Money Talks At The Winter Olympics

Looking back at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, I couldn’t believe how many articles and news stories about the Games focused on money. Despite the overwhelming success of the Games in Canada, it seemed as though people had lost their motivation to succeed for themselves, and that spending, making, and winning money, has become central in the Olympics. Undoubtedly, this will be true when the 2014 Sochii Olympics kick off in Russia.

Case in point, an Alberta company called Fast Track Group offered $1 million to any Canadian who wins gold in luge. Luge? Not hockey, not skiing, not figure skating…luge. The company awarded the Canadian Luge Association $500,000 and gave the other half to the winning luger.

And then there was an article about Own The Podium, Canada’s funding program to support athletes in hopes of winning more medals for the nation at the Olympic Games. The program cost tax payers $66 million over 5-years, and this program, which lost a portion of its money following the Games in Canada. In preparation for Sochii, the Canadian government forked out an additional $31 million to athletes and programs of 11 different sports, and another $6.9 million was delivered to athletes for living and training in 2012-2013.

I’ll go on. With less than ideal weather conditions, Vancouver officials paid $1000 per truck load of snow to stock all of Cypress Mountain, and who knows how much for the helicopter loads of snow being flown in during the Vancouver Games.

And then we have the fact that Vancouver was the first Olympic Games that the Canadian Olympic Committee rewarded medal winners with cash. $20,000 for a gold, $15,000 for a silver, and $10,000 for a bronze. I’ll take one of each please.

Finally, it comes down to sponsorship. I’m not talking about Coke, or Nike. I’m talking about the fact that an amazing organization, Right to Play, was told they were not welcome at the Olympic Games in Vancouver because their sponsors conflicted with current Olympic Games sponsors. In case you don’t know about Right to Play, they bring sport to children in areas struck by poverty, war, and disease. Just the kind of dirty organization that we should keep away from a sporting event right?

In total, taxpayers contributed $925 million to the Vancouver Games, not including the more than $500 million spent on the bid, and total costs for the Games ran to the tune of $9.2 billion.

Money really does talk these days. It’s unfortunate that the Olympic Games, an event that was once the world’s greatest display of amateur sport, is becoming such a professional and commercial venture.

It’s even worse to consider the good governments across the world could do in terms of reducing poverty, improving living conditions, and peace keeping efforts, if every two years one country pledged to contribute more than $10 billion to social issues.

It will never happen, but it’s an interesting thing to think about…