Short Take 3
The Olympic Spirit on a Luxury Liner
The mission of Olympic Spirit is “to build a peaceful and better world in the Olympic Spirit which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play – Olympic Spirit strives to inspire and motivate the youth of the world to be the best they can be through educational and entertaining interactive challenges.”
The “Olympic Spirit” means different things to different people. For the 46 men and 26 women who make up the US men’s and women’s basketball teams, luxury and seclusion trump mutual understanding, friendship and solidarity achieved through shared living space with other world-class athletes. That’s right, I forgot, US is the exceptional nation. We have nothing to gain from mingling with representative of unexceptional nations. Not for our athletes the digs at the Olympic village. They are ensconced on a luxury liner complete with a pool, gym, social rooms, and that essential which no exceptional Olympian should be without — room service.
Let’s hear from one of the players why a luxury liner that can accommodate 296 is the must-have accommodations for 72 of the 554 US athletes in Rio. “…how can our men’s and women’s teams stay in the village? They would get bombarded…They won’t have peace.” Mirabile Dictu! How do equally famous and recognizable athletes like Usain Bolt, generally recognized as the biggest star of the games, Michael Phelps, damn near a household name, and Novak Djokovic, the number one men’s tennis player — all living at Olympic village —manage? Perhaps they could share their secrets with the American basketball players. That’s right, I forgot. US basketball players are special. Not just exceptional, but special. Unlike the other best athletes in the world, these exceptional darlings have special challenges. Let’s hear how Maya Moore, feted for her past achievements as a stalwart on the UCONN basketball team, put it – “There is a level of socialization that happens in the village that takes energy. Over the course of two weeks, it can wear on you, even if it’s a little bit.”
For the hard-eyed businessmen of USA Basketball, luxury liners are all part of the cost of doing business. Let’s hear the pearls of wisdom dribbling from the mouth of Jerry Colangelo, director of USA Basketball– “Our players are probably the most recognizable in the world…We can’t just throw them in with [at this point he figured out he was about to make a world class boo boo, note his unconvincing u-turn]…we have to protect them. They’re very valuable assets.” There you have it, folks. None of that claptrap about “building a peaceful and better world…with a spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play.” This is business, man. Think of the Olympics as another PR opportunity on the world’s stage, an expensive one, but hey last year 30 NBA teams generated $5.2 billion in revenues, with the value of the average team clocking in at $1.25 billion. Note: not people, assets. That’s what exceptionalism breeds these days — assets, products, saleable merchandise, ROI – USA, USA, USA. Think of it as capitalism on steroids. There was one player who refused to get with the program, Tina Charles, another UCONN alum and 2012 gold medalist, commenting on the accommodations — “you’re not able to interact with athletes, you’re not able to see them every day, build relationships, build friendships that way.”
Perhaps there’s hope for us after all.
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