Critically evaluate how the Olympic Games has developed both politically and commercially over the last 100 years.

Student: Evan Morris Track & Field

(10042164) Tutor: Denise Roche

The Olympic Games are a quadrennial event which dates back to 776BC, at the time of the ancient Greeks. The Games were originally held at Olympia along with festivals combining prayer, sacrifices, religious service, music, dancing and rituals all dedicated to the God, Zeus, (Coakley 2001). The events in those days were for the wealthy, young males and were of warrior nature such as boxing, wrestling, javelin throwing, sprinting and chariot racing, (Coakley 2001). Women were not allowed to compete in these early Olympics. Another event was created specifically for Women, dedicated to Hera, the sister-wife of Zeus and these were known as the Heraean Games.

The modern day Olympic Games were revived by a man named Pierre De Courbetin in 1894. He formed a board of members in whom he trusted to organise and run the Olympic Games. This board of individuals was known as the International Olympic Committee, IOC. It was only possible to become a committee member by invitation from Pierre De Courbetin. In this way he ensured that he could select his committee from people whom he trusted. At the beginning, there were only 13 countries represented in the IOC. This compares to 118 members of the IOC in 1998, (Senn 1999).

The modern day Olympic programme included many events which are still seen today. Events such as sprinting, long distance running and field events have always been included. Between the years 1912-1948, architecture, sculpture, painting, music and literature where also included, (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984).

As stated previously, the first of the modern Games took place in Athens in 1896. The event saw 311 male athletes compete, representing 13 different countries. At the 2000 Games in Sydney there were 6,435 male participants and 3,931 female participants, representing 203 countries, (Coakley 2001).

The intended aims of the modern day Olympics are for amateur athletes to promote development of physical and moral qualities, to create international respect and goodwill, and to understand that the taking part is more important that winning.

In the Olympic Games there have been many political incidents over the past century. The incidents have been for many different reasons including violation of the rules, political differences and through commercial aspects. Examples of this include repossession of medals, banning of nations, boycotts, terrorism and corruption to name a few and in more recent times cheating and drug abuse has been seen.

The first incident that this essay will look at took place in 1912 at the Stockholm Games. Jim Thorpe was a decathlon gold medallist. When the IOC found out that he had been paid to play baseball three years earlier in his holidays he was disqualified as this infringed the amateur status of the Games.

However in January 1983, following an enquiry, he was reinstated as a gold medallist, (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984).

The 1936 Games were held in Berlin, Germany. At the Games Adolf Hitler banned all Jews from participating in the Games that year because of his anti-Jewish policy.

Also at the 1936 Games a black US sprinter, Jesse Owens upset Hitler by winning four gold medals. Hitler was outraged and subsequently repossed these medals and denied Owens of his victories. Along with this, in the opening ceremony, the United States refused to give the Nazi salute to Hitler, while both the United Kingdom and France obliged. This may have been a contributing factor for Hitler to stripe Owens of his medals out of spite.

After the 1940 Tokyo Games had been cancelled along with the 1944 Games due to World War II, London in 1948 also provided major controversy. The British Government banned Italy, Germany and Japan from competing in the Olympic Games due to their involvement in World War II. Germany had already previously been banned from competing in the 1924 Parisian Games due to their role in World War I.

In 1972 at the Munich Games Palistinian terrorist broke into the Olympic Village taking the Israeli athletes hostage. Eleven of these athletes were subsequently murdered as the rescue ...

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In 1972 at the Munich Games Palistinian terrorist broke into the Olympic Village taking the Israeli athletes hostage. Eleven of these athletes were subsequently murdered as the rescue attempt went tragically wrong, (Epsy 1981).

At the 1976 Montreal Games South Africa were banned from competing because they had banned all black athletes from participating in sport in South Africa.

Another political event was the boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980. “The boycott of the Moscow Olympics is the most damaging of all the political actions that have affected the Olympics over the years,” (Segrave and Chu 1981 p104). This was so because these Games saw a massive reduction in the number of competitors of one of the ‘Super Nations’ and so the competitions did not reflect who was truly the best at the time. The American Government boycotted the Moscow Games in 1980 because the Russia had invaded Afganistan. In response to this Russia then retaliated four years later boycotting the Los Angeles Games in 1984, (Epsy 1981 and Tomlinson and Whannel 1984).

The 1996 Atlanta Games were a big political showcase for America. The Games allowed the US to show how rich, powerful and prestigious America is. The Games which were known as the Coca-Colympics because of the ‘official sponsor’ being Coca-Cola. Coincidently the head office of Coca-Cola is based in Atlanta, and Coca-Cola paid over $500m for this status, (Coakley 2001).

The aspect of female participation over the years has changed. Over the past century it is clear to see that there are inequalities for female participation. This can be seen at the turn of the century where in the 1896 Games in Athens there were no female participants at all. This has still not been fully rectified to date, with only 34% of the competitors at the 1996 Atlanta Games being female. Compare this to Sydney 2000, where still only 38% of competitors were female, (Coakley 2001).

It is estimated that it will take until 2012 until we see a near equal split for male and female participants, (Coakley 2001).

The increase in female participation will benefit a nation in several ways. There will be benefits to the economy due to commercial factors. More female participants will result in more females buying and promoting sports equipment. The issue of increasing female participation in the Olympics can also give a nation a greater chance of gaining more medals, promoting the countries prestige and power. From a political point of view, this is beneficial because it provides a show ground in which dominance can be asserted over other countries but only in a sporting domain rather than a violent conflict such as war. However, Martin (1996 p3) states that, “on a number of occasions, sporting events have been the triggers for actual wars.” As illustrated previously, the aggravation around the 1936 Berlin Games may have contributed to the development of World War II.

Another issue is the lack of females in the International Olympic Committee. The positions available on the committee are by invitation only and up until 1981 no women members existed, (Coakley 2001).

“Without many voices in powerful institutions it is difficult for female interests to be expressed and released,” (Maguire et al 2002). This statement implies that without female representatives on the committee, the female athletes will not be able to influence how their sport is organised or run. Jennings (1996) identifies that the IOC aim is to have at least 20% females in decision-making posts by the year 2005.

To achieve political success at the Olympic Games some individuals have been found to be corrupt in their means of achieving this goal. The most common form of corruption in found in attaining votes from IOC members.

In the winter Olympics in 2002, Salt Lake City, four members of the IOC were found to have accepted bribes between $500,000 and $1m to vote. In the summer Games of 2000 John Coates the head of the Sydney bid was found offering $35-70,000 to Kenyan and Ugandan officials to vote for Sydney. Prior to this Jennings (1996) had already identified that sports administrators do accept bribes for personal interest.

Since the 1976 Games in Montreal when the IOC embraced commercialisation the costs of sponsorship have escalated. At these Games an American TV station ABC, paid $25m for the coverage of the Olympic Games. They reportedly made over three times this amount in the sale of advertisements, (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984), which was equated from advertising cost of $72,000 per minute, (Segrave and Chu 1981). (At the 1984 Los Angeles Games it would cost approximately $0.5m per minute for advertising, [Segrave and Chu 1981].)

Another example is that the 1996 Atlanta Games cost the official sponsor, Coca-Cola $500m. The TV coverage of the 2000 Sydney Games, 2004 Greek Games and the 2008 Chinese Games cost one television company a total of $3.5bn. Compare these vast sums of money to the first Games that were covered by TV which were the London Games in 1948 which cost the BBC £1,500, (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984). These vast sums of money are being paid, for exclusive TV coverage. This coverage can then be sold to other TV stations or can allow income from advertisements on that channel during the add breaks to increase the income. In these cases the aim is to increase the profits of the organisation by spending a relatively little, on the TV rights or being the ‘official sponsor’ compared to the financial rewards which are associated with being in these positions.

However, the IOC do not receive all the money which is sourced from TV revenues. The Mexican Olympic Committee received $4m from the coverage from ABC TV and of this only a mere $150,000 went to the IOC, (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984). After this the IOC introduced a policy to ensure that at least one-third of the revenues must be given to the IOC, (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984).

There are many examples of commercialisation within the present day Olympic Games. The Montreal Games in 1976 took major steps forward in commercialisation. |Following this event the size of the Games fore-ever increased, “as the size of the Games has increased throughout the twentieth Century, then so has the potential for the use of the Games as a global publicity machine,” (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984 Pvii). What this quote implies is that every year more people are viewing the Games and so advertisers are prepared to pay greater amounts of money for their products to be seen and associated with such a great sporting spectacle. According to Tomlinson and Whannel (1984) the Montreal Games of 1976 had up to twenty million viewers in the evening at around 10:30pm.

For the Games to take place, a government has to have an extremely high capital expenditure to allow the Games to proceed. This can be off-putting to many possible host nations.

At the 1980 Games in Moscow NBC TV out bid ABC paying $87m for the coverage of the Games, (Coakley 2001). These were Games that the US were boycotting, and yet the potential revenue from the world rights was such that two major US television companies were the front runners in the TV biddings.

In 1984 McDonalds became one of the first major ‘official sponsors’ of the Los Angeles Olympic Games along with 29 other companies including Mars, Coca-Cola and Anhauser Busch beer, (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984). In this instant the Los Angeles Olympic Organising Committee (LAOOC) had managed to attract major corporate sponsors who were all willing to pay a minimum of $4m for marketing rights under the Olympic Logo, (Tomlinson and Whannel 1984). The fast food outlet and the other major corporations were trying to promote their products alongside sport to aid sales. The associations that are made with products that are sponsoring sport events are often that of good health. This can not be said for the major sponsors of the 1984 Games as McDonalds, Mars, Coca-Cola and Beer and not health related products. This can be contrasted to events such as the London Marathon, which is sponsored by Flora, known to be a healthier alternative to butter.

Atlanta USA 1996 became known as the Coca-Colympic’s because of the ‘official sponsor’ being Coca-Cola who reportedly paid $500m for the privilege, (Coakley 2001). The reason for this was the massive global advertising that Coca-Cola would receive from the billions of spectators around the world.

The main way that the IOC is funded is through the sale of TV rights. The American TV station NBC has paid the IOC $3.5bn for the coverage of the Olympic Games from 2000-2008, (Coakley 2001). Due to these excessive amounts paid by TV stations the IOC, has become more like a transnational corporation dependent on money flows, (Martin 1996).

Also along with relevance to TV the Games have been extended by two days to allow greater coverage to increase spectator numbers thus allowing more advertisement for the ‘official sponsor’, greater interest in Olympic events and an extra few days to sell merchandise. However, Martin (1996 p2) stated that in the Olympic Games, “the media foster the Games as a giant spectacle, promoting professionalism and commercialisation.” This is contrary to the aims of the Olympics of not to be for professional athletes, and not to exhibit the athletes for financial gain, but yet, according to Martin (1996), athletes can cash in on lucrative endorsements such as sponsorship. However Kew (1997) identifies that after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics only 38% of athletes received sponsorship. Of these only a mere 5% of the athletes received over £10,000. This is not a significant amount for an amateur athlete who has worldwide travel expenses and equipment to purchase but it is a valuable source of income. One regional Sports Council member stated, “sport sponsorship is the only team game where both sides can win,” (Kew 1997 p40).

All of the pressure for rewards such as sponsorship or an Olympic Gold medal have lead some individuals to cheat, in an attempt to win at all costs. In the 1980 Moscow Olympics a soviet fencer short-circuited the electronic scoring system so he could register ‘hits’ at any time, (Kew 1997). In the 1988 Seoul Games Ben Johnson who ran a 9.79seconds 100meters was later found to have an illegal substance in his blood. He was subsequently stripped of his Gold medal, his time was disallowed and he was banned from competing for two years.

In the Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City in 2002 three cross-country skiers, Johann Muehlegg, Larissa Lazutina and Olga Danilova were all banned for substance abuse. They were all found to have darbepoetin, which is a substance to increase the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, (Conner 2002).

Conclusion:

Since the foundation of the IOC in 1896 the Olympic Games have continually been developing. The main influential factor for the changes has been money due to commercialisation. The commercialisation of the Games has stemmed from the greed of the IOC and certain political factors. Until the huge sums of money stop for TV revenue and ‘official sponsorship’ we will never fully embrace what the Olympic Games were originally conceived for, that being to promote the development of physical and moral qualities, to create international respect and goodwill and that taking part is more important than winning. Money has influenced this sporting event as the same for many others, such as football and turned the IOC into an international corporation rather than a governing body for sport. The IOC does not seem to be to concerned where the revenue comes from, whether it be Television or large corporate companies. The IOC also shows no concern about what products are being promoted alongside sport, such as burgers, beer and soft drinks. The business aspect of making huge sums of money has become more important than the promotion of sport as a healthy lifestyle.

Reference List

Coaley, J, J. (2001) Sport in Society: Issues and Controversies. McGraw Hill, New York.
Conner, F. (2002) The Olympics most Wanted. Brassey’s Press, US.
Espy, R. (1981) The Politics of the Olympic Games. University of California Press LTD, London, England.
Jennings, A. (1996) The New Lord of the Rings: Olympic Corruption and How to Buy Gold Medals. Pocket Books, London.
Kew, F. (1997) Sport Social Problems and Issues. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, England.
Maguire, J. (2002) Sports Worlds: A Sociological Perspective. Human Kinetics, Champaign: IL.
Martin, B. (1996) Ten Reasons to Oppose All Olympic Games. Available at:
Segrave, J., and Chu, D. (1981) Olympism. Human Kinetics, Champaign: IL.
Tomlinson, A., and Whannel, G. (1984) Five Ring Circus: Money, Power and Politics at the Olympic Games. Pluto Press LTD, New South Wales, Australia.