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Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps athletes poor

247 points by vmateixeira 10y ago

overcast 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      So in a way military pentathlon is the true successor to the classic olympics.
  - overcast 10y ago
    I understand what you're saying. However for the Olympics, in which you're representing an entire country, with tons of money flooding in, should the athletes not see some of that? I don't see this as any different than professional sports. You could easily argue that Olympic level is above Professional, and a FAR greater commmitment.
    - jerf 10y ago
      The answer is simple: Don't take the deal. Do something else with your life. Until enough people do that, nothing will change. I see it as a lot like "game programming"; the reason why game programming is the cesspit of our industry is that too many programmers become interested in programming because they played a lot of games and want to make them, thinking that making games is somehow more fun than other sorts of programming. Consequently whereas most people trying to hire programmers report having a hard time finding candidates, the big games companies have people busting down the doors to get in. Whereever you get gross labor oversupply like that, you're going to get the same treatment of labor. The truth is that the athletes are replaceable cogs. Entire countries can drop out of the Olympics and the Olympics just go on anyhow. Athletes have even less leverage. Find a different dream, or pay the price. There's not much alternative; the odds of the Olympics being changed to pay athletes even a living wage are very, very long. The economics just don't favor it. This isn't special to the Olympics; this is a general life principle. You get a set of options in life, with probability distributions over the costs & benefits... you don't have all that much power to change the choices. (Sometimes you can "make your own", in some sense, but you don't get much power to change the existing ones. Not... quite... none... but I wouldn't bet much on that.) You need to deal with that, because nobody is going to rescue if you choose a choice that involves costs you didn't really want to pay.
      - overcast 10y ago
        The only thing you're doing is redirecting blame to the athletes, which is the reason this article was written. Clearly athletes know they aren't getting into this to get rich, but I don't think it's unreasonable to provide some type of standard pay that is more than what a kid can make mowing lawns. Farm team players for baseball get paid six figures, and there are a zillion people below them that would play for half. Sure, they are replaceable, but so are you and most everyone else on this planet. That type of attitude is why things like labor unions were created. To protect themselves from shortsighted remarks like that. Also I don't think there is a "gross labor oversupply" of Olympic level athletes in the world. The "no one is forcing you to do anything" argument is completely tiring. You hear this for just about everything now, especially in the gaming industry, where companies are finding new ways to release half the product, for twice the price. People are allowed to complain, that's how things change. You don't just go around saying WELL THEN DON'T BUY IT. Maybe we WANT to buy it, but the circumstances are terrible, thus the complaints. But I suppose you've never complained about anything in your entire life. You just accept what you're given, because no one is forcing you to do it.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Given the current popularity of mixed martial arts competitions, and the profitability of professional fighting, I'm surprised that they haven't brought back pankration with IMMAF amateur rules.
LanceH 10y ago
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.
- wjnc 10y ago
  I'm not sure if you're flaming or not. In the most market/libertarian sense you are right: athletes in highly visible sports do seem to make a lot more than those in not-visible sports. Market forces at work. However, the salaries of the brass are made up off money made in television deals and other promotions. Network effects do have an impact on the size of the pie. So even the javelin matters if only for the size of the pie. It wouldn't be the Olympics with only soccer, it would be the World Cup.
  - LanceH 10y ago
    I'm serious. I despise the olympics, but they are the only reason that a lot of these sports have any visibility at all. I'm a big fan of an obscure sport: wrestling. I have attended events, bought t-shirts and otherwise supported US wrestlers directly or indirectly. And yet, the Olympics is still the biggest stage for these guys because having that gold is a level of prestige that can't be earned anywhere else. It's an all or nothing gambit for the athletes, but the Olympics is the only group offering up even that much. If people really want the javelin guy and the trampoline dude to make a living, they should attend/watch events other than the olympics. tl;dnr -- There is virtually no value in a swimming event. There is a large value in an olympic swimming event. The athletes are the same in both. The venue brings the value.
    - Vendan 10y ago
      There is also no value in an olympic swimming event without any athletes. They both bring value to the table, why is the IOC walking away with all the money?
Retric 10y ago
There is so much wrong with the Olympics that I suggest you join me in just not watching.
- bitwize 10y ago
  Agreed. I stopped caring about the Olympics after 1988, when a pair of hometown girls won the silver in synchro swimming.
thearn4 10y ago
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.
- jgrahamc 10y ago
  Commonwealth Games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Games
- kelukelugames 10y ago
  The Goodwill games lasted a few decades. They were created during the Cold War. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=goodwill%20games https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
  - vmateixeira 10y ago
    Woow.. didn't know about these ones :) Thanks for sharing!
  - Someone 10y ago
    I think the better phrase is "they were created when Ted Turner saw an opportunity to get into the market because the USA boycotted the Moscow Olympics".
- strictnein 10y ago
  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.
  - vinchuco 10y ago
    http://www.majorleagueeating.com/contests.php http://www.majorleagueeating.com/contests.php
wtbob 10y ago
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.
existencebox 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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.
- pjc50 10y ago
  The academic literature calls this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble... ; and there's a whole branch of economics looking at business organisation dating back to Coase.
- finid 10y ago
  Yeah, his pay is definitely low, compared to that of the CEO of the NFL, who makes more than $40 million per year.
hashkb 10y ago
Do Olympic executives have to finish their staff meetings under a certain qualifying time to keep their jobs every 4 years?
mfringel 10y ago
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 10y ago
  The athletes could stop participating. A boycott of the best ones should have a great impact of what the IOC can charge.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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 10y ago
        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.
usefulcat 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    > 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 10y ago
      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.
  - donkeyd 10y ago
    > such low rewards I think you have a different idea about what a reward is than athletes do. Being among the best athletes in the world, and being able to just perform their favorite sport is probably the reward to them, otherwise they wouldn't have made it there anyway.
gadders 10y ago
Did anyone really expect them to be any better than FIFA? Send the FBI in already.
protomyth 10y ago
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 10y ago
  The women's team is far more successful, however the men's team brings in about twice as much revenue
  - protomyth 10y ago
    That would be wrong: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/united-states-womens-soccer-equal-pay_us_56fd37e3e4b0daf53aeee5d7 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/united-states-womens-soc... "USWNT will generate $8 million more in revenue for U.S. Soccer than the USMNT."
    - selectodude 10y ago
      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 10y ago
        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.
pasbesoin 10y ago
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.
dmix 10y ago
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.
strommen 10y ago
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.))
- twoodfin 10y ago
  ((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 agree with much of your post, but it seems to me that NBA players make the highest salaries because the structure of the game and the level of competition put them in such high demand relative to supply. NBA rosters are small, and only 5 players are on the court for each team at any time. There's also a huge drop-off in competitive performance[1] as you move down the bench from the elite players. Unlike the NFL, which has a substantial reserve of "replacement level" talent from college ball, there aren't that many folks who could play basketball at an NBA level and not be totally exposed. That's similar to baseball players, who are also among the most highly paid, even though there are more positions and rosters are bigger: There just aren't that many athletes out there who can bat above .200 against Major League-class pitching. [1] http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2016_leaders.html http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2016_leaders...
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
ankurdhama 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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?
finid 10y ago
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 10y ago
  Yeah, but it's crap pay for years of work. People need to eat...
  - zhemao 10y ago
    Most people don't rely on a two week gig that comes around every two to four years in order to eat.
- grumpopotamus 10y ago
  I disagree. The athletes are creating a substantial amount of the value of the Olympic Games and see almost none of it in return. Compare to some major professional sports where athletes receive 50% of revenue. Olympic athletes absolutely deserve their fair share.
andr3w321 10y ago
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.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > 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. Actors or musicians have a very narrow slice at the top that makes decent money compared to that that is taken by industry machinery, and a lot of lesser "professionals" that make very little compared to the middle men. Same with athletes; the major enterprises you refer to are the top tier within their sports, with a lot of lesser venues underneath. The Olympics is kind of weird, because it includes lots of sports that don't generate the interest of major sports, and large numbers of teams -- many from areas that aren't major media markets for the sport in question -- for all of the sports, even ones that are major in at least some corner of the globe. By doing that, it effectively is, from a marketing perspective, like a combination of the major and minor leagues together -- the ability to make money is influenced, to the extent its influenced by the athletes at all, only by a very small subset of them, and mostly by the ability of third-parties to weave narratives around the aggregate of the competitions. You could make an "Olympics" that would support a distribution of pay more like the NFL, but you'd need to kill most of the sports, and many of the teams in most of the remaining sports, to do that. And it wouldn't look much like the Olympics.
ensiferum 10y ago
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.
xlayn 10y ago
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.
zhemao 10y ago
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 10y ago
  > that's assuming your sport is in both the summer and winter events Are any sports in both?
  - zhemao 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      > 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_in_both_the_Summer_and_Winter_Olympic_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_athletes_who_competed_...
- ZacharyPitts 10y ago
  The amateur restrictions were removed in 1986, and professional athletes have been allowed to compete in the Olympics since then. Hence the 1992 NBA "Dream Team" competing and so on.
pnathan 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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.
vaadu 10y ago
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.
ocschwar 10y ago
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.
mateus1 10y ago
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.
mysterypie 10y ago
> 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 10y ago
  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.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  As someone who knows a couple athletes headed to the Olympics this summer: there is essentially no direct taxpayer support for Olympic athletes in the U.S. The U.S. Olympic Committee was created by Congress and given exclusive right to the Olympic marks in the U.S. (the rings, flag, name, etc)--that is the extent of the federal govt. support. Most of the USOC's revenues come from Olympic mark licensing deals, and other corporate sponsorships. There are some personal and foundation grants too. It's all private cash though.

247 points by vmateixeira 10y ago

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 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    So in a way military pentathlon is the true successor to the classic olympics.
- overcast 10y ago
  I understand what you're saying. However for the Olympics, in which you're representing an entire country, with tons of money flooding in, should the athletes not see some of that? I don't see this as any different than professional sports. You could easily argue that Olympic level is above Professional, and a FAR greater commmitment.
  - jerf 10y ago
    The answer is simple: Don't take the deal. Do something else with your life. Until enough people do that, nothing will change. I see it as a lot like "game programming"; the reason why game programming is the cesspit of our industry is that too many programmers become interested in programming because they played a lot of games and want to make them, thinking that making games is somehow more fun than other sorts of programming. Consequently whereas most people trying to hire programmers report having a hard time finding candidates, the big games companies have people busting down the doors to get in. Whereever you get gross labor oversupply like that, you're going to get the same treatment of labor. The truth is that the athletes are replaceable cogs. Entire countries can drop out of the Olympics and the Olympics just go on anyhow. Athletes have even less leverage. Find a different dream, or pay the price. There's not much alternative; the odds of the Olympics being changed to pay athletes even a living wage are very, very long. The economics just don't favor it. This isn't special to the Olympics; this is a general life principle. You get a set of options in life, with probability distributions over the costs & benefits... you don't have all that much power to change the choices. (Sometimes you can "make your own", in some sense, but you don't get much power to change the existing ones. Not... quite... none... but I wouldn't bet much on that.) You need to deal with that, because nobody is going to rescue if you choose a choice that involves costs you didn't really want to pay.
    - overcast 10y ago
      The only thing you're doing is redirecting blame to the athletes, which is the reason this article was written. Clearly athletes know they aren't getting into this to get rich, but I don't think it's unreasonable to provide some type of standard pay that is more than what a kid can make mowing lawns. Farm team players for baseball get paid six figures, and there are a zillion people below them that would play for half. Sure, they are replaceable, but so are you and most everyone else on this planet. That type of attitude is why things like labor unions were created. To protect themselves from shortsighted remarks like that. Also I don't think there is a "gross labor oversupply" of Olympic level athletes in the world. The "no one is forcing you to do anything" argument is completely tiring. You hear this for just about everything now, especially in the gaming industry, where companies are finding new ways to release half the product, for twice the price. People are allowed to complain, that's how things change. You don't just go around saying WELL THEN DON'T BUY IT. Maybe we WANT to buy it, but the circumstances are terrible, thus the complaints. But I suppose you've never complained about anything in your entire life. You just accept what you're given, because no one is forcing you to do it.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Given the current popularity of mixed martial arts competitions, and the profitability of professional fighting, I'm surprised that they haven't brought back pankration with IMMAF amateur rules.

LanceH 10y ago

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.

wjnc 10y ago
I'm not sure if you're flaming or not. In the most market/libertarian sense you are right: athletes in highly visible sports do seem to make a lot more than those in not-visible sports. Market forces at work. However, the salaries of the brass are made up off money made in television deals and other promotions. Network effects do have an impact on the size of the pie. So even the javelin matters if only for the size of the pie. It wouldn't be the Olympics with only soccer, it would be the World Cup.
- LanceH 10y ago
  I'm serious. I despise the olympics, but they are the only reason that a lot of these sports have any visibility at all. I'm a big fan of an obscure sport: wrestling. I have attended events, bought t-shirts and otherwise supported US wrestlers directly or indirectly. And yet, the Olympics is still the biggest stage for these guys because having that gold is a level of prestige that can't be earned anywhere else. It's an all or nothing gambit for the athletes, but the Olympics is the only group offering up even that much. If people really want the javelin guy and the trampoline dude to make a living, they should attend/watch events other than the olympics. tl;dnr -- There is virtually no value in a swimming event. There is a large value in an olympic swimming event. The athletes are the same in both. The venue brings the value.
  - Vendan 10y ago
    There is also no value in an olympic swimming event without any athletes. They both bring value to the table, why is the IOC walking away with all the money?

Retric 10y ago

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

bitwize 10y ago
Agreed. I stopped caring about the Olympics after 1988, when a pair of hometown girls won the silver in synchro swimming.

thearn4 10y ago

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.

jgrahamc 10y ago
Commonwealth Games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Games
kelukelugames 10y ago
The Goodwill games lasted a few decades. They were created during the Cold War. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=goodwill%20games https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
- vmateixeira 10y ago
  Woow.. didn't know about these ones :) Thanks for sharing!
- Someone 10y ago
  I think the better phrase is "they were created when Ted Turner saw an opportunity to get into the market because the USA boycotted the Moscow Olympics".
strictnein 10y ago
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.
- vinchuco 10y ago
  http://www.majorleagueeating.com/contests.php http://www.majorleagueeating.com/contests.php

wtbob 10y ago

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.

existencebox 10y ago

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 10y ago
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.
pjc50 10y ago
The academic literature calls this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble... ; and there's a whole branch of economics looking at business organisation dating back to Coase.
finid 10y ago
Yeah, his pay is definitely low, compared to that of the CEO of the NFL, who makes more than $40 million per year.

hashkb 10y ago

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

mfringel 10y ago

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 10y ago
The athletes could stop participating. A boycott of the best ones should have a great impact of what the IOC can charge.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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.

usefulcat 10y ago

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 10y ago
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 10y ago
  > 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 10y ago
    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.
- donkeyd 10y ago
  > such low rewards I think you have a different idea about what a reward is than athletes do. Being among the best athletes in the world, and being able to just perform their favorite sport is probably the reward to them, otherwise they wouldn't have made it there anyway.

gadders 10y ago

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

protomyth 10y ago

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 10y ago
The women's team is far more successful, however the men's team brings in about twice as much revenue
- protomyth 10y ago
  That would be wrong: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/united-states-womens-soccer-equal-pay_us_56fd37e3e4b0daf53aeee5d7 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/united-states-womens-soc... "USWNT will generate $8 million more in revenue for U.S. Soccer than the USMNT."
  - selectodude 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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.

pasbesoin 10y ago

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.

dmix 10y ago

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.

strommen 10y ago

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.))

twoodfin 10y ago
((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 agree with much of your post, but it seems to me that NBA players make the highest salaries because the structure of the game and the level of competition put them in such high demand relative to supply. NBA rosters are small, and only 5 players are on the court for each team at any time. There's also a huge drop-off in competitive performance[1] as you move down the bench from the elite players. Unlike the NFL, which has a substantial reserve of "replacement level" talent from college ball, there aren't that many folks who could play basketball at an NBA level and not be totally exposed. That's similar to baseball players, who are also among the most highly paid, even though there are more positions and rosters are bigger: There just aren't that many athletes out there who can bat above .200 against Major League-class pitching. [1] http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2016_leaders.html http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2016_leaders...
- Aelinsaar 10y ago

ankurdhama 10y ago

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 10y ago
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?

finid 10y ago

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 10y ago
Yeah, but it's crap pay for years of work. People need to eat...
- zhemao 10y ago
  Most people don't rely on a two week gig that comes around every two to four years in order to eat.
grumpopotamus 10y ago
I disagree. The athletes are creating a substantial amount of the value of the Olympic Games and see almost none of it in return. Compare to some major professional sports where athletes receive 50% of revenue. Olympic athletes absolutely deserve their fair share.

andr3w321 10y ago

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.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> 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. Actors or musicians have a very narrow slice at the top that makes decent money compared to that that is taken by industry machinery, and a lot of lesser "professionals" that make very little compared to the middle men. Same with athletes; the major enterprises you refer to are the top tier within their sports, with a lot of lesser venues underneath. The Olympics is kind of weird, because it includes lots of sports that don't generate the interest of major sports, and large numbers of teams -- many from areas that aren't major media markets for the sport in question -- for all of the sports, even ones that are major in at least some corner of the globe. By doing that, it effectively is, from a marketing perspective, like a combination of the major and minor leagues together -- the ability to make money is influenced, to the extent its influenced by the athletes at all, only by a very small subset of them, and mostly by the ability of third-parties to weave narratives around the aggregate of the competitions. You could make an "Olympics" that would support a distribution of pay more like the NFL, but you'd need to kill most of the sports, and many of the teams in most of the remaining sports, to do that. And it wouldn't look much like the Olympics.

ensiferum 10y ago

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.

xlayn 10y ago

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.

zhemao 10y ago

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 10y ago
> that's assuming your sport is in both the summer and winter events Are any sports in both?
- zhemao 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    > 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_in_both_the_Summer_and_Winter_Olympic_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_athletes_who_competed_...
ZacharyPitts 10y ago
The amateur restrictions were removed in 1986, and professional athletes have been allowed to compete in the Olympics since then. Hence the 1992 NBA "Dream Team" competing and so on.

pnathan 10y ago

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 10y ago
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.

vaadu 10y ago

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.

ocschwar 10y ago

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.

mateus1 10y ago

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.

mysterypie 10y ago

> 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 10y ago
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.
snowwrestler 10y ago
As someone who knows a couple athletes headed to the Olympics this summer: there is essentially no direct taxpayer support for Olympic athletes in the U.S. The U.S. Olympic Committee was created by Congress and given exclusive right to the Olympic marks in the U.S. (the rings, flag, name, etc)--that is the extent of the federal govt. support. Most of the USOC's revenues come from Olympic mark licensing deals, and other corporate sponsorships. There are some personal and foundation grants too. It's all private cash though.