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It's an amazing art!?
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Going for gold, but at what cost?
1points
TAXPAYERS have forked out $16.7 million through direct federal grants for each of the 13 gold medals won by Australia's Olympic team in Beijing.
Source: http://www.theage.com.au/national/going-for-gold-but-at-what…
Comments
There was also this piece. The elephant in the room is WHY should we pump so much money into sport for so little return? It is absolute idiocy for this country to focus on sport at the expense of its tertiary economy. If we treated our young potential elite athletes the same way as we now treat our young elite minds, we wouldn’t have any elite athletes. Oi oi oi…
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We have an obesity problem in this country like never before. At the very least this helps to educate our children of the benefits of exercise, and gives them some amazing roll models to look up to. $16.7 million is a small price to pay for that.
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That assumes having athletic role models translates into increased activity on the part of the everyone else. I think there’s little evidence of such a general trickle-down effect. An alternative that’s already been proposed to tackle obesity is to increase funding for public sport & recreation, as opposed to concentrating even more funding on the elite few.
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@Leroy I don’t disagree that there should be increased funding for public and recreation. I agree it’s needed. But have you really looked in to whether there is an research on the matter? Why do marketers love professional athletes? They use them because they know they are role models to a large portion of the community. Why are we so concerned when people like Ben Cousins abuse drugs? Why do we love our Olympians? Do you seriously think it’s not money well spent? I for one am more inspired to exercise after seeing the fitness level of a bunch of our Olympians. I’d be happy to see us spend more.
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Marketers love pro athletes because they provide a good ROI. And they only drop pro athletes when that ROI falls. Cousins was abusing drugs for years and was only booted when the public turned against him. Marketing’s attraction to pro athletes has very little to do with role models and everything to do with marketing models and fat rolls of cash they can generate.
BTW, Rich you were inspired to exercise before the Olympics if your twitters and nokia tracks are anything to go by. I wonder how many of the Olympic inspired will continue to exercise next week or next month, let alone 4 years from now.
I think the Olympics have become a drug that the nation is severely addicted to. We tell ourselves that as long as we’re getting truckloads of medals that we’re a sporting nation - meanwhile the vast majority of us are getting fatter and fatter and doing less regular exercise. Sooner or later governments are going to have to make hard decisions and not only will that cause a lot of disquiet as people are made (encouraged) to get fit it will costs truckloads of money. Whether that is additional money or taken from the Olympic warchest is yet to be seen.
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@Skribe and why is the marketing ROI good? Because people look up to athletes, and will do what they do. They are a role model, good or bad, but they are. And whether they are good or bad is not the point here. The idea as a government is to make sure those role models are good. I think our swimmers are a GREAT example. They are fabulous role models for our kids. My point is that people DO look up to athletes, and do emulate them. Marketers know this. That’s the point. So, the government spending money on improving athletes does have an impact on our community. It’s a no brainer.As for obesity, we all know that a large part of that is the lack of education with respect to nutrition. Hell, I went to a community pool the other week with my four year old, and couldn’t buy one item of healthy food for her. Not even a bit of fruit. Most people have no idea about food. As for “Olympics have become a drug.” WTF. What you basing that statement on?
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The ROI is good because of the high profile. Being a role model has very little to do with it. It’s the same reason that marketers use the likes of Chopper to flog their products.
As for emulating and inspiring, only a small percentage of the population benefits beyond the short term from the trickle down approach. If the endgame is to get people off the couch and lose a kilo or twenty, then that’s a pretty poor ROI in itself. But government funding of pro sports has little to do with inspiring the Norms, and is more about national pride and jingoism . That’s why it’s become an arms race. More money. Better training. Harder to detect drugs. Faster. Longer. Higher. Do you honestly believe that the feds would be considering a lottery scheme if the poms hadn’t beaten us in the medal tally? No chance! Our national identity is so entwined in us being a major sporting nation that the govt has to keep spending more and more just to keep up. That’s why it’s a drug.
Education has little to do with the obesity problem. It’s time management and willpower that is the major cause. You could make every adult in the country pass a university degree in nutrition and most of them would be eating badly and failing to exercise regularly within 6 months of graduating. There’s a whole range of factors about why people become obese. saying it’s lack of education is simplistic.
All that said, I will agree with you about the pool. Something needs to be done. I know Beatty Park’s tuck shop - although it usually has fruit - is abysmal.
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Other good points have been made here already, so I won’t reiterate them. Rich, it’s clear you love the Olympics; fair play to you. This small population of ours consistently punches well above our weight, which is both commendable and extraordinary. However, working as I do within a major hospital with many friends at the coal-face in what is a very broken, under-funded system, I can’t help but feel the Olympics engender a severe loss of perspective. So in a very brief and simplistic answer to your complex question: ultimately, no I do not believe it is money well spent.
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The thing is, how many of the Australian youths could name 5 current olympians? Heck, even the American Olympic juggernaught and its athletes aren’t that well known outside their hometowns or the major stars like Phelps. Then again there are a LOT more marketing opportunities for athletes in the US then Australia.
Also I think the inspiration part is not a common thing. I felt the same seeing a lot of the olympians in action, and I think for you the feeling is more intense as you were actually there. But how many other Australians do you think felt the same? Even people barracking for the Aussie swimmers probably wouldn’t be regular swimmers or active people. In fact a lot of Australians (quite a few both of us know as they stated on their leety podcast) really didn’t care about the Olympics because it assaults them for 2 weeks every 4 years and interrupts their television. Most of them think ‘thank god its over’ at the end.
I think the main problem and argument is that there is no real benefit from the money spent, which is what the article is aiming at, the cost is not worth the payoff, instead the cost should be directed at school sport programs that instill a good fitness mindset as children and encourage active lifestyles as adults. It would be much more effective as most Australians see the feats of Olympians as something they could never do and a goal they could never reach, so they won’t get up and get into it. Sure it’s not how you, I or some other people we know think, but it’s how people do think.
On another note, good luck next weekend Rich, wish I could be there!
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While I love the kids programs I feel there are far too few programs addressed at adults, both in making healthy lifestyle choices and being able to commit to them. I’d like to see business encouraging exercise and healthy living of their employees - maybe not as draconian as the Japanese system though. If you’re working 10-16 hours per day in a sedentary job then your chances of fitting in your 30mins per day and eating well are significantly reduced. Throw in kids and it just gets worse. I think unless we address the adult problem then there is no way we’re going to win the war against child obesity - parents are the biggest role models after all.
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I agree. I am quite happy that my work pays for a personal trainer twice a week and encourages people to join in, as well as providing healthy snacks in the lunch room instead of the standard biscuits and lollies. A lot of government departments have installed gyms in their major offices now free for employees to use as well as a trainer (part time or full time) there to assist. Some gyms in the city are doing corporate packages with part or fully subsidised discounted memberships for employees, as well as some even counting time in the gym as work time.
And agreed as well that parents should be the role models, sure the athletes give people someone to look up to, but parents, co-workers and society should be the role model for a healthier life. But instead we’re told to sit at home drinking beer and watch other people do all the physical activity. Thats the way to go.
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Now quick! Without looking them up, name WA’s two most recent Nobel Laureates… ticktickticktick Yeah, figures… There’s a marketing opportunity gone begging: Dr Barry Marshall and Yakult… You heard it here first. Finder’s fees payable to me, thanks…
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