| The USA are the winners?! | |
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| Aug 24, 2008 21:53 | #11   |
 | “If only we could get rid of the nationalism and comemrcialism....haha, some chance.” Tall order, but as humans we are still evolving. Right now, countries are still in that point where they keep hammering their people of doing everything for their countries, come hell or high waters. As for commercialism, I think that will always exist. Somebody has to pay for the athletes’ plane tickets, uniforms, equipments and whatnot. Are there many athletes who have ‘real jobs’ that will allow them to be financially secure without getting paid for their sport and still have the time to train? This is their ‘job’. Athletes are some of the highest paid people in the world. Olympics as a whole is really a big business, especially for people who are into making money. |
| Aug 24, 2008 22:35 | #12 |
| Ditto SHE it's tall order. More's Utopia seems to be an impossible dream. At least, people of the generation can only daydream about the Utopia. As for commmercialism, sports is a now profitable industry. Sports has develeped into a phase of professionalism. Sports is not purely a kind of entertainment or a way of body-building, but an industry which generates enormous profits. Every year, countless athletes live on sports business. |
| Aug 24, 2008 22:59 | #13 |
| Apault - A good start in stopping the commercialism would be to write a strongly worded letter to Channel 7 who bought all the Olympic rights for Australia, and then bastardised the entire coverage with non-stop commercials. Apparently (according to my friend in Sydney) they would show a race, and then just before the finish (last lap) they would stick in a 5 minute commercial break before showing the climax in delay! My friend refused to watch it, and said that Channel 7 had ruined the Olympics for an entire nation. Maybe it's just as well, seeing they got less medals than the Poms (ouch that must have hurt!). |
| Aug 24, 2008 23:15 | #14 |
| "it's tall order. More's Utopia seems to be an impossible dream. At least, people of the generation can only daydream about the Utopia." I have not lost faith in the human race. We can do great things. It may be hard to attain but not impossible if I really want it. "and then bastardised the entire coverage with non-stop commercials. Apparently (according to my friend in Sydney) they would show a race, and then just before the finish (last lap) they would stick in a 5 minute commercial break before showing the climax in delay! My friend refused to watch it, and said that Channel 7 had ruined the Olympics for an entire nation." Many people here are complaining the same exact thing about NBC. The horror is they are saying that NBC also won the bid to cover the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. ESPN is going to bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics next year. Can't really blame them for sticking commercials before the climax, that's the time when they are sure people are watching. What's the point of showing commercials if people are not watching? |
| Aug 24, 2008 23:27 | #15 |
| But you are missing the point. There should be no exclusive rights for such events. The whole world should be able to watch their athletes performances without having to watch endless commericals for hemorrhoid creams, Indigestion tablets, and nappy rash. The BBC in the UK and CCTV in China seem to have it pretty much sussed. You ask what is the point of showing commercials if people are not watching? That is the problem. To get enough people to watch, they need to pay for exclusive rights (therefore preventing anyone else from broadcasting it). Then they ruin what should be uninterrupted sports coverage by slamming commercials in every 3 minutes. I wouldn't watch it if I was in the US of Aus. |
| Aug 25, 2008 01:38 | #16 |
| Perhaps the only way of controlling the ever increasing cost of putting on these games is to have them in one permanent place? Every participating country could then make a donation to the cost of the infrastructure. This would then do away with having to sell the broadcasting right to the highest bidder. How are the men from the IOC going to get their earner you ask?. Well they wouldn’t and that why it will never happen. Dodger. |
| Aug 25, 2008 04:27 | #17 |
| Dodger, the Olympics is a huge money earner for the host nation. We have all heard how the Olympics has cost China $40US, but the returns are immeasurable and will go on well into the future. So to have the Olympics in one place is in nobody's interest. Why do you think countries spend millions on their bids? During the next 4 years we will hear sob stories from London about how much the 2012 Olympics will cost, but the government accountants are already rubbing their hands together. |
| Aug 25, 2008 06:15 | #18 |
| Barron, I couldn’t agree more. The problem is though with the escalating costs of staging this event it will rotate between at best half a dozen countries. If it was in an independent location much like the UN compound a host nation could still be awarded the rights to run it, and that way countries with at the moment no chance at all would be able to have their piece of the pie. Their day in the sun. A silly thought I know as I could never be thought of as from the left. There are always solutions. Is there no one with big enough balls to put one on the table? I’ve probably answered my own question. No. Dodger. |
| Aug 25, 2008 19:24 | #19 |
| Maybe in a few years or maybe decades from now, small countries will be able to host the Olympics. It just depends on how fast the world will grow up. Officially, no country wins the Olympics. All the winner declarations are unofficial. The medal tallies are just that, tallies. No country is officially declared a winner. Maybe that should tell us something. So who won based on the cat/rat/panda/hamster/crocodile population? O_o |
| Aug 25, 2008 21:33 | #20 |
| Still the medal table issue. In the previous Olympic Games, they also made gold medal ranking (In Athens, they still used gold medal ranking). However, they lost in the competition with China this time. Thus, in order not be be embarrassed, they created a medal ranking counted on the total number of the medals. Another strange medal ranking invented by US counts all medals since the countries took part in the Olympics. Adopting this creative ranking, US is undoubtedly ranks No.1. Even Soviet Union couldn't compete with US let alone China who just ranked out of Top 20. Well, we may look at this thread in sports section "Interesting medal rankings" and then we can draw some conclusions. Actually, US needn't creat a new medal ranking to say they are No.1. They are still No.1. Although China won 51 gold medals in all, it hasn't won any medal in track and field. Compared with China, US is more balanced. |
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