Playing The Corporate Game

(from this weeks Australian edition of Socialist Worker)

THE SYDNEY Olympics has come to symbolise everything people hate about what is happening to sport.

With the 2000 Games, every step has been subordinated to money--from the bribery of the bidding process to the tickets for the rich scandal and the corporate overdose that is the torch relay. There is an earnest belief that sport can be "pure" if corrupting politics are kept out.

But what the Olympics demonstrate all too clearly is how sport is bound up with the exploitative processes that define our society.

Sport has become big business. NBC paid $900 million for TV coverage rights of the Olympic Games in the US. The millions who watch the Games will be saturated with sponsorship messages from Nike, McDonald's, IBM and Westpac. The Australian team will wear the Nike logo prominently on their uniforms.

Rest of article- http://home.vicnet.net.au/~isoaus/socialistworker/438/article3.html

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