Not really an original thought, but a thought none the less, it occurred to me this week that some of the primary sponsors of the Olympic games are pushing products that actual Olympic athletes could never actually use.
Do you think someone setting a world track-and-field record would have been allowed to have a Coke and Big Mac in the last five years? No.
Nor would they have been allowed a Pepsi or some Kentucky Fried Chicken, but at least in that they’re like all the audience…
Interesting to note that today’s Globe characterize3s the life at the Olympic village as a drunken boink-fest. Besides, how many of them are rotting their bodies on steroids. Surely, the odd time out with Mayor MacCheese is a small daliance for the sin-centric ubermensch.
the Scotsman had an article about the sexual shenanignas of Olympics athletes in Sydney. I wrote a post on the article on my site a while back.
My post:
http://occasionallywright.typepad.com/net_files/2004/07/olympic_shenani.html
The Scotsman article:
http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=814602004
What struck me as even more ironic is that many advertisers (especially Royal Bank, er, RBC that is, who run at least one commercial per break for 17 straight days on the CBC) must be spending several times more to advertise the fact that they sponsor “athletes” or “the olympics” or “the Canadian olympic committee” or whatever than they actually donate to athletes, the olympics, or anyone else.
Rather like the pharmaceutical companies who spend roughly equal amounts advertising drugs to patients (which in itself is borderline unethical, and are probably aimed as much at investors as the ill) as developing new drugs, and then spend still more on advertisements justifying the high cost of drugs by pointing to their huge, huge, huge R&D costs.
This isn’t anything new really. I’ve seen athletes for years pimping products I’m very sure they choose not to use. Personally, I think it’s false advertising if that’s the case. Wow, I think that’s the second time this month I’ve left a comment on a blog claiming a case for false advertisement. You’d think I was some activist or something. heh. Anyway, the whole thing kinda annoys me.
This reminds me of the advertisements a few months back for some low-carb food that featured a professional women’s basketball player. A low-carb diet would completely destroy any professional athlete.
I see two atheletes running on a track. It’s a guy and a girl and I figured I knew where this was going. Then the punchline comes up and says that if this my idea of “Track & Field” then my beer is Michelob. Honestly, if I’m running Track & Field I don’t think I would have touched Michelob or whatever else in the last 50 years… But, then again that’s just me!