Gus Lubin and Lawrence Delevingne | Feb. 17, 2010, 11:51 AM
Hundreds of thousands of people have descended on Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Three billion are projected to follow on TV and 75 million more on vancouver2010.com.
And people around the world are learning to love obscure sports like curling and biathlon for a couple of weeks.
But before you get too caught up in the sports, remember that the Olympics have little to do with sports. They’re mostly about money.
In the United States, NBC demonstrates this every day — ruining the Olympics for millions of sports fans by tape-delaying events so it can show a highlight reel during prime time. (To their credit, other countries don’t do this: Our readers remind us every day how great the coverage is in Canada).
But NBC is just a small part of the global industry known as Olympics, Inc.
In the last four years (2005-2008), the International Olympic Committee (the owners and controllers of “Olympics, Inc.”) generated nearly $6 billion of revenue. For the next cycle, revenues are on track to be significantly higher, with Vancouver already doubling Turin for domestic sponsorship.
It’s enough to make you look twice at the IOC, which is based conveniently in tax-haven Switzerland.
Although the IOC is a non-profit organization, employment (“membership”) in the organization is a cushy job with many benefits.
Where does all that money come from and go? Is anyone making a profit? And who put the IOC in charge anyway?
We bring you the answers here.
See the secret $6 billion world of the IOC >
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