -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
    

edit: Please let me know if a principle that states this exists.

