This post originally appeared at the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To view it there
: http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/07/26/sports-rush-keeping-the-olympics-from-flaming-out/
This year, the buzz about Olympic athletes has revolved in large part around those not going to Brazil. Some fear the
Zika virus. Others will likely find themselves excluded as part of a blanket ban of
Russian athletes in certain sports.
Such
controversies are not unusual.
The Olympics has always had problems assembling all of the world’s best athletes every four years :
* Combat : World War I cancelled the
1916 event in its entirety. World War II
stopped another four competitions.
* Boycotts : From Ireland in 1908 through the Communist countries in
1984 and 1988, numerous Games have been marred by governments preventing
their resident athletes from participating.
* Apartheid : From 1964 to 1992, the International Olympic Committee
barred South African athletes as a response to the country’s racial
classification system.
* Women : Female athletes could not compete until 1920.
*
Shamateurism
: Authorities’ aversion to patrons compensating the sportsmen and women
who entertained them kept us from seeing the likes of Pelé, Bobby Orr,
or Wilt Chamberlain with medals around their necks, and Jim Thorpe from
keeping his golds.
Pierre de Coubertin, the man who spearheaded the revival of the
Olympic Games in the late 19th century, believed “The Olympic Games are
for the world and all nations must be admitted to them.” It has not
always been the case, and much of it has to do with the event’s
nation-state system of organization.
We won’t see Paris Saint-Germain boycott Champions League fixtures in
England next year because Brexit bothered its management. The NBA just
moved
its All-Star Game due to actions by North Carolina’s government, but we
can feel assured the Charlotte Hornets will play a full home schedule
next year with no withdrawals by visiting teams. Other than maybe a
geographically contained disaster, like this Zika outbreak, we can’t
imagine a scenario in which a club team would choose not to play in
championship contests for which it had qualified. Even in the rare case
of bankruptcy, a league would step in to make sure an elite team played.
Such was the case with the 2010 Texas Rangers.
Club competitions can’t skip out on games because long-term success
depends on their brands being perceived as consistently able to deliver a
reliable world-class athletic product. When baseball games get rained
out, MLB reschedules them.
The Olympics, too, has a need to maintain its brand integrity. The
nature of its event and the strength of its brand mean the IOC can
persevere through the absences of even some of its most iconic teams or
athletes. There are enough countries on the planet that missing a few
boycotters or WADA stooges doesn’t matter. We love to root for the red,
white and blue no matter whether they’re taking on the reds, the
azzurri, or the bleu, blanc, et rouge. Patriotism has power.
The Olympics has to be careful, though, because while its brand
remains perhaps the most powerful in sports, its success ultimately
depends upon the health of its teams the same way a league of club
franchises does. However, Olympic sides don’t respond to the same
incentives as do regular pro teams.
Since its beginnings, Olympic competition has been organized with
athletes competing for squads identified with their citizenships. While
that wouldn’t have to mean dealing with the governments of participants
(the Olympics could have established an independent system for
certifying its competitions), from a practical standpoint it has meant
heavy involvement with ministries of sport and
Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Acts.
The priorities of those who run governments (and the teams that
represent them) won’t always line up with what’s best for the Olympic
organization. A Robert Kraft might vehemently
question
the merits of a specific disciplinary procedure, but he would likely
agree that ensuring a sports product free of cheating benefits his brand
significantly and, is, in fact, vital to its success.
Other kinds of patriots – those who run governments – often don’t
gain the same benefit from a level playing field. In their minds, some
combination of national glory and personal power accumulation may matter
a great deal more than notions of sportsmanship. Using a flag-wrapped
end to justify unfair means is common when politicians want to assure
constituents they will all win so much they get tired of it.
In our current situation, it seems Russian political authorities
decided hearing the State Anthem of the Russian Federation played
frequently at medal ceremonies served their needs more than playing by
certain rules to which they had agreed. Such widespread sovereign
swindling in athletics has precedent (see
1970s East Germany).
Whatever one thinks of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s own priorities,
one has to concede that the Russian authorities believed an all-out
effort to secure athletic success for Russia would play better with the
native populace than allegiance to standards of fair play that enhance
the Olympic brand. For Russian leaders, it’s a no-lose. If their
less-than-clean athletes win a lot of medals, as they did in Sochi, and
get away with it, the reflected glory helps the political class. If they
get caught, they can just
blame it on Western vendettas and still maintain their popularity.
The Olympic movement is heavily in bed with national governments, of
course. The organization requires governmental guarantees of funds
before it awards an Olympiad. It can get burned on the front end of the
process by corruption (see Salt Lake City, Rio, and Sochi) and on the
back end by bad press about negative economic impact (see
Athens, Sarajevo, Montreal, and others). They already have a problem with a
lack of applicants to host their events and it could easily get worse.
Does it matter? It will if it hits the bottom line. Russia is a huge
territory. Sponsors can’t be pleased to see those millions of eyeballs
paying attention to something other than their ads. If only
authoritarian states apply to host games in the future, as happened when
Kazakhstan and China emerged as the only finalists for the 2022 Winter
Games, the commercial partners won’t like the public criticism
associated with helping legitimize those regimes.
The Olympic movement has the power do great good in many ways,
including spreading the gospel of fitness, inspiring achievement,
encouraging understanding between individuals from different regions,
and entertaining billions. Fans love to root for their country’s
athletes. Is there a sustainable path forward?
The issue of nations jockeying (or even worse, not jockeying) to lose
billions on new Olympic venues might be solved by establishing single
locations to host all games owned by the
International Olympic Committee.
Greece seems the least controversial from a sentimental standpoint and
their central government’s current fiscal predicament would eliminate
the temptation to seek subsidies. Perhaps the IOC’s home country of
Switzerland would make sense for a Winter Games host. Any such choice
would be fraught with issues of Eurocentrism, television ratings across
time zones, and general naysaying, but finding a way to avoid repeating
the controversies of Sochi and Rio should take priority.
It is beyond the IOC’s power to change the nature of politics.
Extricating itself from entanglements with sports ministries is also
beyond its current ability. While it should certainly take a strong look
at whether the burdens WADA imposes encourage the kind of approach the
Russian Federation adopted, the Olympians will never have the power to
compel government actors to follow rules the latter dislike.
What it can do is set a good example. In ancient times, warring
nations were expected to allow athletes to pass through their
territories on the way to the games at Olympus. The modern games have
provided numerous examples of how good-natured interactions between
people from different parts of the world facilitate understanding, from
Luz Long
advising Jesse Owens to the Grateful Dead
sponsoring the Lithuanian men’s basketball team.
Many believe maximizing peaceful commerce between citizens of diverse
nations to be a less effective deterrent to belligerence than the
initiation of force by governments. The best thing the Olympics can do
is to disentangle itself from as much of its dependence on nation states
as possible and use its commercial muscle and spirit of sportsmanship
to prove such people wrong.
Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for
sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns,
television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities
through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.
RushOlson.com
Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports
Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports
