The Olympics

Peddle Up!

We've got a great bunch of young sportsmen and women who have trained hard for the upcoming Olympic Games and I wish them every good fortune.

And yet at the same time I have a growing "bad taste in my mouth" from how the games are overtly commercialised, focussed on "London plc", militarised, etc. The whole shebang looks increasingly like a party for the rich and powerful, paid for by the rest of us.

Is it just me? :?

Bobbinogs

I find it all very depressing in that it there is no real pretence that it is really about sport, just shameless commercialism. Look at the chosen sponsors (McDonalds, BP, et al), no real links to sport just big corporate companies who are prepared to pay a shed load of cash to get the rights to flog their wares with a stupid blinking logo. One is only able to use a certain credit card to book tickets, linked to main sponsorship, obviously. Oh, and no liquids or foods allowed at the venues (in the name of security, natch) but there will be ludicrously overpriced 'beverages' and rubbish food for sale. Hotel rooms 3, 4 times the normal price, etc., In fact, you name an opportunity to strip the folks of cash and those olympiads are miles ahead when it comes to covering all the angles.

I cannot wait for it all to finish, bah humbug! Bring on Le Tour.

Cleat Eastwood

i feel the same - all the fun of sport just seems to have disappeared. Just seen some olympic mascot chocolate bars in the supermarket!!!!

It seems like the Olympic committee are aiming to judge the success of the games by how much they can rip people off for. I'd much rather have seen a culture blossoming of the minority sports that rarely get a look in over here, the archery, table tennis, the shooting etc - things families that get involved in instead of lounging around in the evening.

RichN95.

Bobbinogs wrote:

I cannot wait for it all to finish, bah humbug! Bring on Le Tour.

+1. Absolutely no shameless commercialism at Le Tour.

Peddle Up! wrote:

And yet at the same time I have a growing "bad taste in my mouth" from how the games are overtly commercialised, focussed on "London plc", militarised, etc.

Ha! I went to the Beijing Olympics and tried (generally in vain) to watch the road race. I can pretty guarantee that no-one's going to point a semi-automatic rifle at you on Box Hill (as happened to me).

I generally agree with a lot of what you say though. But also remember we have a press adept at making a mountain out of a molehill.

SmellTheGlove

I'd like someone to publicly state that everyone in the ticket allocation ballots could have had one set of tickets from their picks. I suspect that is a fact - ticketing has not been handled well.
I'm generally in favour, it being my home town games and all that, and I want it to be a success; what I don't accept is that the level of sellout to sponsors needed to be quite so high. Some of the venues will be worn to rubble within a few years - that's a good thing if the 'legacy' is to be more than just hot air. I personally can't wait to use the 'drome and do my bit to wear it out like the Manchester track.

Gizmodo

Everyone is complaining about how much it's costing us the tax payer, how much would it cost if they tried to do it without big commercial sponsors paying (presumably) millions to be involved? I don't know how much sponsors have put in, but I would hope it is a substantial amount.

You say Le Tour isn't commercialised. I've watched the Giro again today and I see teams sponsored by Q8, NetApp and Sky, I see crowd barriers full of advertising and I see loads of TV footage of beaches and tourist attractions - sponsored by the Italian Tourist Board perhaps.

Just get a quote to move a set of traffic lights for a race these days and you're talking 4 figures. It's expensive these days to put on a big event!

So do we just stop having events because we don't like commercialism?

verylonglegs

I don't think trying to wring profit out of people is anyway exclusive to the olympics, merely a fact of modern life unfortunately as companies try to come up with more and more ways to skim a bit more off from the limited money in circulation. The latest example for me was ordering something on wiggle for the first time in a long time and to see a box pre-ticked for 'priority despatch' with a surcharge of £3.99!! Er, no...I'll untick that f$%*ing box and may even consider not bothering with you at all in future if you continue to become the online shopping equivalent of Ryanair.

malcolm_the_badger

I don't know anyone who got tickets and I know lots who tried.
I am going down to see the TT though.
Just feel that all the best seats will have gone to corporate types,who may not even be that interested.

Bobbinogs

Gizmodo wrote:

You say Le Tour isn't commercialised.

Nope, never said the tour wasn't commercialised just that I am fed up with the endless plugging of the olympics, and by companies that have nought to do with sport.

Gizmodo

RichN95 wrote:

Bobbinogs wrote:

I cannot wait for it all to finish, bah humbug! Bring on Le Tour.

+1. Absolutely no shameless commercialism at Le Tour.

Well someone did, either that or they were being sarcastic.

pliptrot

It's a fact of life that sposnorship is part of sport. But the way the olympics have been organized puts the commercial side of things above all other things, above any sporting ethos. That's the fundamental difference between this years games and other big events, say Le Tour. Any egalitarian considerations have been dumped along with decency in ticket allocation. There was much fanfare about the games being a showcase for English food - and yet McDonalds have a stranglehold over much of the catering, it appears. It's all the hypocracy that sticks in the craw.

rolf_f

RichN95 wrote:

Ha! I went to the Beijing Olympics and tried (generally in vain) to watch the road race. I can pretty guarantee that no-one's going to point a semi-automatic rifle at you on Box Hill (as happened to me).

I generally agree with a lot of what you say though. But also remember we have a press adept at making a mountain out of a molehill.

Cool! Two references to Box Hill in one post

Bobbinogs

Rolf F wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Ha! I went to the Beijing Olympics and tried (generally in vain) to watch the road race. I can pretty guarantee that no-one's going to point a semi-automatic rifle at you on Box Hill (as happened to me).

I generally agree with a lot of what you say though. But also remember we have a press adept at making a mountain out of a molehill.

Cool! Two references to Box Hill in one post

Heh heh, I can see what you did there

slowlanejane

...blah blah blah....

The Olympics - yes THE OLYMPICS - are happening here, right on my doorstep and I'm really excited:

- by the terrific athletic team we've got developing not just for now but also the upcoming juniors and how we're creaming it at most of the major preparatory sports events around the world. Did you see the Rowing in Belgrade?

- by the really excellent logistics and the organisation - Athens was pretty sh1t remember and as a councillor in an area with an olympic venue I know I've been briefed on this regularly since 2007 and got to see the extent of the planning behind the traffic management and the venue development and the legacy implemenations and the stakeholders they've had to engage with along the way.

- I volunterred to be a Games Maker at my local venue Dorney Lake, and got it, so I'm also receiving training for that too - fantastic opportunity and all walks of life are there from all over the country.

- by the new venues which have sprung up in plenty of time and have been fully tested in live events. Didn't happen at Athens or in Delhi for the Commonweath Games etc and the Bejing stuff went up quick as anything and cost - who knows, not like the Chinese will disclose the truth, but it cost a ridiculous number of dead & injured construction personnel if I remember ...

- by the opportunity to see some proper sport on telly that I can engage with at last, unlike rugby, football & snooker.

- By my opportunity to get tickets to be there and to pay £11 and £8 for my childrens tickets (who are 11 and 8). The demand for tickets is a great thing, in Beijing, athens & Delhi they drafted in rent-a-crowd of disinterested people but here there'll be wall-to-wall enthusiasts in the crowd.

The sponsors pay through the nose for their positions which all goes to offset the debt of the event. My local rail stations have all been spruced up. We have a lift installed at Slough at last and a new access bridge over the Thames. And all the towns & villages in my area are getting "dressed". We're getting big screen for our local park to show the sports live to those without tickets, all courtest of LOCOG, thanks very much.

In short its all VERY EXCITING! So you lot bahhumbug away ... or maybe some of you can put down your cynicism and just let yourselves enjoy it?

finchy

I'm quite looking forward to the Olympics, but why, exactly, do these events need to be so costly? Why do we need a massive show to go along with the events? I'm a sports fan, I pay to go and watch competition, not some crappy "entertainment" dreamt up by a committee of twunts.

APIII

slowlanejane wrote:

...blah blah blah....

The Olympics - yes THE OLYMPICS - are happening here, right on my doorstep and I'm really excited:

- by the terrific athletic team we've got developing not just for now but also the upcoming juniors and how we're creaming it at most of the major preparatory sports events around the world. Did you see the Rowing in Belgrade?

- by the really excellent logistics and the organisation - Athens was pretty sh1t remember and as a councillor in an area with an olympic venue I know I've been briefed on this regularly since 2007 and got to see the extent of the planning behind the traffic management and the venue development and the legacy implemenations and the stakeholders they've had to engage with along the way.

- I volunterred to be a Games Maker at my local venue Dorney Lake, and got it, so I'm also receiving training for that too - fantastic opportunity and all walks of life are there from all over the country.

- by the new venues which have sprung up in plenty of time and have been fully tested in live events. Didn't happen at Athens or in Delhi for the Commonweath Games etc and the Bejing stuff went up quick as anything and cost - who knows, not like the Chinese will disclose the truth, but it cost a ridiculous number of dead & injured construction personnel if I remember ...

- by the opportunity to see some proper sport on telly that I can engage with at last, unlike rugby, football & snooker.

- By my opportunity to get tickets to be there and to pay £11 and £8 for my childrens tickets (who are 11 and 8). The demand for tickets is a great thing, in Beijing, athens & Delhi they drafted in rent-a-crowd of disinterested people but here there'll be wall-to-wall enthusiasts in the crowd.

The sponsors pay through the nose for their positions which all goes to offset the debt of the event. My local rail stations have all been spruced up. We have a lift installed at Slough at last and a new access bridge over the Thames. And all the towns & villages in my area are getting "dressed". We're getting big screen for our local park to show the sports live to those without tickets, all courtest of LOCOG, thanks very much.

In short its all VERY EXCITING! So you lot bahhumbug away ... or maybe some of you can put down your cynicism and just let yourselves enjoy it?

Well said.
The Olympics is a commercial event. If you want to watch track and field, shooting, whatever, there are plenty of less glamorous events you can go and watch,and enjoy, for next to nothing. Just don't expect the same atmosphere

sfichele

The thing that gets me is how corporate the Olympics has become, but worse is the whole raft of new laws that were drafted to protect the corporate sponsors. LOCOG are being extremely stringent with anyone using the words 2012, London or Olympics. For example:

The result was highlighted by the Newham Recorder in an article that received coverage on Have I Got News for You, that a local greasy spoon called Café Olympic had been forced to paint over the “O” on its shop sign.

And the bullsh:t that if you take footage/photos of anything and put it on FB then you are strictly breaking the law. This is just ludicrous. Does locog really believe that some non-professional shots are going to rival professional coverage of the games. No idiot would watch the games on FB/YouTube instead of the BBC!

Take for example the road race and the fact that this is being run on a public road, a road which was paid for by our taxes, and don't forget that a large whack of the cost of the games is being funded by our taxes, so why should I not take pictures? Why protect corporates and ban photos, we've paid for the games as well, and ticket holders have paid twice!

/rant

RichN95.

Gizmodo wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Bobbinogs wrote:

I cannot wait for it all to finish, bah humbug! Bring on Le Tour.

+1. Absolutely no shameless commercialism at Le Tour.

Well someone did, either that or they were being sarcastic.

I was certainly being sarcastic. Le Tour has always been hilariously shameless in its commercialism - right back to 1903.

Frank the tank

RichN95 wrote:

Gizmodo wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Bobbinogs wrote:

I cannot wait for it all to finish, bah humbug! Bring on Le Tour.

+1. Absolutely no shameless commercialism at Le Tour.

Well someone did, either that or they were being sarcastic.

I was certainly being sarcastic. Le Tour has always been hilariously shameless in its commercialism - right back to 1903.

Le tour was founded with the sole purpose of promoting a newspaper.

As for the olympics, I'll only watch some of it on tv the same as when it was in China. If people have chosen to by a ticket via a costly lottery fair play to them, I'm not that bothered personally. While I appreciate the corporates have to be looked after I think they've been allocated an unfair %age for the blue riband events.

rick_chasey

malcolm the badger wrote:

I don't know anyone who got tickets and I know lots who tried.
I am going down to see the TT though.
Just feel that all the best seats will have gone to corporate types,who may not even be that interested.

I got seats in the stadium .

Were not corporate seats.

Ben6899

The London Olympics

PedalPedant

I'm afraid all sporting events of this magnitude are going to be very heavily commercialised, although it does seem rather unfortunate that one of the main sponsors is (to quote the Daily Mash) "a company that basically manufactures fat children"

What erks me rather more however is that while many countries have hosted multiple games, they tend to spread them around a bit. This will be the third time the UK has been host and the third time that London will be the host city.

PP

Stone Glider

Flew over the London site this am and was surprised at how 'compact' (read compressed) it is. The main stadium looks quite dinky and the whole caboodle could be enclosed four or five times over by the comparable Sydney site. I hope that visitors will have enough space to savour 'the experience' and not feel they have been short-changed in an effort to squeeze the maximum income from the minimum outlay. BTW what is the idea behind access being through a row of shops? Is it a play on the old TV show 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.? I further hope that the outlay is not going to lie on the local taxpayers and the rest of us like the Athens site is on the Greeks?

mm1

Wretched corporate w+ank fest, makes F1 look good.

Cressers

I've had a bad taste in my mouth since the moment it was announced that we'd been lumbered with this white elephant. Now it is almost here I'm not excitedly counting the days before it starts but the days before this whole farce is over and done with. The whole concept is flawed, from the chauvanistic notion that our racial stock is superior to yours because one of ours can run a fraction faster along a track than yours can, to the Nazi symbolism embedded in the events that they would have us cheer to.

http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2011/03 ... ropaganda/

Peddle Up!

Cressers wrote:

I've had a bad taste in my mouth since the moment it was announced that we'd been lumbered with this white elephant. Now it is almost here I'm not excitedly counting the days before it starts but the days before this whole farce is over and done with. The whole concept is flawed, from the chauvanistic notion that our racial stock is superior to yours because one of ours can run a fraction faster along a track than yours can, to the Nazi symbolism embedded in the events that they would have us cheer to.

http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2011/03 ... ropaganda/

Assuming it's not a photo-fake, this made me look twice. :roll:

capt_slog

sfichele wrote:

The thing that gets me is how corporate the Olympics has become, but worse is the whole raft of new laws that were drafted to protect the corporate sponsors. LOCOG are being extremely stringent with anyone using the words 2012, London or Olympics. For example:

The result was highlighted by the Newham Recorder in an article that received coverage on Have I Got News for You, that a local greasy spoon called Café Olympic had been forced to paint over the “O” on its shop sign.

And the bullsh:t that if you take footage/photos of anything and put it on FB then you are strictly breaking the law. This is just ludicrous. Does locog really believe that some non-professional shots are going to rival professional coverage of the games. No idiot would watch the games on FB/YouTube instead of the BBC!

Take for example the road race and the fact that this is being run on a public road, a road which was paid for by our taxes, and don't forget that a large whack of the cost of the games is being funded by our taxes, so why should I not take pictures? Why protect corporates and ban photos, we've paid for the games as well, and ticket holders have paid twice!

/rant

This is the part of the Olympics that's got me cross as well. ( And the thing about the photos is new one on me, that's a disgrace.)

I'd like to see everyone in the country put up the Olympic sign is their windows at home, and see what the buggers can do about that.

Cressers

The disgrace was that the Olympic and Paralympic Act 2006 was passed, effectively givng our public spaces as advertising to the corporates, and creating 'no free speech' zones where the police will be entitled to forcibly enter private property to prevent the display of anti-olympic posters or the display of non-sponsor products. We should have refused to pass such a law.

islwyn

Tickets went on sale this morning for Track Cycling...

Gutted I can't get any because I already have tickets to the pissing volleyball..... I'd happily swap - damn you LOCOG not letting me buy again!

Peddle Up!

Cressers wrote:

We should have refused to pass such a law.

Sorry, not in the interests of our owners.

Ben6899

I really don't care about the Olympics. I'll watch the cycling, that'll be it, and I'll work from home for two weeks so I don't have to endure PT and loud-mouthed tourists in garish t shirts.

BUT I never realised all the bullsh1t which the previous few posts have mentioned; anti-Olympic talk being banned, no photos etc etc. Now that's a fuck1ng disgrace.