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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

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.
- magxnta 2y ago
  I represented my country in cycle ball as well. The thing is that nobody is really interested in that, similar to how nobody is interested in people throwing discs as far as possible. Just because you represent a country, it’s not necessarily interesting and people don’t have to get paid for it.
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  Creating software is an economically profitable activity that many people are willing to pay top dollar for. Throwing a disc really far by hand, not so much. That said, the "hobby" angle is irrelevant here. As the article points out, the IOC makes an absolute fuckton of money from Olympic broadcast rights and sponsors, essentially none of which flows back to the actual athletes.
  - timeon 2y ago
    However end result is often the same.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > As the article points out, the IOC makes an absolute fuckton of money from Olympic broadcast rights and sponsors, essentially none of which flows back to the actual athletes. A lot of it flows back into the Olympic Committees of each country, who are in charge of spreading it, investing into infrastructure, youth development, etc.
- matips 2y ago
  > "Olympians" representing their countries. Yes, but people connected to Olympic want to be independent from governments. In some way Olympians Games are private tournaments which are sponsored by host countries. It is funny that "Olympians" representing my country when they demands public money, but are independent from government when we are talking about organization of National Olympic Committee.
sureIy 2y ago
Average people, no. People most definitely pay to watch olympians. In fact, they spend thousands of dollars to travel across the world to do so. Whether this can be a career depends on the specific sport.
- lmm 2y ago
  People travel around the world and pay a lot to see a small handful of big-name sports. The long tail of olympic events is watched mostly by people who came for the big-name sports (or lived there already) and figured they might as well catch something else while they were in town.
ccppurcell 2y ago
Well the IOC makes an enormous amount of money that has to come from somewhere. That is a reflection of the demand. Tickets are extremely expensive and the deals for live broadcast also involve huge amounts of money, which broadcasters wouldn't pay if they didn't think many would watch. The point of this article is simply that a bigger fraction of that money should go to the athletes. They are prevented in various ways from bargaining collectively.
- n144q 2y ago
  These days I start to think (US) college sports, as bad as they are for many reasons, are much better than the Olympics, in the sense that at least athletes don't need to worry about being able to afford the training.
igor47 2y ago
I mean... Yes okay. But is this the world you prefer? Wouldn't it be nice if we could both tell children to be the best they could be at something, to strive for greatness... And then also supported them when they did? Or would you rather reduce humanity to the cold calculus of capitalism?
- unsupp0rted 2y ago
  Yes, I prefer it this way. Children can be the best they can be at something, and have that thing generate no value to anybody else around them. No need to subsidize it.
  - kitd 2y ago
    Children can be the best they can be at something, and have that thing generate no value to anybody else around them Except that the IOC generate billions in revenue so there obviously is value to a lot of people in it somewhere. The problem as stated is that the root source of that value, ie the athletes, see very little of that revenue.
    - lmm 2y ago
      > the IOC generate billions in revenue so there obviously is value to a lot of people in it somewhere. There's value in the Olympics, sure, but that value is concentrated in a handful of big-name sports. The smaller ones come along for the ride rather than generating value themselves.
  - JambalayaJimbo 2y ago
    People very much do care about the olympics… once every 4 years. There is clearly value generated by throwing a disk around, and it’s not being distributed well.
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      They do care for a few seconds on average per viewer… so that small amount of value is making its way to the athlete. It’s just a fraction of a cent per viewer. So even with hundreds of millions of viewers it’s still barely a hundred thousand dollars to be split up between all disk throwers.
eviks 2y ago
> But don't expect many people to pay to watch right? Why did you ignore the fact from the article that people do pay to watch (it's one of the most watched events in the world) it's just that that money doesn't reach the athletes? Not sure which pokemon represents that
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  once every four years (and that's if you're good enough to make it to multiple olympics) isn't going to pay the bills
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - eviks 2y ago
    This doesn't make sense as 1) it entirely depends on the prize and the financing infrastructure around it 2) athletes can participate in other competitions besides the Olympics
    - sofixa 2y ago
      > athletes can participate in other competitions besides the Olympics They can, but almost none of them are even remotely as popular as the Olympics. The only exceptions are in massive sports (football, in the US american football, hockey, basketball; in countries like India cricket; tennis, F1). For every other sport, the Olympics are the pinnacle and nothing is even remotely comparable.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      1) athletes don't make much prize money from the Olympics; what it can lead to is advertising ops and endorsements -- and that's where money comes in. 2) yeah, but who watches those? and if there's nobody watching then there's not much money in it
- moi2388 2y ago
  Murkrow, sneasel, thievul, gholdengo

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.

magxnta 2y ago
I represented my country in cycle ball as well. The thing is that nobody is really interested in that, similar to how nobody is interested in people throwing discs as far as possible. Just because you represent a country, it’s not necessarily interesting and people don’t have to get paid for it.
teractiveodular 2y ago
Creating software is an economically profitable activity that many people are willing to pay top dollar for. Throwing a disc really far by hand, not so much. That said, the "hobby" angle is irrelevant here. As the article points out, the IOC makes an absolute fuckton of money from Olympic broadcast rights and sponsors, essentially none of which flows back to the actual athletes.
- timeon 2y ago
  However end result is often the same.
- sofixa 2y ago
  > As the article points out, the IOC makes an absolute fuckton of money from Olympic broadcast rights and sponsors, essentially none of which flows back to the actual athletes. A lot of it flows back into the Olympic Committees of each country, who are in charge of spreading it, investing into infrastructure, youth development, etc.
matips 2y ago
> "Olympians" representing their countries. Yes, but people connected to Olympic want to be independent from governments. In some way Olympians Games are private tournaments which are sponsored by host countries. It is funny that "Olympians" representing my country when they demands public money, but are independent from government when we are talking about organization of National Olympic Committee.

sureIy 2y ago

Average people, no. People most definitely pay to watch olympians. In fact, they spend thousands of dollars to travel across the world to do so. Whether this can be a career depends on the specific sport.

lmm 2y ago
People travel around the world and pay a lot to see a small handful of big-name sports. The long tail of olympic events is watched mostly by people who came for the big-name sports (or lived there already) and figured they might as well catch something else while they were in town.

ccppurcell 2y ago

Well the IOC makes an enormous amount of money that has to come from somewhere. That is a reflection of the demand. Tickets are extremely expensive and the deals for live broadcast also involve huge amounts of money, which broadcasters wouldn't pay if they didn't think many would watch. The point of this article is simply that a bigger fraction of that money should go to the athletes. They are prevented in various ways from bargaining collectively.

n144q 2y ago
These days I start to think (US) college sports, as bad as they are for many reasons, are much better than the Olympics, in the sense that at least athletes don't need to worry about being able to afford the training.

igor47 2y ago

I mean... Yes okay. But is this the world you prefer? Wouldn't it be nice if we could both tell children to be the best they could be at something, to strive for greatness... And then also supported them when they did? Or would you rather reduce humanity to the cold calculus of capitalism?

unsupp0rted 2y ago
Yes, I prefer it this way. Children can be the best they can be at something, and have that thing generate no value to anybody else around them. No need to subsidize it.
- kitd 2y ago
  Children can be the best they can be at something, and have that thing generate no value to anybody else around them Except that the IOC generate billions in revenue so there obviously is value to a lot of people in it somewhere. The problem as stated is that the root source of that value, ie the athletes, see very little of that revenue.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > the IOC generate billions in revenue so there obviously is value to a lot of people in it somewhere. There's value in the Olympics, sure, but that value is concentrated in a handful of big-name sports. The smaller ones come along for the ride rather than generating value themselves.
- JambalayaJimbo 2y ago
  People very much do care about the olympics… once every 4 years. There is clearly value generated by throwing a disk around, and it’s not being distributed well.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    They do care for a few seconds on average per viewer… so that small amount of value is making its way to the athlete. It’s just a fraction of a cent per viewer. So even with hundreds of millions of viewers it’s still barely a hundred thousand dollars to be split up between all disk throwers.

eviks 2y ago

> But don't expect many people to pay to watch right? Why did you ignore the fact from the article that people do pay to watch (it's one of the most watched events in the world) it's just that that money doesn't reach the athletes? Not sure which pokemon represents that

insane_dreamer 2y ago
once every four years (and that's if you're good enough to make it to multiple olympics) isn't going to pay the bills
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- eviks 2y ago
  This doesn't make sense as 1) it entirely depends on the prize and the financing infrastructure around it 2) athletes can participate in other competitions besides the Olympics
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > athletes can participate in other competitions besides the Olympics They can, but almost none of them are even remotely as popular as the Olympics. The only exceptions are in massive sports (football, in the US american football, hockey, basketball; in countries like India cricket; tennis, F1). For every other sport, the Olympics are the pinnacle and nothing is even remotely comparable.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    1) athletes don't make much prize money from the Olympics; what it can lead to is advertising ops and endorsements -- and that's where money comes in. 2) yeah, but who watches those? and if there's nobody watching then there's not much money in it
moi2388 2y ago
Murkrow, sneasel, thievul, gholdengo