The presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is a volunteer position at a nonprofit organization. It also comes with a roughly $250,000 annual stipend and complimentary housing at a five-star Swiss resort.
Meanwhile, Olympic athletes heading to Rio, Brazil, for the games this week find an Olympic village with problems that include "blocked toilets, leaking pipes, exposed wiring, darkened stairwells where no lighting has been installed, and dirty floors." For many, the closest thing to formal compensation will be free clothes.
That disparity is the subject of a detailed Washington Post report and infographic explaining where the money for the Olympics comes from — and where it goes. "The picture that emerges is a multibillion-dollar entertainment industry whose entertainers are [particularly in the United States] often expected to raise their own income or live in poverty," summarizes Post writer Will Hobson.
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Perhaps most bizarrely, "some IOC members will get paid more to watch the Olympics ($7,650, depending on travel schedules) than many Team USA athletes will get paid to compete in the Olympics." Hobson quotes one IOC volunteer who worked the 2012 London games recalling unexpectedly lavish accommodations for his gig. "They had a $100-bill-counting machine," he remembered, "and people were standing in line to get their stacks of hundred-dollar bills." The volunteer said money flowed so freely for non-athletes that he went home after the Olympics with an extra $10,000 in cash.
Read the entire analysis at The Washington Post.
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