Dire financial straits are leading droves of Olympic athletes to sell images of their bodies to subscribers on OnlyFans — known for sexually explicit content — to sustain their dreams of gold at the Games. As they struggle to make ends meet, a spotlight is being cast on an Olympics funding system that watchdog groups condemn as “broken,” claiming most athletes “can barely pay their rent.”
The Olympics, the world’s biggest sporting stage, bring in billions of dollars in TV rights, ticket sales and sponsorship, but most athletes must fend for themselves financially.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) did not express concern about the situation. When asked by The Associated Press about athletes turning to OnlyFans, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said, “I would assume that athletes, like all citizens, are allowed to do what they can.”
Watching his sponsorships dry up and facing mounting costs, Jack Laugher was among the pantheon of Olympic athletes using the often-controversial platform to get to the Games — or simply survive.
The Olympics was intended for amateur athletes, but they’re all essentially professionals now if they have any chance of medaling (the Turkish shooter excepted) because they get years of specialized training. And, of course, they find endless new ways to abuse those athletes’ bodies by using ever-more sophisticated ways to secretly dope them.
Half of them will be broken by the time they’re 30. I’m not at all surprised that this is what they have to resort to.
And the Olympics being for “amateurs” was a deliberate effort by the Olympic committee when the modern games were started to exclude the working classes from competing.
The whole “best of the best” is just branding. The Olympics needs serious reform.
Yeah, by “amateurs” they meant wealthy men who didn’t work and so had spare time to get good at sport. Really good Behind the Bastards episodes that touch on this actually.
Behind the Bastards - Part One: How Avery Brundage Gave Hitler an Olympics
Behind the Bastards - Part Two: How Avery Brundage Gave Hitler an Olympics
Hell yeah, another BTB listener? There’s dozens of us, dozens!
There’s millions who stream or download each episode. It’s in the top 200 podcasts by listener, and there is a shitload of podcasts out there.
Robert Evans is a national treasure.
T’was an arrested development reference sir.
You know who else gives things to Hitler?
The products and services that support this comment thread!
Products!
Trevor Moore gave Hitler a good rap.
always an upvote for my favourite comedian
We need to come up with like…a secret handshake…or like…idfk…a gang sign or something?
a 4 Garret diamond?
Based
A fellow podcast addict user, I see.
There’s dozens of us!
Another 19th century thing that was exclusionary at its beginning.
Do you know why? Because rich people didn’t want to compete against the poor. If you couldn’t afford to compete, you didn’t. The rich can’t didn’t fancy meeting Gary the local bouncer in a boxing match.
History of Olympics is fucked up.
History of everything is fucked up.
Power, money, and violence are usually how things go, the bubble of “freedom” that has existed for a few hundred years maybe be yielding.
There are still a few amateurs left: L. James, S. Curry, RayGunn
Don’t worry, Coca-Cola and the like will continue making buckets of cash from the Olympics…
Wait non companies need money too?
Maybe the athletes can sell shares of themselves, provide dividends and engage in stock buy-back. /s
Should pay them with the advertising revenue they make possible.
i feel like these athletes need to have a plan B for real jobs.
the olympics have been bastardized into a corporate for-profit orgy. theres no honor in these games. its sad that these humans who feel they are accomplishing something dont see the truth; theyre just tools that can be discarded.
its sad that these humans who feel they are accomplishing something dont see the truth; theyre just tools that can be discarded.
They are accomplishing something. It’s just not recognized by the greedy fuckwits exploiting their achievements for profit, other than for it’s ability to convince people to endure their bullshit in exchange for the chance to watch them.
I’m wondering about viewership this year. Nobody I know is watching or talking about the games. Besides what hits social media like the Turkish shooter.
It’s extremely popular. Every single business I’ve walked into has had it on the TV and all of my friend/family group chats and coworkers have been talking about it. It wouldn’t be making hundreds of millions in ad revenue if nobody was watching it.
Link to livestreams of the orgy competition?
Groove Tube was 50 years ahead.
Well, the plan is to get corporate sponsors. That’s always been the road.
Edit: always as in the past ~50 years.
really? which corps sponsored the roman olympics?
or is this a recent requirement because humans dont actually put money into humanities without some profit incentive?
In the Roman Olympics, only rich people could compete. Now it’s better, not perfect, but better.
You can’t win if you have a plan B. Especially in prestige events. Either the athlete is fully supported by their countries association or they hope to get top 30.
A lot of people seem to be missing the point.
There is nothing wrong with sex work or having an OnlyFans. There is absolutely a lot wrong with the fact that the top athletes of our world who perform on the top athletic stage of the world are destitute to the point of having to fund themselves this way. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe anyone should have to use this as a last resort either but it’s very telling of society as it currently is when these people are having to do so.
To be clear, it has not been established that this is the last resort, but rather that it’s better than the alternatives. Which is to say, if you’ve gotten famous but the organization that made you famous isn’t paying you well, you might look for other ways to monetize the attention. Being at the top of international sports is such a fleeting thing, so if some of these athletes want to capitalize on the moment, they better not wait until next year because who the hell knows when their career will rapidly change.
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Wow, what a world where super-hot hard-bodied Olympians have to create OnlyFans pages to make ends meet. I will want to do more research on this.
Does anyone know the specific pages they’re talking about? For research.
Me too wants to financially support them
It’s not a ‘broken’ system - it’s a broken system. You don’t need the quotes when it’s factual.
It’s ok to use quotes when quoting someone.
As per many style guides, the quotes in classic news-media are used to indicate they’re quoting someone and it’s not the copy-writer’s opinion.
Is this different from having to shill your non-nude body on Instagram?
No, but prudes will prude once nudity is involved for cash lol.
They will probably earn more selling nudes than they would as fitness instructors and coaches when they’re past competing age too.
It’s not even necessarily nudity in every of these cases. Could be just quite revealing pictures
Aaaaand we’ve reached yet another low. I dunno, but this really is a punch in the gut for me.
Countries and cities spend BILLIONS on the stuoid olympics (or footbal world cups), building stadiums that will be abandoned right after the event is over, we ignore slavery and corruption (hello quatar, hello fifa!) and abuses, and the athletes themselves? Nobody gives a shit, go prostitute yourself!
But the Olympics and the world cup are awesome!! /s
And just to clarify: all respect to the athletes, they are awesome but they are participating in abusive events, unfortunately.
Most of the sports in the Olympics aren’t really money makers. That’s more or less always been the case. Many athletes train while working fulltime. Maybe it’s good OF and things like it provide another outlet. Some countries fund their athletes, and others don’t. If anyone is upset about people making a fortune off of it, you can always stop supporting it.
People are upset that professional athletes at the world stage, the best of the best, that bring glory and medals to their countries are left to fend for themselves between events.
I’m even more upset that the best teacher or the best social worker doesn’t get any recognition at all.
A dude/dudette skateboarding, jumping or shooting with a bow doesn’t bring me any value, entertainment or otherwise. If they can’t find a sponsor, tough luck.
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No different than posing in beefcake physique mags back in the day.
Arent the olympians supposed to be “non professional”? Or maybe it used to be
Hasn’t been that way for 30 odd years. Think of Jordan’s dream team
I think this needs a bit more context. Before “the dream team” the US only sent NCAA basketball players. The same goes with all sports, including hockey. The US’s complaint was that other countries were sending their professional players. Cuba’s baseball team, the USSR’s hockey team, etc. were solely comprised of essentially professional players that did they sport for a living. It was successfully argued that this was an unfair advantage for countries with programs like this.
PS: This is why “The Miracle on Ice”, when the US beat the USSR in hockey was such a big deal. The US team was essentially a bunch college kids while the USSR was playing with arguably the best hockey players in the world at the time. It was the equivalent to Puerto Rico beating the original Dream Team in basketball.
Honestly, it’s had pros for even longer. The USSR “amateurs” were members of the Red Army whose entire job was their sport.
Are you saying they should be jobless hobos?
They should be funded by the IOC. Right now, they’re being paid by their country (if they want to have a chance of medaling).
They also rarely train inside that country or with a trainer from that country. Many of them go to the U.S. for training and stay there for years.
And how do you suggest the IOC should get the money to pay for all those ‘employees’ ?
From the article:
The Olympics, the world’s biggest sporting stage, bring in billions of dollars in TV rights, ticket sales and sponsorship, but most athletes must fend for themselves financially.
Ok, so the IOC should be taking that revenue away from the host country and expect them to pay for the infrastructure and staff at an even bigger loss?
Which country or city would want to do that?
It doesn’t say the host country is the one that makes the money. And I’m sure they can spare a billion or two for the athletes.
What doesn’t say the host country is the one that makes the money?
The Olympics is already operating at a net loss, with the host city/country basically footing the bill in exchange for publicity.
Do you think these cities would be happy to pay for 20.000 extra ‘employees’ for four years?
Not at all
They should have a full time job to fund their hobby like normal people.
Olympic sport = hObBiE
Riiight.
When asked by The Associated Press about athletes turning to OnlyFans, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said, “I would assume that athletes, like all citizens, are allowed to do what they can.”
Fark you. (Channeling Joe Pesci): “You only HAVE those billions in ticket sales, sponsorships and TV rights because the athletes make that possible!”
I think you’re misrepresenting the overtone. Surely the question came across as one of, doesn’t IOC think this action is inappropriate? Aren’t you going to stop them? And he’s saying no.
Now we know what all those condoms in the Olympic village are for.
Its really unfortunate that their careers can’t be self sustaining and they have to resort to two jobs, but on the other hand I couldn’t be happier about their secondary career choice so
