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Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

202 points by TMWNN 2y ago

PartiallyTyped 2y ago
Reminds me how GoFundMe is effectively a healthcare insurance that's based on donations. https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ceo/ https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ce...
- rbanffy 2y ago
  If you are popular enough, you might live. If you are not, oh well…
  - EGreg 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - gjsman-1000 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        > Criticizing a system built mostly on government handouts (by definition a socialist or communist structure) as being a late-stage capitalism problem shows you’ve got no clue what these terms actually mean. That's just the capitalists outright purchasing the legislators, so Walmart can employ people at minimum wage and let the taxpayers foot the bill for their healthcare and food stamps.
        gjsman-1000 2y ago
        In that case, we’re not in a capitalist system at all, but a capitalist-socialist hybrid. Arguably, we’ve been in the hybrid since the New Deal, and it seems to have inherited the same socialism issues China is also grappling with.
        vasco 2y ago
        Social democracy is the term that is usually used.
        gruez 2y ago
        >so Walmart can employ people at minimum wage and let the taxpayers foot the bill for their healthcare and food stamps. Do those people magically start needing food and healthcare once they're employed by walmart? Why is it suddenly walmarts problem the moment they become a walmart employee? Would anyone stakeholder in this situation (the employees, society, walmart) be better off if the employee was no longer employed?
        anotherhue 2y ago
        I think the argument is that their labour is being subsidised which amounts to a benefit for BigSam. If we had a USB or negative income tax system then that benefit would be clearly spread across the whole population evenly but instead the stamp system has many rules and restrictions that allow Walmart to strategically benefit by both positioning the role at just the right amount to qualify for the benefit (but no more) and frustratingly by being the vendor honouring the stamps.
        gruez 2y ago
        >If we had a USB or negative income tax system then that benefit would be clearly spread across the whole population evenly But we do? The EITC is basically a negative income tax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit >I think the argument is that their labour is being subsidised which amounts to a benefit for BigSam. Ironically negative income taxes are closer to a labor "subsidy", than food stamps, because they're contingent on income (ie. labor), unlike food stamps which don't give you more money if you make more.
      - plagiarist 2y ago
        Government assistance is neither socialism nor communism. You do not understand what those terms mean. Additionally, most of the government handouts we see are going to large corporations or the military.
      - manishader 2y ago
        Late stage capitalism is just economics and philosophy for unlearned people who haven't read much or had much education in economics or philosophy. Imagine believing in historicism in 2024. It is even dumber than believing in witchcraft or horoscopes.
      - rbanffy 2y ago
        > Criticizing a system built mostly on government handouts This was not what I was criticising. It was about turning someone’s life into entertainment and, in this extreme GoFundMe example, the right to life becoming a function of how entertaining one is. > (by definition a socialist or communist structure) Socialism and communism are not about government handouts. Both are about controlling the means of production (industries, farms) by the people (implying democratic representation). You might correctly argue that the Soviet Union was not a shining beacon of how to implement it, and this is what details almost every discussion on the subject.
        leosanchez 2y ago
        > You might correctly argue that the Soviet Union was not a shining beacon of how to implement it India as implemented Socialism btw. Which lead to economic crisis[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Indian_economic_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Indian_economic_crisis
        sofixa 2y ago
        There isn't any mention of socialism, or anything related to it in your link. It sounds like a classic balance of payments issue (importing too much compared to exports/tourism/other revenues) being hit with an exploding in price critical import (oil). Sri Lanka had the same issues just a few years back, was it "socialism" too?
        leosanchez 2y ago
        India until 1991 was very socialist. After 1991 they implemented reforms to reduce state controls. This [0] explains a bit better [0] https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/india-and-the-tragedy-of-socialism https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/india-and-the-tragedy-of-soci...
        sofixa 2y ago
        What a shittily written article, staining the Adam Smith name. Nationalising a bunch of critical industries isn't "socialism" and the article utterly fails to explain how it is or why it's related. Historical UK, and modern France, Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia also had multiple crucial industries which were fully nationally owned. Were they socialist too?
  - deleted 2y ago
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- grecy 2y ago
  One third of all donations on GoFundMe are for medical expenses. [1] the very vast majority of that must be Americans. I’m staggered how many Americans are steadfastly against socialized healthcare for all, but immediately turn to GoFundMe in desperation when their insurance tells them to take a hike. I can’t help thinking “just do that for everyone” [1] https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ceo/ https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ce...
  - nothercastle 2y ago
    If you have a non emergency procedure and you are short of cash it seems like medical tourism would be a better choice
    - grecy 2y ago
      It seems like Americans have a knack for coming up with the most convoluted ways of accessing healthcare that are still expensive and inconvenient. Your idea still require paying out of pocket, requires taking unpaid time off work, flights, relying on the healthcare system of a foreign country and more. That is the worst possible "healthcare" situation I can imagine. Dozens of countries have shown you pay a lot less and get much better outcomes [1] when you just provide healthcare to everyone all the time, the same way high school, roads and street lights are provided. Why wouldn't you want that? Why on earth would you think flying to some foreign country is a better solution? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_vs_healthcare_spending.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_vs_heal...
      - nothercastle 2y ago
        I’m not saying it’s a great thing but when things are messed up you need a work around. That’s the work around, the money from go fund me is probably not enough the health care is that unaffordable
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Americans have a knack for coming up with the most convoluted ways of accessing healthcare Medical tourism is alive and well even within Europe [1]. And an entire genre of concierge medicine in America caters to rich Europeans (alongside rich Middle Easterners and Asians). [1] https://www.magazine.medicaltourism.com/article/visegrad-countries-attractive-affordable https://www.magazine.medicaltourism.com/article/visegrad-cou...
- creole_wither 2y ago
  You mean https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/ https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/
Handprint4469 2y ago
> "With OnlyFans, athletes are actually providing a product or service, something of value for the money they're receiving," he explained, emphasizing the need to reframe thinking. > "It's making athletes entrepreneurs."
randall 2y ago
yeah i don’t see a problem here tbh. especially if you’re a swimmer, you’re effectively naked in front of billions of people anyway.
- Y-bar 2y ago
  When I read the article the problem as illustrated was not primarily OnlyFans and the morality around that kind of content. It was the lack of funding for athletes and the fact that IOC forces athletes to sign away image rights that were front and center.
- jmclnx 2y ago
  True, but swimming is what I call an Olympic tier 1 sport. That means there seems to be plenty of support for these athletes. The hard/impossible to see on TV sports are were I think people are having big issues. But after reading the article, looks like the IOC is raking in the big bucks and exploiting all athletes. No surprise there since I and maybe everyone believes the IOC nothing but a corrupt organization.
rbanffy 2y ago
It’s bread and circus all the way down. At least they aren’t fed to lions anymore.
belval 2y ago
Sensationalistic headline aside, this is a very thorny issue. On one hand you want to provide livable wages to your athletes, but Canada just registered a deficit of 62 billions. Cuts are coming and more money to Olympians will be put up against funding for healthcare, education, etc... At some point you have to make hard decisions.
- TriangleEdge 2y ago
  > On one hand you want to provide livable wages to your athletes Why? Sports are just another form of entertainment for others. Same as any other performance artist.
  - Y-bar 2y ago
    I think artists should have a livable wage as well.
    - themaninthedark 2y ago
      I would like to provide liveable wages for both artists and athletes. Who gets to choose which artists and athletes are funded? When do we start funding them? In high-school, before? After they graduate? There are many people who identify as athletes at that age, football players, cheerleaders. I have a 6yo son who is really good at doing various crafts and he really enjoys it, does he count as an artist? How do we define art? Are we counting the preforming arts? Does someone playing the guitar in the subway count? What about my garage band that I have with my friends? On the flip side, are we also going to ensure Taylor Swift has a livable wage for life? Tom Brady?
      - anotherhue 2y ago
        Al least you can race the athletes against each other to find out who is the best. Much hard to do that with artists. We could say we'll fund the fastest people but in all liklihood those will turn out to be people who have dedicated the most time to their sport, which is a pretty good proxy for being rich, because most people can't afford that level of time investment.
TriangleEdge 2y ago
Opinion: I stopped thinking the olympics was cool when I saw a 14 year old win gold in diving. Now I think it's a business exploiting people for money. Like any other business, if they don't like it they can stop doing it. Sports has a bad ROI on average afaik.
- dustyventure 2y ago
  I think the Olympics in particular are mostly supposed to be a less violent outlet for nationalism, but I think we learned from the Anger Management craze that safe outlets lead to a normalization and more of the original problem.
  - RonaldDump 2y ago
    It's an absolutely awful outlet for "nationalism" in a post-national diversified world. Table tennis, for example, is basically a bunch of Chinese people battling it out for gold for their host country. Am I supposed to root for the Chinese-Australians as if they're any more representative of me than the Chinese-Canadians?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Am I supposed to root for the Chinese-Australians as if they're any more representative of me than the Chinese-Canadians? It's particularly damning that you picked two countries with almost entirely modern colonial populations.
    - tuna74 2y ago
      The second best male player in the world* is as an ethnic Swede. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truls_M%C3%B6reg%C3%A5rdh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truls_M%C3%B6reg%C3%A5rdh
      - bllguo 2y ago
        no serious fan of the sport would agree. not even truls would consider him to be the 2nd best in the world. but yes, he did have an amazing run to the silver
jacklar 2y ago
The wild part is how much everyone makes around the Olympics besides the athletes.
- disqard 2y ago
  I think you can s//g that in various ways, and it would be true: * Music, musicians * Publishing/journals, academics * (and more that I can't think of right now)
  - linotype 2y ago
    * Startups that exit, software engineers * Pharma companies, US taxpayers funding basic research * Waltons, Walmart employees The list is endless.
    - 542354234235 2y ago
      It is weird that it seems like the people that are generating value and the people extracting value aren't ever the same people.
      - dead_gunslinger 2y ago
        [dead]
      - mensetmanusman 2y ago
        Information asymmetry has never played such a large role in income inequality as it does today. I’m really hoping people are empowered to use these artificial intelligence systems to level the playing field. No idea what the likelihood of this is to happening though.
        Vampiero 2y ago
        As long as we use these awfully inefficient models, the probability is closer to zero than it is to one.
a2tech 2y ago
This is the reality of building your life around sport—-there’s basically no money in it unless you’re on the extreme edge. I wish people would stop dumping their entire life’s energy into chasing it—-do something more useful like stamping parts out in a factory. Olympic athletes are stunningly focused achievers—I’d love to see that energy and drive applied to something that mattered.
- floatrock 2y ago
  Is this meant to be sarcasm? If we're comparing only stamping parts in a factory vs. pushing the human body to its limits, you probably ain't gonna make money in either. But one of them is going to be a far more satisfying way to live for the soul. We can talk about other things that matter, but there's probably less of that out there than you might think.
  - EA-3167 2y ago
    I think the point was pretty simple: there's no reason that pursuing your Olympic dreams would be a way to make money. So feed your soul, but unless you come to it with money, be prepared to find another way to feed your wallet.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >If we're comparing only stamping parts in a factory vs. pushing the human body to its limits, you probably ain't gonna make money in either. But one of them is going to be a far more satisfying way to live for the soul. You can't eat "more satisfying way to live for the soul", and if you can't convince people to sponsor your endeavors, then you'll have to get a job that produce goods/services people are willing to pay for, like most other people.
- PapstJL4U 2y ago
  If you don't put in the energy and drive, someone else will and someone else will be good enough to make money of their drive and energy. It's although very hard to just find something else, that gives you the same satisfaction as your favourite "past-time" - the only job that is as good as doing sport, is sport as a job.
TMWNN 2y ago
Title edited by me for length from original "Olympians are turning to OnlyFans to fund dreams as they face a 'broken' finance system".
aomix 2y ago
Olympians being "people with really intense hobbies" is still weird to me. I haven't reconciled in my mind that the life of AA baseball players getting paid a little more than minimum wage plus a meal stipend is a dream for 90% of Olympians who, if they win, become national symbols of excellence for a week every 4 years.
- rawcal 2y ago
  Wasn't "people with really intense hobbies" how modern olympics started though, going as far as banning professionals in early days?
  - Lukas_Skywalker 2y ago
    „Early days“ is until 1990 in that case, which is surprisingly late. Some nations got around the ban by employing the athletes as soldiers and allowing them to prepare almost full time though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and_professionalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and...
    - nradov 2y ago
      The US Army still does that through the World Class Athletic Program. It's an effective recruiting and morale program. https://www.armywcap.com/ https://www.armywcap.com/
    - apocadam 2y ago
      Thanks for the link, this made me chuckle: There was also a prevailing concept of fairness, in which practising or training was considered tantamount to cheating.[176] Those who practised a sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[176]
  - AngryData 2y ago
    Yes it was originally, but now you gotta have the money and time to pursue that sport at a professional level if you want to have any chance of even getting into the Olympics. Personally I think it would be better if it was just regular joes doing the Olympics again, but state political interests kept dipping their hand into the pool to try and secure wins for some dubious political points.
jasdi 2y ago
The story is not about the Olympians. It's about Platformization (+ Datafication + Finacialization). When Platform Capitalism the book came out, feels like a decade ago, literally everyone agreed its Unsustainable. Its not just about how well your mindless dumbfuck platform milks the consumer and producer simultaneously. Its about all the Platforms doing it simultaneously across every single sector you look at. Just look at GDP by sector, and ask yourself which sector hasn't been platformized? Sooner or later the only option on the table for Govt will be to ask China how they handled Jack Ma.
snowwrestler 2y ago
In the early 1990s a paddler named Eric Jackson was fast enough to make the U.S. Olympic team in whitewater slalom kayak. But he lacked funds to go. So he dressed up in his full paddling outfit and brought his boat (4m long in those days) and paddle to a street corner in downtown DC. He set up a “meet an Olympian” sign and charged people cash to have their picture taken with him. Much hustle, very entrepreneurial of him, and he made a decent amount of money. But he got into huge trouble with the U.S. Olympic establishment, and was almost dropped from that team. They said they were scandalized that he would dare to try to make personal money from his Olympic team status. It became clear to some that they were also mad he dared to demonstrate how poor many Olympic athletes actually were—by essentially begging on a street corner in a part of town full of prominent people.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  [flagged]
- shakna 2y ago
  I can't actually find anything on that story. Any chance you have anything? He does describe building his own kayak for the event. [0] But that's probably just to help promote his business. [0] https://hub.jacksonkayak.com/2019/11/the-unabridged-history-of-jackson-kayak/ https://hub.jacksonkayak.com/2019/11/the-unabridged-history-...
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  "You're on the team, but you have to fund your own trip to the Olympics to compete." ... "No not like that!" Never knew if it was real but I've seen on reddit several times that letter someone got from their employer chastising them for not owning a newer, nicer vehicle, since they were making good money at their job and it was "hurting the reputation of the business" that they were driving effectively a poor person's car. It feels far fetched but at the same time, also feels exactly like the irrelevant twaddle that a certain kind of upper management type would make his secretary write a letter about.
  - vasac 2y ago
oldpersonintx 2y ago
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tsss 2y ago
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- PapstJL4U 2y ago
  Is it a hobby because they like doing it?
  - anotherhue 2y ago
    What is the economic output? Entertainment as far as I can tell. For a few days every four years. That's not a good return on the time invested. If it's a hobby then there's no expected return, so it feels closer to that. I don't begrudge them, and would be in favour of a sensible fixed amount of federal funding, but it ain't a job.
    - Lukas_Skywalker 2y ago
      > What is the economic output? Entertainment as far as I can tell. For a few days every four years. That's not a good return on the time invested. I‘d guess the vast majority of Olympians do compete in other events outside the Olympics and do provide more entertainment than just once every four years. The Olympics don‘t pay the bills, but other events do. And many athletes are effectively employed by their countries, be it as soldiers, border guards or through some kind of sports support system.
      - anotherhue 2y ago
        Having them be fitness advocates or guest trainers in schools etc. sounds ideal.
    - blitzar 2y ago
      > What is the economic output? The tv rights and advertising sell for billions. In person ticket sales in the 100's of millions. The economic output is the same as all the other sports, theatres, movies, television, museums, landmarks and royal families.
coretx 2y ago
Nobody sane wants to finance a WW3 Olympics because nobody wants to be associated with the WW2 Berlin Olympics.
erulabs 2y ago
Turns out the real alienation is the artists and athletes, not the workers producing luxury goods. Capitalism is great, it feeds billions, but it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that we can provide generational wealth to anyone who can produce beans a bit better, while the transcendental has pitiful returns. On one hand, we need beans. On the other, it sure is nice to transcend from time to time. Over all I think it’s wildly important we’re slanted towards the mundane, but next time you see a poor artist or a talented young athlete: put some money in the hat.
- looneysquash 2y ago
  Tossing a coin to your Witcher is not sufficient to fix our broken capitalism system.
  - erulabs 2y ago
    I think the system that orients us away from our passions and towards the mundane is a good thing actually. It hurts the soul but it nourishes the body. However we should all become patrons of the arts, so that we can also nourish the soul. Ain’t nothing so broken that love can’t fix it.
    - foliovision 2y ago
      Based on the average diet in North America (fast food, oversized portions, GMO vegetables which look good but are nutrition free, hormone overloaded beef, chlorinated chicken, this is the short list), I would argue the system (North American style capitalism does not nourish the body. I'd also apply the same thought to North American arts and sports. Singing about hoes and bling, while clutching your testicles or ring fighting hardly feed the soul. The Olympians should get proper state funding. They do inspire.
SunlitCat 2y ago
That title reminded me on different Olympians who got their "aesthetic" pictures taken for a certain adult oriented print magazine, which most people buy only for the really good articles they have, of course! ;)
Invictus0 2y ago
Some really bizarre and dystopically capitalistic in this comments section. Olympic athletes are a significant source of national pride and optimism and sport is a powerful positive expression of the human spirit. We all get value from them, we should feel comfortable giving them at least a small amount of money for their efforts. Currently we give gold medalists around $40k, which I think is pretty low but better than nothing.
- infamousclyde 2y ago
  Thanks for your sanity. My wife is a (Canadian) Olympian and I almost feel betrayed by the level of condescension towards sports in this forum that I am normally aligned with. Like engineers denigrating the arts because it doesn’t generate value— it makes me think some folks are not experiencing what life has to offer.
dialup_sounds 2y ago
When the Greeks invented the games the competitors were all buck naked and oiled up. You ever think we should just cut out the middlemen? Skip the governments, the international organizations, the television networks, and get back to the basic principle of fit naked people doing fit naked things in front of an admiring audience. At Strigil (YC '25) we're disrupting the Olympic market by combining best-of-breed athletic performance, carbon-neutral plant-based olive oil, and blockchain-enabled generative AI into a powerful democratized platform for distributing nudes of greased up hardbodies. Our proprietary deep learning model has been trained on the world's largest corpus of ancient Greek horticulture texts and over one hundred million data points of Twitter users thirsting over Olympic athletes in order to select the optimal oil characteristics for each athlete to maximize viewer engagement during each competition. Olives are harvested by our fleet of autonomous drones and pressed to order in our bespoke IoT oil presses (designed by Teenage Engineering) and delivered to athletes in amphora made of up to 20% recycled ocean plastic. Athletes sign up for competitions via our mobile app (iOS only, Android coming soon). Though our partnerships with UberEats and DoorDash, world-class athletes are able to earn additional income by delivering burritos and hard seltzer to sedentary WfH software developers on their way to the games. Each of our events is held in modern athletic facilities crowdsourced from areas of town your mother told you not to drive through at night, and streamed to viewers via our unnecessarily custom scalable streaming architecture written in Rust. Viewers that do not wish to view sweaty naked bodies flexing and gyrating can purchase skins in the point shop or choose an ad-supported plan. Our real-time 3D vision model ensconces the rippling flesh of top athletes with ray-traced cloth simulation at resultions up to 4k, ensuring there is no nothing between you and pure athletic expression except a screen and message from one of our 937 advertising partners. As part of our sustainability pledge, we've replaced the traditional Olympic medal made from non-renewable materials with fully digital NFT medals, allowing the victors to show off their accomplishments in their virtual trophy case in the metaverse. Launching Q3, athletes will even be able sell their valuable medals on the bustling NFT marketplace to when they're inevitably driven into crushing medical debt.
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  applause_sounds
- deleted 2y ago
hnburnsy 2y ago
When parents and athletes decide to embark on this journey, it is well known that being an Olympian doesn't pay for many sports, similar to choosing your degree in college. Maybe parents should rethink spending hundreds of thousands in coaching, training, travel, competitions, etc. from 12-18. I always chuckle when I read about an athlete getting a college scholarship, when it is clear that they already spent 4 times that on their development to get that scholarship.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  The NBA apparently does a pretty good job of trying to be responsible, here. They'll send letters to players at college. "Congratulations on becoming a Div 1 College Basketball player. You need to keep focusing on your studies, because [they break down stats that show that ~1% of even Division 1 players will make it to the NBA]."
tennisflyi 2y ago
This will be a much bigger issue when it’s female swimmers and gymnasts
deleted 2y ago
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potato3732842 2y ago
20yr ago they were all stripping for all of the same reasons but that was easier to keep on the down low because some journalist couldn't see and contact a dozen of them from their desk and many employers didn't even know who these people were. It really is a no brainer when you consider the investment they have to make in their bodies.
- nabla9 2y ago
  I was there six months in Dubai consulting for Al-Futtaim and quickly realized that female athletes are now doing way more than stripping and taking pictures. The high level escort services use business jets to move good looking people into and out of Dubai. They must get paid a lot when it costs $5,000 and $8,000 per hour to move them around. Eastern European athletes are over-represented but there are many westerners as well. Dubai is the Vegas for ultra rich "What happens in Dubai stays in Dubai."
- raxxor 2y ago
  I would assume that not everyone with a "great body" would want to do stripping and I don't think it is a "no brainer" at all. Problem with many sports is that they just don't earn enough money, which mostly is in advertising, and that doing it professionally is rather costly.
  - jalapenos 2y ago
    100% I'd strip. Putting that much toil in I'd want maximum compensation
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      I decided to write compilers because my initial foray into stripping flopped.
      - messe 2y ago
        And still found a way to show the world your D.
WalterBright 2y ago
> In a way, it is akin to modern-day slavery They all have a free choice about whether to be an Olympian or to take a more lucrative career path. It was obvious to me even as a kid that the chances of making money as an Olympian is about as probable as making money as a singer in a rock and roll band. I.e. a thoroughly impractical career choice. Even worse, no matter how good you are, a random injury or getting the flu at the wrong moment will destroy your chances. > It's making athletes entrepreneurs Along with artists, painters, photographers, etc.
- baq 2y ago
  > They all have a free choice about whether to be an Olympian or to take a more lucrative career path. Not everyone is born capable of being an Olympic athlete and the career path of being one alongside associated opportunity costs is chosen long before the person can consciously and rationally make decisions about themselves. Also, not everyone is as bright as a kid as you.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    The kids have parents who are empowered to make those decisions for them, for exactly the reason you suggest. Of course, some parents make poor decisions - but it's a free country, but not free from the consequences of bad decisions. Or do you suggest someone else make those decisions for the kids?
    - baq 2y ago
      I don’t have a solution for those kids but I know telling them they shouldn’t have chosen to be athletes is missing the point you yourself bring up - which is, their parents made those decisions for them. Humans are not rational economic actors.
      - The_Colonel 2y ago
        > I know telling them they shouldn’t have chosen to be athletes is missing the point you yourself bring up They can't alter the past, but they can cut their losses now. It will also hopefully help the next generation of potentially professional athletes.
moi2388 2y ago
The real crime is that it’s unfortunately male athletes :(
qingcharles 2y ago
Even with their existing fan base (which might or might not be interested in seeing them less clothed), OnlyFans is not a sustainable income model for most creators: https://social-rise.com/blog/average-onlyfans-income https://social-rise.com/blog/average-onlyfans-income
- popcalc 2y ago
  Statistically most accounts are people signing up, trying it for a couple days half-heartedly, and giving up. You can be morbidly obese, deformed, and geriatric and rake in multiple six figures /year within months if you're going in with an actual agency.
- eterm 2y ago
  That's actually a lot higher than I was expecting. The average twitch streamer makes essentially nothing.
gadders 2y ago
Given the amount of money floating around in the Olympic system, it's ridiculous that athletes don't get paid properly. Leaving aside the whole drug aspect of the Enhanced Games, at least they are committing to pay athletes properly. Also these are the salaries of the IoC directors: https://www.sportandpolitics.de/ioc-directors-salaries-2024-documentation/ https://www.sportandpolitics.de/ioc-directors-salaries-2024-...
- pgryko 2y ago
  Late stage capitalism - why would they pay athletes properly?
rob74 2y ago
> "Some people are judgy about sex work. People say it's a shame or even that it is shameful," Mitcham said. "But what I do is a very light version of sex work, like the low-fat version of mayonnaise selling the sizzle rather than the steak." Hm, so which one is it now? If you're arguing that sex work shouldn't be stigmatized, it shouldn't matter how light or heavy it is?
- azalemeth 2y ago
  I don't think there's much hypocrisy in that statement. My interpretation would be something like this: -- I don't personally think that sex work should be stigmatised -- Other people do stigmatise it, however. -- I would like to point out to these people that what I do is analogous to a light version of sex work [and arguably any professional sportsperson sells their body one way or another - so why not this?]
  - xuhu 2y ago
    (flashbacks of reading comprehension exams intensify) He doesn't seem to state his position on whether proper sex work should be stigmatized or not, just that others think it should be.
piokoch 2y ago
Good to know that not only my homeland Olympic Committee is a pathological organization!
Trustable8 2y ago
I believe the Olympics is meant to be a career for the rich, and the IOC will do its best to keep working-class people out by removing their opportunities, especially in popular sports. If too many rich kids can't get into Olympic teams, then the IOC will make sure that avenues like OnlyFans are banned.
dsign 2y ago
Isn't this a win-win situation? Now we all have an excuse to support outstanding sports people directly. Even better, that excuse can be used the other way if one is in need.
hartator 2y ago
I don’t think we should paying taxes to support this of events. There is little support that sport competition is any good for humankind and Socrate argued in his days that competition had the reverse effect of making you see others as the enemy.
- ossobuco 2y ago
  The entire economy is based on competition; if we agree that cooperation beats competition for the common good, then we have much larger systemic changes to do before we get to sports.
braza 2y ago
Being a former athlete (100/200 meters), the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value, and if you are from javelin throwing, fencing, or racewalking, unless you have a great sponsor, it will definitely require personal sacrifices to make it to the games. In Brazil a very long time ago, there was a gigantic tug of war between the top-tier sports (especially volleyball and football) and the low-tier sports, and the issue is that from the prize pool, most went to the major sports. The partial solution for it was to incentivize the corporations to do the sponsorships, and the ones that made it got some tax benefits (sometimes in a 1:2).
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  this is the same in sports in general. In almost every country, players from certain sports earn many times more what players in other sports make. I don't think there's any "fix" for this -- some sports will always be more popular than others, and those who play those particular sports will have more financial opportunities.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Athletes get money in rough proportion to how many and how much fans are willing to pay to see them. It's as simple as that.
- Melting_Harps 2y ago
  > the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value This, I met the daughter of a colleague who was one of the UK Olympian rowers/crew and after I fed her and got her 2 drinks in she started telling me what her 'off-season' activities consisted of: her father as much as he tried could only afford to pay a fraction of her training costs and living expenses and they were well off land owners from Cornwall. She basically got her Captains lisc and took the affluent people from the City on everything from booze cruises, to hen nights in the English channel to France etc... The debauchery was obscene and made her witness some of the darkest aspects of humanity to pursue this dream she had, which was admirable in a way, but I knew that after a few years when she got really injured, or aged out or the money simply ran dry this would be her REAL life. OF wasn't a thing back then, but I wonder if given the choice she would prefer the choice of uploading anon sexy feet pics or babysitting people go into drunk or coke fueled stupors where she is psychically restraining people from falling into the water while heavily intoxicated causing her to lose her license, or livelihood or at best increase her insurance rates. Then again OF has the same problem where the top talent takes <90% of the money, and those are often managed and curated by agencies which have been dubbed the E-pimps of OF [0]. 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/magazine/e-pimps-onlyfans.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/magazine/e-pimps-onlyfans...
jalapenos 2y ago
System working as designed? Like, if your hobby is throwing a disc as far as you can, have fun. But don't expect many people to pay to watch right? But people pay a whole lot to see nice bodies doing sexual stuff. So since money comes from what other people value, no need for a surprised Pikachu face.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  A few years ago, I remember when the Olympics was hosted in Vancouver, BC. The news reported that an insane amount of free condoms was distributed to the athletes. Some lower level athletes were interviewed, and they said they knew they had zero chance of a medal, but were having the time of their lives.
  - afterburner 2y ago
    They were also easy souvenirs to hoard.
  - jalapenos 2y ago
    I think people chose to interpret that more lasciviously than it was. If you offer something for free, especially to people we now understand to often be quite poor, they're going to fill their suitcase with them. Even if you are offering beer coasters for free, someone's going to fill their suitcase with them.
  - benjijay 2y ago
    This always gets the pearl-clutchers out of the woodwork - you're gathering a few hundred of the world's fittest people in peak performance mode in the same place for a few weeks, giving most of them a huge amount of downtime, what do you THINK is going to happen? (This is the general 'you', not YOU) Providing free access to make sure things are happening safely is not what's 'encouraging the behaviour' here :D
- Frieren 2y ago
  > if your hobby "Olympians" representing their countries. - Is your hobby "to create software"? Then you should not be paid for it. - Do you like to help peolpe? Then you should not be paid for being a doctor. - etc. Who should earn all the money then? The owners of the TV stations, the owners of the hospitals, basically the people that does nothing and just own things. What a dystopia of a world are we creating.
mg794613 2y ago
What? No. Nobody is turning to OnlyFans "due to a broken system". All the people in the comments here have normal jobs, so could these athetes. OnlyFans is a choice here.
mtreis86 2y ago
Could they unionize?
stakhanov 2y ago
Funny how "not getting paid" went from being a requirement [1] to being a scandal. Maybe, the government could make an agency that will employ them all and pay them a wage. Of course, it would only be fair that, if all the downside is taken up by the agency, then it will also get all the upside. Meaning: If any agency athlete starts raking in millions in sponsorship deals, then those millions will go to the agency, and the athlete will keep getting no more than their salary. Or is "privatize profits, socialize losses" the place where entitlement culture is actually at, right now? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and_professionalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and...
- brookst 2y ago
  IDK, to me there’s a difference between “not full-time employed as an athlete” and “not helped with expenses for participating in the Olympics”
  - stakhanov 2y ago
    Expenses could be orders of magnitude more than an individual's fulltime salary. Just think of the equestrian disciplines, for example, where it's pretty obvious that being independently wealthy with millions to spend on your campaign with zero hope of making that money back is just what it takes to participate. You're spending those millions and devoting your life to athletics, in preference to any pursuit that's actually, you know, productive, to compete with other similarly-positioned people for what, within the circles you travel in, passes as the ultimate status symbol. Even as things currently are, it absolutely infuriates me, that my money is taken from me involuntarily (as an involuntary license payer for public broadcasting in Germany) and given to the IOC to line the pockets of corrupt officials and further aims that I disapprove of, like overtourism and everything that surrounds the building of an olympic village etc. Every single cent's worth of transfer from my pocket to Isabel Werth's is just adding insult to injury.
nothrowaways 2y ago
Onlyfans is online prostitution. I wonder how it is legal in countries that criminalize offline prostitution.
- nothrowaways 2y ago
  Also, Onlyfans is a bad influence on the young generation. Downvote me as much as you would like, but I can argue all night kn this.
  - leosanchez 2y ago
    I agree.
  - DontchaKnowit 2y ago
    Who the hell is arguing against that? Lmao thats obvious on its face
- tomjen3 2y ago
  Onlyfans market is stupid people who don't know that you can get porn for free on the internet. Usually, more intense than most of the models on Onlyfans are willing to do.
  - rexpop 2y ago
    There's nothing more "intense" than a parasocial relationship. Well, except an actual relationship.
unsupp0rted 2y ago
It's fine when Sports Illustrated does it- that's a legitimate publication that will subtly hide the most interesting bits and retain all the money from advertising and sales. When an athlete does it directly and retains the money themselves, that's a disgrace.
- slyall 2y ago
  Athletes seem to appear in Playboy fairly often. eg Dutch skater Joy Beune was in the December 2024 issue ( in Dutch Playboy and possibly other countries )
- diggan 2y ago
  > When an athlete does it directly and retains the money themselves, that's a disgrace. I'm not getting the feeling that the article is trying to say it's a disgrace, but it's aimed at that it's a disgrace that the executives are getting all the money while the athletes sees basically none of that. Reading around, it seems like the common opinion on it, but like everyone else, I too have somewhat of a bubble so might look different in other mainstream outlets I suppose.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  The content on the two content providers might be very different than what you expect.
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    Sports Illustrated has always been considered as a soft core porn magazine.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
JamesLeonis 2y ago
The comments here are depressing, especially coming from a forum that hypes unprofitable and niche companies competing against larger "profitable" and "popular" companies. By the logic here us programmers should never work for startups and work only for the Big Tech companies because, frankly, they pay far far better and much more stable. By the logic here you shouldn't found companies because it's too niche. You can "make more money" being a senior product manager for Big Tech. By the logic here we all should move to New York and go into Finance because it pays more than Tech. And to really hammer the point home, by the logic here nobody should play High School sports or on a A/AA Farm Teams, the very farms of mediocrity that, once in a while, produce genuine greatness that go on to the AAA circuit. Be careful disparaging niches and unprofitability because that argument can and will be made against you too.
- omnee 2y ago
  I couldn't agree more. Elite Olympic athletes are a representation of extreme talent, perseverance, physicality, creativity, luck, risk-taking, emotion, mentality and work ethic. Even if I find most of the disciplines boring, sometimes unintelligible and aren't 'economically' valuable, I still admire them for representing the positive aspects of humanity. Similar behaviours are necessary in other endeavours, be they of a intellectual or physical nature, where great achievements are made.
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  Your logic is all a false dilemma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma For example, people willing to take high risks should can try working for startups, people that cannot take risks (ex: single income for a family with kids) should not. "Founding companies because it's too niche" makes no sense, we should do it as long as there is revenue to fund it. Because Finance in New York pays for than Tech means ... nothing, Tech is good enough for most people.
trallnag 2y ago
Tons of gooners out there with pockets full of cash waiting to be siphoned off. Nothing wrong with redistributing wealth.
dismalaf 2y ago
Some countries do pay their Olympians well enough to be worthwhile. Canada isn't one of those countries though lol.
752963e64 2y ago
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johnea 2y ago
Maybe they should make porn an olympic event? It wouldn't be the stupedist, and some forms are probably pretty physically demanding (can't really comment based on first person experience since I don't view it). Personally, I find the whole competitive sports industry to be a giant waste of time and money. For poelpe practicing the sports, most probably bring physical benefits. For the 99.999% who just watch it on TV, what's the point really? If someone likes sports, they should go out and play them...
- jongjong 2y ago
  They could incorporate porn into each event so for example, they can have sex while racing at the same time. Maybe they can also eat while running and having sex. Might as well. In the pole vault event, they could try to eat a hot dog in mid air before landing on top of another naked person.
DrNosferatu 2y ago
Same for Science!

202 points by TMWNN 2y ago

Reminds me how GoFundMe is effectively a healthcare insurance that's based on donations. https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ceo/ https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ce...

rbanffy 2y ago
If you are popular enough, you might live. If you are not, oh well…
- EGreg 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > Criticizing a system built mostly on government handouts (by definition a socialist or communist structure) as being a late-stage capitalism problem shows you’ve got no clue what these terms actually mean. That's just the capitalists outright purchasing the legislators, so Walmart can employ people at minimum wage and let the taxpayers foot the bill for their healthcare and food stamps.
      - gjsman-1000 2y ago
        In that case, we’re not in a capitalist system at all, but a capitalist-socialist hybrid. Arguably, we’ve been in the hybrid since the New Deal, and it seems to have inherited the same socialism issues China is also grappling with.
        vasco 2y ago
        Social democracy is the term that is usually used.
      - gruez 2y ago
        >so Walmart can employ people at minimum wage and let the taxpayers foot the bill for their healthcare and food stamps. Do those people magically start needing food and healthcare once they're employed by walmart? Why is it suddenly walmarts problem the moment they become a walmart employee? Would anyone stakeholder in this situation (the employees, society, walmart) be better off if the employee was no longer employed?
        anotherhue 2y ago
        I think the argument is that their labour is being subsidised which amounts to a benefit for BigSam. If we had a USB or negative income tax system then that benefit would be clearly spread across the whole population evenly but instead the stamp system has many rules and restrictions that allow Walmart to strategically benefit by both positioning the role at just the right amount to qualify for the benefit (but no more) and frustratingly by being the vendor honouring the stamps.
        gruez 2y ago
        >If we had a USB or negative income tax system then that benefit would be clearly spread across the whole population evenly But we do? The EITC is basically a negative income tax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit >I think the argument is that their labour is being subsidised which amounts to a benefit for BigSam. Ironically negative income taxes are closer to a labor "subsidy", than food stamps, because they're contingent on income (ie. labor), unlike food stamps which don't give you more money if you make more.
    - plagiarist 2y ago
      Government assistance is neither socialism nor communism. You do not understand what those terms mean. Additionally, most of the government handouts we see are going to large corporations or the military.
    - manishader 2y ago
      Late stage capitalism is just economics and philosophy for unlearned people who haven't read much or had much education in economics or philosophy. Imagine believing in historicism in 2024. It is even dumber than believing in witchcraft or horoscopes.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      > Criticizing a system built mostly on government handouts This was not what I was criticising. It was about turning someone’s life into entertainment and, in this extreme GoFundMe example, the right to life becoming a function of how entertaining one is. > (by definition a socialist or communist structure) Socialism and communism are not about government handouts. Both are about controlling the means of production (industries, farms) by the people (implying democratic representation). You might correctly argue that the Soviet Union was not a shining beacon of how to implement it, and this is what details almost every discussion on the subject.
      - leosanchez 2y ago
        > You might correctly argue that the Soviet Union was not a shining beacon of how to implement it India as implemented Socialism btw. Which lead to economic crisis[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Indian_economic_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Indian_economic_crisis
        sofixa 2y ago
        There isn't any mention of socialism, or anything related to it in your link. It sounds like a classic balance of payments issue (importing too much compared to exports/tourism/other revenues) being hit with an exploding in price critical import (oil). Sri Lanka had the same issues just a few years back, was it "socialism" too?
        leosanchez 2y ago
        India until 1991 was very socialist. After 1991 they implemented reforms to reduce state controls. This [0] explains a bit better [0] https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/india-and-the-tragedy-of-socialism https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/india-and-the-tragedy-of-soci...
        sofixa 2y ago
        What a shittily written article, staining the Adam Smith name. Nationalising a bunch of critical industries isn't "socialism" and the article utterly fails to explain how it is or why it's related. Historical UK, and modern France, Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia also had multiple crucial industries which were fully nationally owned. Were they socialist too?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
grecy 2y ago
One third of all donations on GoFundMe are for medical expenses. [1] the very vast majority of that must be Americans. I’m staggered how many Americans are steadfastly against socialized healthcare for all, but immediately turn to GoFundMe in desperation when their insurance tells them to take a hike. I can’t help thinking “just do that for everyone” [1] https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ceo/ https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ce...
- nothercastle 2y ago
  If you have a non emergency procedure and you are short of cash it seems like medical tourism would be a better choice
  - grecy 2y ago
    It seems like Americans have a knack for coming up with the most convoluted ways of accessing healthcare that are still expensive and inconvenient. Your idea still require paying out of pocket, requires taking unpaid time off work, flights, relying on the healthcare system of a foreign country and more. That is the worst possible "healthcare" situation I can imagine. Dozens of countries have shown you pay a lot less and get much better outcomes [1] when you just provide healthcare to everyone all the time, the same way high school, roads and street lights are provided. Why wouldn't you want that? Why on earth would you think flying to some foreign country is a better solution? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_vs_healthcare_spending.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_vs_heal...
    - nothercastle 2y ago
      I’m not saying it’s a great thing but when things are messed up you need a work around. That’s the work around, the money from go fund me is probably not enough the health care is that unaffordable
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Americans have a knack for coming up with the most convoluted ways of accessing healthcare Medical tourism is alive and well even within Europe [1]. And an entire genre of concierge medicine in America caters to rich Europeans (alongside rich Middle Easterners and Asians). [1] https://www.magazine.medicaltourism.com/article/visegrad-countries-attractive-affordable https://www.magazine.medicaltourism.com/article/visegrad-cou...
creole_wither 2y ago
You mean https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/ https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/

Handprint4469 2y ago

> "With OnlyFans, athletes are actually providing a product or service, something of value for the money they're receiving," he explained, emphasizing the need to reframe thinking. > "It's making athletes entrepreneurs."

randall 2y ago

yeah i don’t see a problem here tbh. especially if you’re a swimmer, you’re effectively naked in front of billions of people anyway.

Y-bar 2y ago
When I read the article the problem as illustrated was not primarily OnlyFans and the morality around that kind of content. It was the lack of funding for athletes and the fact that IOC forces athletes to sign away image rights that were front and center.
jmclnx 2y ago
True, but swimming is what I call an Olympic tier 1 sport. That means there seems to be plenty of support for these athletes. The hard/impossible to see on TV sports are were I think people are having big issues. But after reading the article, looks like the IOC is raking in the big bucks and exploiting all athletes. No surprise there since I and maybe everyone believes the IOC nothing but a corrupt organization.

rbanffy 2y ago

It’s bread and circus all the way down. At least they aren’t fed to lions anymore.

belval 2y ago

Sensationalistic headline aside, this is a very thorny issue. On one hand you want to provide livable wages to your athletes, but Canada just registered a deficit of 62 billions. Cuts are coming and more money to Olympians will be put up against funding for healthcare, education, etc... At some point you have to make hard decisions.

TriangleEdge 2y ago
> On one hand you want to provide livable wages to your athletes Why? Sports are just another form of entertainment for others. Same as any other performance artist.
- Y-bar 2y ago
  I think artists should have a livable wage as well.
  - themaninthedark 2y ago
    I would like to provide liveable wages for both artists and athletes. Who gets to choose which artists and athletes are funded? When do we start funding them? In high-school, before? After they graduate? There are many people who identify as athletes at that age, football players, cheerleaders. I have a 6yo son who is really good at doing various crafts and he really enjoys it, does he count as an artist? How do we define art? Are we counting the preforming arts? Does someone playing the guitar in the subway count? What about my garage band that I have with my friends? On the flip side, are we also going to ensure Taylor Swift has a livable wage for life? Tom Brady?
    - anotherhue 2y ago
      Al least you can race the athletes against each other to find out who is the best. Much hard to do that with artists. We could say we'll fund the fastest people but in all liklihood those will turn out to be people who have dedicated the most time to their sport, which is a pretty good proxy for being rich, because most people can't afford that level of time investment.

TriangleEdge 2y ago

Opinion: I stopped thinking the olympics was cool when I saw a 14 year old win gold in diving. Now I think it's a business exploiting people for money. Like any other business, if they don't like it they can stop doing it. Sports has a bad ROI on average afaik.

dustyventure 2y ago
I think the Olympics in particular are mostly supposed to be a less violent outlet for nationalism, but I think we learned from the Anger Management craze that safe outlets lead to a normalization and more of the original problem.
- RonaldDump 2y ago
  It's an absolutely awful outlet for "nationalism" in a post-national diversified world. Table tennis, for example, is basically a bunch of Chinese people battling it out for gold for their host country. Am I supposed to root for the Chinese-Australians as if they're any more representative of me than the Chinese-Canadians?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Am I supposed to root for the Chinese-Australians as if they're any more representative of me than the Chinese-Canadians? It's particularly damning that you picked two countries with almost entirely modern colonial populations.
  - tuna74 2y ago
    The second best male player in the world* is as an ethnic Swede. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truls_M%C3%B6reg%C3%A5rdh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truls_M%C3%B6reg%C3%A5rdh
    - bllguo 2y ago
      no serious fan of the sport would agree. not even truls would consider him to be the 2nd best in the world. but yes, he did have an amazing run to the silver

jacklar 2y ago

The wild part is how much everyone makes around the Olympics besides the athletes.

disqard 2y ago
I think you can s//g that in various ways, and it would be true: * Music, musicians * Publishing/journals, academics * (and more that I can't think of right now)
- linotype 2y ago
  * Startups that exit, software engineers * Pharma companies, US taxpayers funding basic research * Waltons, Walmart employees The list is endless.
  - 542354234235 2y ago
    It is weird that it seems like the people that are generating value and the people extracting value aren't ever the same people.
    - dead_gunslinger 2y ago
      [dead]
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      Information asymmetry has never played such a large role in income inequality as it does today. I’m really hoping people are empowered to use these artificial intelligence systems to level the playing field. No idea what the likelihood of this is to happening though.
      - Vampiero 2y ago
        As long as we use these awfully inefficient models, the probability is closer to zero than it is to one.

a2tech 2y ago

This is the reality of building your life around sport—-there’s basically no money in it unless you’re on the extreme edge. I wish people would stop dumping their entire life’s energy into chasing it—-do something more useful like stamping parts out in a factory. Olympic athletes are stunningly focused achievers—I’d love to see that energy and drive applied to something that mattered.

floatrock 2y ago
Is this meant to be sarcasm? If we're comparing only stamping parts in a factory vs. pushing the human body to its limits, you probably ain't gonna make money in either. But one of them is going to be a far more satisfying way to live for the soul. We can talk about other things that matter, but there's probably less of that out there than you might think.
- EA-3167 2y ago
  I think the point was pretty simple: there's no reason that pursuing your Olympic dreams would be a way to make money. So feed your soul, but unless you come to it with money, be prepared to find another way to feed your wallet.
- gruez 2y ago
  >If we're comparing only stamping parts in a factory vs. pushing the human body to its limits, you probably ain't gonna make money in either. But one of them is going to be a far more satisfying way to live for the soul. You can't eat "more satisfying way to live for the soul", and if you can't convince people to sponsor your endeavors, then you'll have to get a job that produce goods/services people are willing to pay for, like most other people.
PapstJL4U 2y ago
If you don't put in the energy and drive, someone else will and someone else will be good enough to make money of their drive and energy. It's although very hard to just find something else, that gives you the same satisfaction as your favourite "past-time" - the only job that is as good as doing sport, is sport as a job.

TMWNN 2y ago

Title edited by me for length from original "Olympians are turning to OnlyFans to fund dreams as they face a 'broken' finance system".

aomix 2y ago

Olympians being "people with really intense hobbies" is still weird to me. I haven't reconciled in my mind that the life of AA baseball players getting paid a little more than minimum wage plus a meal stipend is a dream for 90% of Olympians who, if they win, become national symbols of excellence for a week every 4 years.

rawcal 2y ago
Wasn't "people with really intense hobbies" how modern olympics started though, going as far as banning professionals in early days?
- Lukas_Skywalker 2y ago
  „Early days“ is until 1990 in that case, which is surprisingly late. Some nations got around the ban by employing the athletes as soldiers and allowing them to prepare almost full time though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and_professionalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and...
  - nradov 2y ago
    The US Army still does that through the World Class Athletic Program. It's an effective recruiting and morale program. https://www.armywcap.com/ https://www.armywcap.com/
  - apocadam 2y ago
    Thanks for the link, this made me chuckle: There was also a prevailing concept of fairness, in which practising or training was considered tantamount to cheating.[176] Those who practised a sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[176]
- AngryData 2y ago
  Yes it was originally, but now you gotta have the money and time to pursue that sport at a professional level if you want to have any chance of even getting into the Olympics. Personally I think it would be better if it was just regular joes doing the Olympics again, but state political interests kept dipping their hand into the pool to try and secure wins for some dubious political points.

jasdi 2y ago

The story is not about the Olympians. It's about Platformization (+ Datafication + Finacialization). When Platform Capitalism the book came out, feels like a decade ago, literally everyone agreed its Unsustainable. Its not just about how well your mindless dumbfuck platform milks the consumer and producer simultaneously. Its about all the Platforms doing it simultaneously across every single sector you look at. Just look at GDP by sector, and ask yourself which sector hasn't been platformized? Sooner or later the only option on the table for Govt will be to ask China how they handled Jack Ma.

snowwrestler 2y ago

In the early 1990s a paddler named Eric Jackson was fast enough to make the U.S. Olympic team in whitewater slalom kayak. But he lacked funds to go. So he dressed up in his full paddling outfit and brought his boat (4m long in those days) and paddle to a street corner in downtown DC. He set up a “meet an Olympian” sign and charged people cash to have their picture taken with him. Much hustle, very entrepreneurial of him, and he made a decent amount of money. But he got into huge trouble with the U.S. Olympic establishment, and was almost dropped from that team. They said they were scandalized that he would dare to try to make personal money from his Olympic team status. It became clear to some that they were also mad he dared to demonstrate how poor many Olympic athletes actually were—by essentially begging on a street corner in a part of town full of prominent people.

IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
[flagged]
shakna 2y ago
I can't actually find anything on that story. Any chance you have anything? He does describe building his own kayak for the event. [0] But that's probably just to help promote his business. [0] https://hub.jacksonkayak.com/2019/11/the-unabridged-history-of-jackson-kayak/ https://hub.jacksonkayak.com/2019/11/the-unabridged-history-...
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
"You're on the team, but you have to fund your own trip to the Olympics to compete." ... "No not like that!" Never knew if it was real but I've seen on reddit several times that letter someone got from their employer chastising them for not owning a newer, nicer vehicle, since they were making good money at their job and it was "hurting the reputation of the business" that they were driving effectively a poor person's car. It feels far fetched but at the same time, also feels exactly like the irrelevant twaddle that a certain kind of upper management type would make his secretary write a letter about.
- vasac 2y ago

oldpersonintx 2y ago

[dead]

tsss 2y ago

[flagged]

PapstJL4U 2y ago
Is it a hobby because they like doing it?
- anotherhue 2y ago
  What is the economic output? Entertainment as far as I can tell. For a few days every four years. That's not a good return on the time invested. If it's a hobby then there's no expected return, so it feels closer to that. I don't begrudge them, and would be in favour of a sensible fixed amount of federal funding, but it ain't a job.
  - Lukas_Skywalker 2y ago
    > What is the economic output? Entertainment as far as I can tell. For a few days every four years. That's not a good return on the time invested. I‘d guess the vast majority of Olympians do compete in other events outside the Olympics and do provide more entertainment than just once every four years. The Olympics don‘t pay the bills, but other events do. And many athletes are effectively employed by their countries, be it as soldiers, border guards or through some kind of sports support system.
    - anotherhue 2y ago
      Having them be fitness advocates or guest trainers in schools etc. sounds ideal.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    > What is the economic output? The tv rights and advertising sell for billions. In person ticket sales in the 100's of millions. The economic output is the same as all the other sports, theatres, movies, television, museums, landmarks and royal families.

coretx 2y ago

Nobody sane wants to finance a WW3 Olympics because nobody wants to be associated with the WW2 Berlin Olympics.

erulabs 2y ago

Turns out the real alienation is the artists and athletes, not the workers producing luxury goods. Capitalism is great, it feeds billions, but it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that we can provide generational wealth to anyone who can produce beans a bit better, while the transcendental has pitiful returns. On one hand, we need beans. On the other, it sure is nice to transcend from time to time. Over all I think it’s wildly important we’re slanted towards the mundane, but next time you see a poor artist or a talented young athlete: put some money in the hat.

looneysquash 2y ago
Tossing a coin to your Witcher is not sufficient to fix our broken capitalism system.
- erulabs 2y ago
  I think the system that orients us away from our passions and towards the mundane is a good thing actually. It hurts the soul but it nourishes the body. However we should all become patrons of the arts, so that we can also nourish the soul. Ain’t nothing so broken that love can’t fix it.
  - foliovision 2y ago
    Based on the average diet in North America (fast food, oversized portions, GMO vegetables which look good but are nutrition free, hormone overloaded beef, chlorinated chicken, this is the short list), I would argue the system (North American style capitalism does not nourish the body. I'd also apply the same thought to North American arts and sports. Singing about hoes and bling, while clutching your testicles or ring fighting hardly feed the soul. The Olympians should get proper state funding. They do inspire.

SunlitCat 2y ago

That title reminded me on different Olympians who got their "aesthetic" pictures taken for a certain adult oriented print magazine, which most people buy only for the really good articles they have, of course! ;)

Invictus0 2y ago

Some really bizarre and dystopically capitalistic in this comments section. Olympic athletes are a significant source of national pride and optimism and sport is a powerful positive expression of the human spirit. We all get value from them, we should feel comfortable giving them at least a small amount of money for their efforts. Currently we give gold medalists around $40k, which I think is pretty low but better than nothing.

infamousclyde 2y ago
Thanks for your sanity. My wife is a (Canadian) Olympian and I almost feel betrayed by the level of condescension towards sports in this forum that I am normally aligned with. Like engineers denigrating the arts because it doesn’t generate value— it makes me think some folks are not experiencing what life has to offer.

dialup_sounds 2y ago

When the Greeks invented the games the competitors were all buck naked and oiled up. You ever think we should just cut out the middlemen? Skip the governments, the international organizations, the television networks, and get back to the basic principle of fit naked people doing fit naked things in front of an admiring audience. At Strigil (YC '25) we're disrupting the Olympic market by combining best-of-breed athletic performance, carbon-neutral plant-based olive oil, and blockchain-enabled generative AI into a powerful democratized platform for distributing nudes of greased up hardbodies. Our proprietary deep learning model has been trained on the world's largest corpus of ancient Greek horticulture texts and over one hundred million data points of Twitter users thirsting over Olympic athletes in order to select the optimal oil characteristics for each athlete to maximize viewer engagement during each competition. Olives are harvested by our fleet of autonomous drones and pressed to order in our bespoke IoT oil presses (designed by Teenage Engineering) and delivered to athletes in amphora made of up to 20% recycled ocean plastic. Athletes sign up for competitions via our mobile app (iOS only, Android coming soon). Though our partnerships with UberEats and DoorDash, world-class athletes are able to earn additional income by delivering burritos and hard seltzer to sedentary WfH software developers on their way to the games. Each of our events is held in modern athletic facilities crowdsourced from areas of town your mother told you not to drive through at night, and streamed to viewers via our unnecessarily custom scalable streaming architecture written in Rust. Viewers that do not wish to view sweaty naked bodies flexing and gyrating can purchase skins in the point shop or choose an ad-supported plan. Our real-time 3D vision model ensconces the rippling flesh of top athletes with ray-traced cloth simulation at resultions up to 4k, ensuring there is no nothing between you and pure athletic expression except a screen and message from one of our 937 advertising partners. As part of our sustainability pledge, we've replaced the traditional Olympic medal made from non-renewable materials with fully digital NFT medals, allowing the victors to show off their accomplishments in their virtual trophy case in the metaverse. Launching Q3, athletes will even be able sell their valuable medals on the bustling NFT marketplace to when they're inevitably driven into crushing medical debt.

BlueTemplar 2y ago
applause_sounds
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hnburnsy 2y ago

When parents and athletes decide to embark on this journey, it is well known that being an Olympian doesn't pay for many sports, similar to choosing your degree in college. Maybe parents should rethink spending hundreds of thousands in coaching, training, travel, competitions, etc. from 12-18. I always chuckle when I read about an athlete getting a college scholarship, when it is clear that they already spent 4 times that on their development to get that scholarship.

FireBeyond 2y ago
The NBA apparently does a pretty good job of trying to be responsible, here. They'll send letters to players at college. "Congratulations on becoming a Div 1 College Basketball player. You need to keep focusing on your studies, because [they break down stats that show that ~1% of even Division 1 players will make it to the NBA]."

tennisflyi 2y ago

This will be a much bigger issue when it’s female swimmers and gymnasts

deleted 2y ago

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potato3732842 2y ago

20yr ago they were all stripping for all of the same reasons but that was easier to keep on the down low because some journalist couldn't see and contact a dozen of them from their desk and many employers didn't even know who these people were. It really is a no brainer when you consider the investment they have to make in their bodies.

nabla9 2y ago
I was there six months in Dubai consulting for Al-Futtaim and quickly realized that female athletes are now doing way more than stripping and taking pictures. The high level escort services use business jets to move good looking people into and out of Dubai. They must get paid a lot when it costs $5,000 and $8,000 per hour to move them around. Eastern European athletes are over-represented but there are many westerners as well. Dubai is the Vegas for ultra rich "What happens in Dubai stays in Dubai."
raxxor 2y ago
I would assume that not everyone with a "great body" would want to do stripping and I don't think it is a "no brainer" at all. Problem with many sports is that they just don't earn enough money, which mostly is in advertising, and that doing it professionally is rather costly.
- jalapenos 2y ago
  100% I'd strip. Putting that much toil in I'd want maximum compensation
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    I decided to write compilers because my initial foray into stripping flopped.
    - messe 2y ago
      And still found a way to show the world your D.

WalterBright 2y ago

> In a way, it is akin to modern-day slavery They all have a free choice about whether to be an Olympian or to take a more lucrative career path. It was obvious to me even as a kid that the chances of making money as an Olympian is about as probable as making money as a singer in a rock and roll band. I.e. a thoroughly impractical career choice. Even worse, no matter how good you are, a random injury or getting the flu at the wrong moment will destroy your chances. > It's making athletes entrepreneurs Along with artists, painters, photographers, etc.

baq 2y ago
> They all have a free choice about whether to be an Olympian or to take a more lucrative career path. Not everyone is born capable of being an Olympic athlete and the career path of being one alongside associated opportunity costs is chosen long before the person can consciously and rationally make decisions about themselves. Also, not everyone is as bright as a kid as you.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  The kids have parents who are empowered to make those decisions for them, for exactly the reason you suggest. Of course, some parents make poor decisions - but it's a free country, but not free from the consequences of bad decisions. Or do you suggest someone else make those decisions for the kids?
  - baq 2y ago
    I don’t have a solution for those kids but I know telling them they shouldn’t have chosen to be athletes is missing the point you yourself bring up - which is, their parents made those decisions for them. Humans are not rational economic actors.
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      > I know telling them they shouldn’t have chosen to be athletes is missing the point you yourself bring up They can't alter the past, but they can cut their losses now. It will also hopefully help the next generation of potentially professional athletes.

moi2388 2y ago

The real crime is that it’s unfortunately male athletes :(

qingcharles 2y ago

Even with their existing fan base (which might or might not be interested in seeing them less clothed), OnlyFans is not a sustainable income model for most creators: https://social-rise.com/blog/average-onlyfans-income https://social-rise.com/blog/average-onlyfans-income

popcalc 2y ago
Statistically most accounts are people signing up, trying it for a couple days half-heartedly, and giving up. You can be morbidly obese, deformed, and geriatric and rake in multiple six figures /year within months if you're going in with an actual agency.
eterm 2y ago
That's actually a lot higher than I was expecting. The average twitch streamer makes essentially nothing.

gadders 2y ago

Given the amount of money floating around in the Olympic system, it's ridiculous that athletes don't get paid properly. Leaving aside the whole drug aspect of the Enhanced Games, at least they are committing to pay athletes properly. Also these are the salaries of the IoC directors: https://www.sportandpolitics.de/ioc-directors-salaries-2024-documentation/ https://www.sportandpolitics.de/ioc-directors-salaries-2024-...

pgryko 2y ago
Late stage capitalism - why would they pay athletes properly?

rob74 2y ago

> "Some people are judgy about sex work. People say it's a shame or even that it is shameful," Mitcham said. "But what I do is a very light version of sex work, like the low-fat version of mayonnaise selling the sizzle rather than the steak." Hm, so which one is it now? If you're arguing that sex work shouldn't be stigmatized, it shouldn't matter how light or heavy it is?

azalemeth 2y ago
I don't think there's much hypocrisy in that statement. My interpretation would be something like this: -- I don't personally think that sex work should be stigmatised -- Other people do stigmatise it, however. -- I would like to point out to these people that what I do is analogous to a light version of sex work [and arguably any professional sportsperson sells their body one way or another - so why not this?]
- xuhu 2y ago
  (flashbacks of reading comprehension exams intensify) He doesn't seem to state his position on whether proper sex work should be stigmatized or not, just that others think it should be.

piokoch 2y ago

Good to know that not only my homeland Olympic Committee is a pathological organization!

Trustable8 2y ago

I believe the Olympics is meant to be a career for the rich, and the IOC will do its best to keep working-class people out by removing their opportunities, especially in popular sports. If too many rich kids can't get into Olympic teams, then the IOC will make sure that avenues like OnlyFans are banned.

dsign 2y ago

Isn't this a win-win situation? Now we all have an excuse to support outstanding sports people directly. Even better, that excuse can be used the other way if one is in need.

hartator 2y ago

I don’t think we should paying taxes to support this of events. There is little support that sport competition is any good for humankind and Socrate argued in his days that competition had the reverse effect of making you see others as the enemy.

ossobuco 2y ago
The entire economy is based on competition; if we agree that cooperation beats competition for the common good, then we have much larger systemic changes to do before we get to sports.

braza 2y ago

Being a former athlete (100/200 meters), the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value, and if you are from javelin throwing, fencing, or racewalking, unless you have a great sponsor, it will definitely require personal sacrifices to make it to the games. In Brazil a very long time ago, there was a gigantic tug of war between the top-tier sports (especially volleyball and football) and the low-tier sports, and the issue is that from the prize pool, most went to the major sports. The partial solution for it was to incentivize the corporations to do the sponsorships, and the ones that made it got some tax benefits (sometimes in a 1:2).

insane_dreamer 2y ago
this is the same in sports in general. In almost every country, players from certain sports earn many times more what players in other sports make. I don't think there's any "fix" for this -- some sports will always be more popular than others, and those who play those particular sports will have more financial opportunities.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Athletes get money in rough proportion to how many and how much fans are willing to pay to see them. It's as simple as that.
Melting_Harps 2y ago
> the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value This, I met the daughter of a colleague who was one of the UK Olympian rowers/crew and after I fed her and got her 2 drinks in she started telling me what her 'off-season' activities consisted of: her father as much as he tried could only afford to pay a fraction of her training costs and living expenses and they were well off land owners from Cornwall. She basically got her Captains lisc and took the affluent people from the City on everything from booze cruises, to hen nights in the English channel to France etc... The debauchery was obscene and made her witness some of the darkest aspects of humanity to pursue this dream she had, which was admirable in a way, but I knew that after a few years when she got really injured, or aged out or the money simply ran dry this would be her REAL life. OF wasn't a thing back then, but I wonder if given the choice she would prefer the choice of uploading anon sexy feet pics or babysitting people go into drunk or coke fueled stupors where she is psychically restraining people from falling into the water while heavily intoxicated causing her to lose her license, or livelihood or at best increase her insurance rates. Then again OF has the same problem where the top talent takes <90% of the money, and those are often managed and curated by agencies which have been dubbed the E-pimps of OF [0]. 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/magazine/e-pimps-onlyfans.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/magazine/e-pimps-onlyfans...

jalapenos 2y ago

System working as designed? Like, if your hobby is throwing a disc as far as you can, have fun. But don't expect many people to pay to watch right? But people pay a whole lot to see nice bodies doing sexual stuff. So since money comes from what other people value, no need for a surprised Pikachu face.

WalterBright 2y ago
A few years ago, I remember when the Olympics was hosted in Vancouver, BC. The news reported that an insane amount of free condoms was distributed to the athletes. Some lower level athletes were interviewed, and they said they knew they had zero chance of a medal, but were having the time of their lives.
- afterburner 2y ago
  They were also easy souvenirs to hoard.
- jalapenos 2y ago
  I think people chose to interpret that more lasciviously than it was. If you offer something for free, especially to people we now understand to often be quite poor, they're going to fill their suitcase with them. Even if you are offering beer coasters for free, someone's going to fill their suitcase with them.
- benjijay 2y ago
  This always gets the pearl-clutchers out of the woodwork - you're gathering a few hundred of the world's fittest people in peak performance mode in the same place for a few weeks, giving most of them a huge amount of downtime, what do you THINK is going to happen? (This is the general 'you', not YOU) Providing free access to make sure things are happening safely is not what's 'encouraging the behaviour' here :D
Frieren 2y ago
> if your hobby "Olympians" representing their countries. - Is your hobby "to create software"? Then you should not be paid for it. - Do you like to help peolpe? Then you should not be paid for being a doctor. - etc. Who should earn all the money then? The owners of the TV stations, the owners of the hospitals, basically the people that does nothing and just own things. What a dystopia of a world are we creating.

mg794613 2y ago

What? No. Nobody is turning to OnlyFans "due to a broken system". All the people in the comments here have normal jobs, so could these athetes. OnlyFans is a choice here.

mtreis86 2y ago

Could they unionize?

stakhanov 2y ago

Funny how "not getting paid" went from being a requirement [1] to being a scandal. Maybe, the government could make an agency that will employ them all and pay them a wage. Of course, it would only be fair that, if all the downside is taken up by the agency, then it will also get all the upside. Meaning: If any agency athlete starts raking in millions in sponsorship deals, then those millions will go to the agency, and the athlete will keep getting no more than their salary. Or is "privatize profits, socialize losses" the place where entitlement culture is actually at, right now? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and_professionalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games#Amateurism_and...

brookst 2y ago
IDK, to me there’s a difference between “not full-time employed as an athlete” and “not helped with expenses for participating in the Olympics”
- stakhanov 2y ago
  Expenses could be orders of magnitude more than an individual's fulltime salary. Just think of the equestrian disciplines, for example, where it's pretty obvious that being independently wealthy with millions to spend on your campaign with zero hope of making that money back is just what it takes to participate. You're spending those millions and devoting your life to athletics, in preference to any pursuit that's actually, you know, productive, to compete with other similarly-positioned people for what, within the circles you travel in, passes as the ultimate status symbol. Even as things currently are, it absolutely infuriates me, that my money is taken from me involuntarily (as an involuntary license payer for public broadcasting in Germany) and given to the IOC to line the pockets of corrupt officials and further aims that I disapprove of, like overtourism and everything that surrounds the building of an olympic village etc. Every single cent's worth of transfer from my pocket to Isabel Werth's is just adding insult to injury.

nothrowaways 2y ago

Onlyfans is online prostitution. I wonder how it is legal in countries that criminalize offline prostitution.

nothrowaways 2y ago
Also, Onlyfans is a bad influence on the young generation. Downvote me as much as you would like, but I can argue all night kn this.
- leosanchez 2y ago
  I agree.
- DontchaKnowit 2y ago
  Who the hell is arguing against that? Lmao thats obvious on its face
tomjen3 2y ago
Onlyfans market is stupid people who don't know that you can get porn for free on the internet. Usually, more intense than most of the models on Onlyfans are willing to do.
- rexpop 2y ago
  There's nothing more "intense" than a parasocial relationship. Well, except an actual relationship.

unsupp0rted 2y ago

It's fine when Sports Illustrated does it- that's a legitimate publication that will subtly hide the most interesting bits and retain all the money from advertising and sales. When an athlete does it directly and retains the money themselves, that's a disgrace.

slyall 2y ago
Athletes seem to appear in Playboy fairly often. eg Dutch skater Joy Beune was in the December 2024 issue ( in Dutch Playboy and possibly other countries )
diggan 2y ago
> When an athlete does it directly and retains the money themselves, that's a disgrace. I'm not getting the feeling that the article is trying to say it's a disgrace, but it's aimed at that it's a disgrace that the executives are getting all the money while the athletes sees basically none of that. Reading around, it seems like the common opinion on it, but like everyone else, I too have somewhat of a bubble so might look different in other mainstream outlets I suppose.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
The content on the two content providers might be very different than what you expect.
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  Sports Illustrated has always been considered as a soft core porn magazine.
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JamesLeonis 2y ago

The comments here are depressing, especially coming from a forum that hypes unprofitable and niche companies competing against larger "profitable" and "popular" companies. By the logic here us programmers should never work for startups and work only for the Big Tech companies because, frankly, they pay far far better and much more stable. By the logic here you shouldn't found companies because it's too niche. You can "make more money" being a senior product manager for Big Tech. By the logic here we all should move to New York and go into Finance because it pays more than Tech. And to really hammer the point home, by the logic here nobody should play High School sports or on a A/AA Farm Teams, the very farms of mediocrity that, once in a while, produce genuine greatness that go on to the AAA circuit. Be careful disparaging niches and unprofitability because that argument can and will be made against you too.

omnee 2y ago
I couldn't agree more. Elite Olympic athletes are a representation of extreme talent, perseverance, physicality, creativity, luck, risk-taking, emotion, mentality and work ethic. Even if I find most of the disciplines boring, sometimes unintelligible and aren't 'economically' valuable, I still admire them for representing the positive aspects of humanity. Similar behaviours are necessary in other endeavours, be they of a intellectual or physical nature, where great achievements are made.
AdrianB1 2y ago
Your logic is all a false dilemma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma For example, people willing to take high risks should can try working for startups, people that cannot take risks (ex: single income for a family with kids) should not. "Founding companies because it's too niche" makes no sense, we should do it as long as there is revenue to fund it. Because Finance in New York pays for than Tech means ... nothing, Tech is good enough for most people.

trallnag 2y ago

Tons of gooners out there with pockets full of cash waiting to be siphoned off. Nothing wrong with redistributing wealth.

dismalaf 2y ago

Some countries do pay their Olympians well enough to be worthwhile. Canada isn't one of those countries though lol.

752963e64 2y ago

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johnea 2y ago

Maybe they should make porn an olympic event? It wouldn't be the stupedist, and some forms are probably pretty physically demanding (can't really comment based on first person experience since I don't view it). Personally, I find the whole competitive sports industry to be a giant waste of time and money. For poelpe practicing the sports, most probably bring physical benefits. For the 99.999% who just watch it on TV, what's the point really? If someone likes sports, they should go out and play them...

jongjong 2y ago
They could incorporate porn into each event so for example, they can have sex while racing at the same time. Maybe they can also eat while running and having sex. Might as well. In the pole vault event, they could try to eat a hot dog in mid air before landing on top of another naked person.

DrNosferatu 2y ago

Same for Science!