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).
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
The wild part is how much everyone makes around the Olympics besides the athletes.
> 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.
> "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?
Reminds me how GoFundMe is effectively a healthcare insurance that's based on donations. https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ce...
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Tons of gooners out there with pockets full of cash waiting to be siphoned off. Nothing wrong with redistributing wealth.
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-...
This will be a much bigger issue when it’s female swimmers and gymnasts
> "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."
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.
Title edited by me for length from original "Olympians are turning to OnlyFans to fund dreams as they face a 'broken' finance system".
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.
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.
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.
Good to know that not only my homeland Olympic Committee is a pathological organization!
Onlyfans is online prostitution. I wonder how it is legal in countries that criminalize offline prostitution.
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...
It’s bread and circus all the way down. At least they aren’t fed to lions anymore.
Some countries do pay their Olympians well enough to be worthwhile.
Canada isn't one of those countries though lol.
The real crime is that it’s unfortunately male athletes :(
Could they unionize?
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! ;)
Same for Science!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Nobody sane wants to finance a WW3 Olympics because nobody wants to be associated with the WW2 Berlin Olympics.
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.