It's not just the UK. The Olympics has their heads buried so far up corporate backsides, they're operating with a 20th century mentality.
Time to shut the whole thing down and come up with something relevant.
Time to shut the whole thing down and come up with something relevant.
After banning employees from promoting the event through status updates, Instagram posts and effectively killing all other advertising with the "it's again the TOS to link to us unless you're spinning us in a positive light" thing they just pulled a few weeks ago, I'm over the entire thing before it even began.
The Olympic games is no different from Christmas: there were good intentions when it was started, but it has devolved into commercialism and a bastardization of what the original spirit was.
The rest of the Olympic 'traditions' were invented at the 1936 games for not-dissimilar reasons.
Crass commercialisation is probably the "nice side" of the olympics.
The way I see it, an overwhelming majority of sports showcased at the Olympics are not watched or cared about at all outside of the Olympics. Who's going to be following the hurdles in three weeks time? Not enough people for a hurdler to make a living I suspect.
They take on sponsorships while training so that they can afford to take breaks from their normal jobs to train (though a few employers, such as the HomeDepot, actively recruit Olympians and provide generous training allowances).
Elected leaders of major democratic nations bending over to do what the divinely appointed leaders of a bunch of steroid cases say