When I was the editor and publisher of The Sports Marketing Letter and then the Sports Industry Daily, I consistently opposed the awarding of the Olympics to Beijing, China.
     I don’t know if I would even attempt such opposition if the choice were being made today, because my opinion of the Olympics has dropped precipitously. The real business of the Games is not to assemble the youth of the world to conduct a high-minded test of athletic boundaries and achievement. It is to sell Coca-Cola a billion-dollars worth of advertising opportunities.
     It is not seen as an amazing opportunity to compare and contrast the most amazing athletes from around the world. It is seen as an amazing opportunity to gain enormous penetration and front-of mind awareness for ten or twelve multinational corporations in major media markets, using the tried-and-true attraction of sports to grab the attention of a mass audience.

     Modern television coverage of the Olympics has been rather ugly… from a sportsmanship point of view. I yield to no one in my patriotism, and absolute love for the United States of America. But the talk of “medal counts” and “USA Gold” absolutely misses the point of international athletic competition for the sheer love of sport, on which the modern Olympics was founded.
     There is too much politics in the Games, too much pressure to win, too much emphasis on money.

     Then there is China. In a replay of the 1936 Nazi Games… the authorities have swept the streets clean of dissidents and “anti-state” elements. The press has been muzzled. The hotels have been bugged and the Internet tapped into (with the help of friendly American companies). Religious expression (such as crossing yourself before or after a competition) has been banned as “propaganda” by the International Olympic Committee …the same IOC that promised that the Games would widen freedoms in China.
     And the Games go on while the fingers of the Chinese government still drip and reek from the freshly shed blood of their Tibetan colonial slaves. The Games go on while free speech is crushed. The Games go on while China pollutes the world with its million and one coal smokestacks. The Games go on while China still befriends the genocidal government of Sudan, which is massacring the people of Darfur.

     On the other hand…  the Chinese have ordered dog meat off Beijing restaurant menus in recognition of foreigners’ sensibilities. I get it: Our qualms about Chinese repression, state murder and collusion with genocide are one thing. But nothing must be allowed that turns rich tourists away from the local eateries!