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Originally Posted by docbungle
Wearing a Pepsi t-shirt in public, to a concert or a sporting event or anything else should be within my rights. Period. I am not a competing advertiser. I am a human with a Pepsi shirt.
The day that a sponsor dictates the rules of an event (an event that has nothing to do, in and of itself, with the sponsor) is the day that the event loses all integrity in my mind.
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You should actually do some research prior to posting. The
sponsors did not instigate this situation. The Olympic comittee offered the sponsors this sort of protection.
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Originally Posted by Carn
and the Olympic committee could stop sucking every sponsor's wang.
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Don't really see how comments like this contribute to the discussion a whole lot.
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Originally Posted by cowudders
Oh joy. I agree that sponsors need to protect their investment, but telling your stewards not to wear any shoes with non-adidas logos? That's too far. Companies are trying to push it and see how far they can get...
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It's
not the companies issuing demands. The [size=5]OLYMPIC COMITTEEE[/b] is the one that made the offer and set down the guidelines.
Do you people even read the articles or just fly off the handle without thinking? Honestly.
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Originally Posted by dauvin
If I had enough friends, Id take em all to the oympics wearing red, white and blue shirts, and then sit in the pattern of the pepsi symbol, not because I particularly like pepsi, but to spite the craziness.
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And they'd be well within the realm of reason to escort you from the premises
en masse.
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Originally Posted by Nefir
Then I realized that I was right - the main purpose of the Olympics these days is NOT to showcase the cream of the crop in human competition, but to attract sponsors and advertisers with lots of money to spend. It is in the interest of the host country, and the cable channels to whore out everything they have, to maximize profits, Olympic tradition or not (especially the biggest whore of all, NBC, who has exclusive license to skip over all the really interesting bits, and air the ever-annoying commentary of Katie Couric and Bob Costas).
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NBC itself is NOT a cable channel, but rather one of the few channels that broadcasts on basic television. MSNBC is a different story.
As far as the Olympics being in the interests of the sponsors and host countries, last time I checked neither of those two entities operated outside the bounds of normal economics, and thus don't do anything for free. There were a few nations who tried that sort of idiocy, and it failed. If the Olympics had nothing to offer host nations, they wouldn't have host nations. If the Olympics had nothing to offer sponsors, THERE WOULD BE NOTHING PROVIDED. The Olympics
cost millions of dollars to host, even without the stadiums and ceremonies. Simply allocating enough space, the travel arrangements, hotel arrangements, feeding arrangements, transportation to and from the events, and so many other logistical nightmares
happens to cost quite a bit of money.
Many of these athletes ARE NOT professionals, and thus don't have millions of dollars/d-marks/pounds/francs/etc. to throw around on their own lodgings. How would you tell a 16 year old gymnast she had to pay her own air fare, hotel and food expenses, as well as find a ride to every event on her own? Doesn't
that defy the spirit of the games? So the host country is duty-bound to provide accomodations for the athletes, from rooms to motorcades to food, and that stuff doesn't come free.
Yes, the amount of money is insane. But if the money didn't flow, the games wouldn't happen. Alot of you may not have watched the opening ceremonies, where they told of the dispute over the Greek Olympic Comittee chairperson role. One lady started there, and was removed. For
three years afterwards, no money was spent, sponsors were not signed, stadiums were not built, and nothing was accomplished worth mentioning. So they brought back the original chairwoman, and within a year, everything that has been completed was accomplished. The world is lucky that mismanagement didn't cost the world the Olympics.