Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 400 posts

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#231

Post by Nursie »

zeroCalories wrote: post #140
ludston wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are athletes are working themselves to injury for the sake of improving the lives of the people around them? I do not see this. Athletes are competing for themselves: for fame, money and to feed their egos. I do not see the virtue in athletics given that being an entertainer, and being powerful and fit are intrinsically rewarding enough. I'd much rather we were funding musicians and artists, but only a fraction of fu…

Athletes serve as aspirational figures that drive interest towards sports that keep people healthy. There is an ugly skinny-fat / fat-fat hatred of sports born from post-war folklore about jocks and nerds.

> Athletes serve as aspirational figures that drive interest towards sports that keep people healthy.

No, they don't. The olympics in particular have been shown not to have any sort of lasting effect on host countries or the world in general.

AFAICT this whole thing is a fallacy dreamt up as part of the justification for spending billions on games.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#232

Post by WalterBright »

jalapenos wrote: post #112
braza wrote: post #106

Being a former athlete (100/200 meters), the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value, and if you are from javelin throwing, fencing, or racewalking, unless you have a great sponsor, it will definitely require personal sacrifices to make it to the games. In Brazil a very long time ago, there was a gigantic tug of war between the top-tier spor…

Fencing as done now looks legit stupid, so does racewalking. Javelin, while slightly more cool, is you throwing a stick. Mildly interesting for a few seconds. Football is a top tier sport because it's entertaining. People will pay to see it. Hence there's money to be earned. If someone wants to spend their time seeing how far they can throw a stick, cool, but they shouldn't be surprised they're waking up to an empty…

A contest between a man with a short sword and shield vs a man with a trident and a net would be very popular.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#233

Post by baq »

WalterBright wrote: post #225

> In a way, it is akin to modern-day slavery They all have a free choice about whether to be an Olympian or to take a more lucrative career path. It was obvious to me even as a kid that the chances of making money as an Olympian is about as probable as making money as a singer in a rock and roll band. I.e. a thoroughly impractical career choice. Even worse, no matter how good you are, a random injury or getting the f…

> They all have a free choice about whether to be an Olympian or to take a more lucrative career path.

Not everyone is born capable of being an Olympic athlete and the career path of being one alongside associated opportunity costs is chosen long before the person can consciously and rationally make decisions about themselves. Also, not everyone is as bright as a kid as you.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#234

Post by WalterBright »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #221
braza wrote: post #106

Being a former athlete (100/200 meters), the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value, and if you are from javelin throwing, fencing, or racewalking, unless you have a great sponsor, it will definitely require personal sacrifices to make it to the games. In Brazil a very long time ago, there was a gigantic tug of war between the top-tier spor…

this is the same in sports in general. In almost every country, players from certain sports earn many times more what players in other sports make. I don't think there's any "fix" for this -- some sports will always be more popular than others, and those who play those particular sports will have more financial opportunities.

Athletes get money in rough proportion to how many and how much fans are willing to pay to see them. It's as simple as that.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#235

Post by baq »

tsupiroti wrote: post #165
llamaimperative wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but GP’s comment would apply if someone posted a complaint about “why is no one paying me a salary to build an ESP32 thermometer that tickles my feet when it gets below 80 outside?”

Well, there are often threads lamenting that open source maintainers don't get paid more.

And then cries of disgust and demands of professional services 24/7 for free because someone found a bug in your hobby project which turned out to be useful for some megacorp or VC funded startup.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#236

Post by WalterBright »

baq wrote: post #233
WalterBright wrote: post #225

> In a way, it is akin to modern-day slavery They all have a free choice about whether to be an Olympian or to take a more lucrative career path. It was obvious to me even as a kid that the chances of making money as an Olympian is about as probable as making money as a singer in a rock and roll band. I.e. a thoroughly impractical career choice. Even worse, no matter how good you are, a random injury or getting the f…

> They all have a free choice about whether to be an Olympian or to take a more lucrative career path. Not everyone is born capable of being an Olympic athlete and the career path of being one alongside associated opportunity costs is chosen long before the person can consciously and rationally make decisions about themselves. Also, not everyone is as bright as a kid as you.

The kids have parents who are empowered to make those decisions for them, for exactly the reason you suggest.

Of course, some parents make poor decisions - but it's a free country, but not free from the consequences of bad decisions.

Or do you suggest someone else make those decisions for the kids?

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#237

Post by baq »

nradov wrote: post #137
rwyinuse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most stuff that "matters" or is "useful" also pays next to nothing, or has been outsourced to China if you happen to live in the West. There's nothing useful to do for most of today's workforce in post-industrial societies, except things like nursing which are severely underpaid.

Huh? Unemployment is low and median wages are up. Nursing might not be the highest paying job but they earn a median wage of $86k which is pretty good in most areas.

Ah yes the end state of society is childless nurses working their assess of caring after way too many retired old people.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#238

Post by Melting_Harps »

braza wrote: post #106

Being a former athlete (100/200 meters), the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value, and if you are from javelin throwing, fencing, or racewalking, unless you have a great sponsor, it will definitely require personal sacrifices to make it to the games. In Brazil a very long time ago, there was a gigantic tug of war between the top-tier spor…

> the issue is that the top-tier sports (e.g., football, volleyball, basketball, etc.) capture the majority of money/value

This, I met the daughter of a colleague who was one of the UK Olympian rowers/crew and after I fed her and got her 2 drinks in she started telling me what her 'off-season' activities consisted of: her father as much as he tried could only afford to pay a fraction of her training costs and living expenses and they were well off land owners from Cornwall.

She basically got her Captains lisc and took the affluent people from the City on everything from booze cruises, to hen nights in the English channel to France etc...

The debauchery was obscene and made her witness some of the darkest aspects of humanity to pursue this dream she had, which was admirable in a way, but I knew that after a few years when she got really injured, or aged out or the money simply ran dry this would be her REAL life.

OF wasn't a thing back then, but I wonder if given the choice she would prefer the choice of uploading anon sexy feet pics or babysitting people go into drunk or coke fueled stupors where she is psychically restraining people from falling into the water while heavily intoxicated causing her to lose her license, or livelihood or at best increase her insurance rates.

Then again OF has the same problem where the top talent takes 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/magazine/e-pimps-onlyfans...

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#239

Post by WalterBright »

jalapenos wrote: post #115

System working as designed? Like, if your hobby is throwing a disc as far as you can, have fun. But don't expect many people to pay to watch right? But people pay a whole lot to see nice bodies doing sexual stuff. So since money comes from what other people value, no need for a surprised Pikachu face.

A few years ago, I remember when the Olympics was hosted in Vancouver, BC. The news reported that an insane amount of free condoms was distributed to the athletes. Some lower level athletes were interviewed, and they said they knew they had zero chance of a medal, but were having the time of their lives.

Re: Olympians turn to OnlyFans to fund dreams due to 'broken' finance system (2024)

#240

Post by hindsightbias »

DrillShopper wrote: post #187
unsupp0rted wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? I can't name a single disc thrower, sabre-master, parallel bar gripper, judo person, or thing-shooter. Every once in a while a Turkish guy shooting with no equipment becomes a meme, or the greatest swimmer or runner in the history of the world comes onto the scene. Newsmedia goes nuts because this sells advertising. But then a southern girl in a 5-second viral video does 100x of that in notoriety, with no tr…

> Do they? Clearly they do or NBC wouldn't pay approximately eleventy quadtrillion dollars every time the contract is up to renew. NBC makes billions on the Olympics though running advertising and advertisers are willing to pay NBC's rates therefore at least enough people care for NBC to profit massively.

Maybe there should be some ethical consideration of a culture of prizing American/German/Chinese/Russian mostly semi-pro and literally pro athletes stomping mostly real amateurs from the rest of the world in the olympiad.

They could all save a lot of money and it would probably be more interesting to watch.

Post reply on HN