is team USA more about marketing than results?

[Shamus MacNoob]

Yes and thats why the PRO's are there is about money.. IMHO the $ comes from having the PRO's there soooooooo thats why I say this is about the PRO's

most of the atheletes @ the olympics ARE professionals mainly because they need to earn money somehow if they are to dedicate their lives to a particular sport...

If they are PRO's they have all ready dedicated their life to it. and as far as I know here in Canda you dont get paid for it you do it for PRIDE there is no salary.


lol

 

[Sazar]

all the atheletes there are ostensibly doing this for their country... thats not the point and I would never question the atheletes patriotism (cept that one iranian retard)

the money earned is through endorsments or the nation you represent rewarding you for a medal win as most countries do... and is a lovely incentive...

most of the atheletes in the olympics are present (even though they may be professionals) because of the good graces of sponsors who helped them through their training... not every athelete in the world makes millions of dollars... some members of the women's basketball team from the US are getting by on the average US salary...

 

[Daeron Tinúviel]

different events have different limitations and are regulated differently... each sports governing body sets the rules pertaining to the olympics with the IOC and we progress from there...

most of the atheletes @ the olympics ARE professionals mainly because they need to earn money somehow if they are to dedicate their lives to a particular sport...

the point I raised in this thread is that the endorsement companies are getting too big a hand in the selection of teams apparently and that the media is hyping up certain atheletes more than needed...

were there to be no professional atheletes in the olympics at all we would have a mediocre and ultimately fading event...

as it stands today I am a big fan of the olympics... watching the synchronized mens diving today (as painful as it is to say that anything synchronized is a sport... whats next? synchronized long jumping?) and greece winning over vaunted favs in china/russia and the united states shows that surprises do occur and pleasant ones too...

the football regulations allow only a couple of professional players and most of the team is under 23 years of age...

the way that sports has become today you just can't deny that professionals will compete... thats NOT the point of the thread though...

the point is the influence commercial interests have over teams that they have no role getting involved in...

michael phelps olympics are already a "failure" as much as marion jones was in sydney... not because he has failed to medal or bring the US some major attention in the swimming pool... but because he will not break spitz's record and that his gold dreams now stand @ 1 gold and 2 bronze...

and BTW i agree with all u have said so far, endorsement is killin good old sports

 

[Lee]

Nah Cuba would kick the USA's ass at baseball in the Olympics anyway.

Like the World Series only USA can enter.

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

There should be a ? after your only hope would be an all pro team ?

Then you will see it different and dont be insulted like I said if your all pro team is that good your young players are as good. So you could win a medal either way. You would not need pro players why can't you see that?

How can your older pro's be better then the same people they were when they were just a few years younger and non pro?

Go on explain that to me.

 

[Maveric169]

different events have different limitations and are regulated differently... each sports governing body sets the rules pertaining to the olympics with the IOC and we progress from there...

most of the atheletes @ the olympics ARE professionals mainly because they need to earn money somehow if they are to dedicate their lives to a particular sport...

the point I raised in this thread is that the endorsement companies are getting too big a hand in the selection of teams apparently and that the media is hyping up certain atheletes more than needed...

were there to be no professional atheletes in the olympics at all we would have a mediocre and ultimately fading event...

as it stands today I am a big fan of the olympics... watching the synchronized mens diving today (as painful as it is to say that anything synchronized is a sport... whats next? synchronized long jumping?) and greece winning over vaunted favs in china/russia and the united states shows that surprises do occur and pleasant ones too...

the football regulations allow only a couple of professional players and most of the team is under 23 years of age...

the way that sports has become today you just can't deny that professionals will compete... thats NOT the point of the thread though...

the point is the influence commercial interests have over teams that they have no role getting involved in...

michael phelps olympics are already a "failure" as much as marion jones was in sydney... not because he has failed to medal or bring the US some major attention in the swimming pool... but because he will not break spitz's record and that his gold dreams now stand @ 1 gold and 2 bronze...

Was it just me or did the the US synchronized mens diving team get judged a little unfairly? I watched every one of their dives, (some could have been better yea) and there were allot of good dives that look allot better than than most of the others, yet they consitantly received low scores. The only dive that they got a good score on was dive #4. (I didn't belive they actually had a synchronized diving event, blows my mind, next event synchronized underwater farting, bubbles must reach the surface at the same time and be of the same size!!!)

I know this is a little off topic but does anyone feel that in judging competitions the US will have a much harder time due to world events?

Back on topic, I noticed the same thing, seems the olympics is more about commericalization than in the past. I also feel that anyone is their respective country should have the ability to represent their country in the olympics. Ameture or Pro, it should be simply the best of the best.

 

[Daeron Tinúviel]

Nah Cuba would kick the USA's ass at baseball in the Olympics anyway.

agree.......


youngers players doesnt have the experience that pro have.....u know why i like all the pros? cause the reality is that today all athletes are pro so i want the best of every country in their teams, u think cuba athletes arent pro? they can kick any pro butt and they dont even make 1/16 of the money pro makes.......

 

[Daeron Tinúviel]

thats right: Ameture or Pro, it should be simply the best of the best. if u make to the team and u are amateur good if u are pro good, too we just neeed the best of our countries

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Nah Cuba would kick the USA's ass at baseball in the Olympics anyway.

Like the World Series only USA can enter.

mmm Toronto

lol

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Yes well either way everyone can have an opinion thats for sure, I wont say your WRONG or RIGHT , but I dont see how I can be told I am WRONG either.

 

[Sazar]

Was it just me or did the the US synchronized mens diving team get judged a little unfairly? I watched every one of their dives, (some could have been better yea) and there were allot of good dives that look allot better than than most of the others, yet they consitantly received low scores. The only dive that they got a good score on was dive #4. (I didn't belive they actually had a synchronized diving event, blows my mind, next event synchronized underwater farting, bubbles must reach the surface at the same time and be of the same size!!!)

I don't think they were judged unfairly... they were in position to win the gold medal with a dive average of 8.0 which is pants...

their first dive was crap and they had above average 2, 3, 4 dives though not completely clean...

you have to keep in mind the difficulty level... given the quality of the other dives i thought they were judged fairly...

naturally they threw away their medal just like the chinese and russians with a botched final dive...

I know this is a little off topic but does anyone feel that in judging competitions the US will have a much harder time due to world events?

what makes you say that? there is no bias to big-name players (witness the mens basketball game) so there will be a lower number of phantom calls favoring the NBA players... if this is bad judging I am all in favor of it...

wrt other events I don't think the US is getting a bad break... they have been doing well in gymnastics and diving and haven't been shunted yet... IMO...

Back on topic, I noticed the same thing, seems the olympics is more about commericalization than in the past. I also feel that anyone is their respective country should have the ability to represent their country in the olympics. Ameture or Pro, it should be simply the best of the best.

thats why they have heats for some events or you have to qualify for others... only the BEST get through...

not all nations are in the basketball and other events because they did'nt make it out of the qualies... as I said each event has a different set of rules determined by the governing body and the IOC... tennis for example...

I don't have a problem with the hyping up of people and what not to sell ads in the US (which is the prime topic here)... but when the outside influences cause a debacle (such as the US 4x100 freestyle relay) then its absolutely despicable...

what annoyed me even more about that race was no one mentioned anything about gary hall jr... no one said anything bout phelps or the guy who swam the final leg... everyone just laid the blame on the 1st leg swimmer...

were it not for the guy swimming the 3rd leg the US would not even have medalled...

and lost in all the convenient blame game was the fact that gary hall jr was a faster swimmer in the qualies than phelps...

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

I think it looks good on them and I hope that guy fails even worse now after all that.

 

[Daeron Tinúviel]

ok my mistake to tell u were wrong, but u got to remember we dont make the rules and the olympic comitee was the one that allow pros in the olympics for the same reason i'm tellin you about: we need the best of the best.......but sure also we need the besk marketting of all

 

[Son Goku]

as it stands today I am a big fan of the olympics... watching the synchronized mens diving today (as painful as it is to say that anything synchronized is a sport... whats next? synchronized long jumping?)

nah, nah, synchronized boxing Seeing 2 peeps duke it out synchronously could look funnier then watching Goten and Trunks learn the fusion dance

On a more serious note...yes a country will send it's most skilled athletes. Unfortunately some people (and definitely companies) don't see beyond dollar signs however. To give a figure to the amount of commercilization we have (this is the Super Bowl though, not sure about Olympics ads), I took a media studies class last semester. Of of the things mentioned concerning the ad industry was that Budweiser pays like $800 million to be the exclusive beer advertiser during this event...

 

[Grandmaster]

Sorry, very off topic, but can you please tell me what "wrt" means Sazar? It's getting too annoying

 

[Son Goku]

Sorry, very off topic, but can you please tell me what "wrt" means Sazar? It's getting too annoying

lol

OK, wrt == with regards to

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

wrt = you spend to much time on line in forums

 

[Sazar]

wrt = you spend to much time on line in forums

what does using short-hand have to do with time spent online?

 

[Son Goku]

If it saves times typing... True I don't know every acronym out there, but I don't always chose to type everything out. btw, when I'm configuring a Cisco router, I would also chose to type something like

sh ip int b

instead of

show ip interface brief

It saves some key strokes

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Dont worry its just like all the lol' lmao and what not's