UK Olympic Athletes Told Not to Wear Beats Headphones

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Bleh... Can't say I like it, but that is the modern world for you. Nothing is sacred anymore. The only thing is.. Is Panasonic sponsoring every single athlete in the world? Isn't it unfair for the organisers to exclude all other brands from being able to sponsor an athlete?
 
[citation][nom]hasten[/nom]Cry me a river. Who do you think is help funding these Olympic programs?Now they won't be quite as cool among the tweeners without their overpriced, overhyped, POS monstrosities called Beats headphones. Beats are like the new Bose. A mediocre product marketed extremely well directly to uneducated consumers and given a premium price tag. E[/citation]

here is something that confuses me... the headphones i tried, while gave excelent bass, failed in every other aspect to meant even my hd555's

however beets audio processor... is that better than other itnergrated solutions?

[citation][nom]cookoy[/nom]i like the Olympics then when only amateurs competed and were given a chance to show their potentials and become future top professionals.[/citation]

i thought the best world wide came together country against country.

[citation][nom]slabbo[/nom]This is a good thing, BEATS FRIKKEN SUCK!!!!I tried on the $300+ demos in the store and they are just really really bad. Crap sound and super uncomfortable. The turtle beach $50 gaming headsets were much better in sound, comfort and way cheaper.[/citation]

turtle beaches are just as bad as the beets, maybe a bit cheaper in most cases, but just as bad quality for the price.

[citation][nom]JBB-SaDo[/nom]The Fair tax would be nice.What's wrong with the rich getting richer? Who makes jobs? Yeah there are "poor" people who start business(there for creating jobs), but for the most part it is the "rich", that expand their business. Which in turn helps the "poor" people get a job get rich. I realize this is not a perfect world so my statement above is not going to happen every time. But do you get my point? Proverbs 12:11 ESV Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.[/citation]

wow, never met a person who actually thing that system works.
trickel down economics don't work, and we give the rich extreme tax breaks to the point they pay less than 20% in many cases of what they own, and a while ago, it was reported that the rich have upwards 35 trillion dollars in off shore funds

the rich are gready, cant go on if i want to avoid sanctions, but each mcdonalds if given the bounouses that the top people get, could pay each employee upwards 30$ an hour.

the rich get richer because they dont invest in the welfare of the poor, but only what lines their pockets, and generally thats not in america.

 
Interesting responses - It's mediocre product anyway. Who's paying for it. Taxes. No taxes. Snarky comments. The "beat" goes on...

For me the saddest thing is that the Olympics has been transformed from a setting where our best athletes can compete on a global stage to little more than another professional sporting event where the skill, experience, hard work, and prowess of the athletes is in some cases supplanted by the desire to monetize the event and promote "politically correct" outcomes.

I certainly understand that it takes sponsorship to support the athletes, but it used to be enough that governments, corporations, or institutions would provide the sponsorship and then get the bragging rights for doing so. This seems to have gone to extremes. If an athlete agrees to be sponsored by, say, Coca-cola, it is reasonable that the athlete wears a Coke insignia and appears in some commercials. However, does Coke then gain the right to dictate that the athlete cannot enjoy a Pepsi on his own time? And if so what are the real implications to personal freedom and liberty?

As far as becoming a politically correct stage, most folks are aware of the "blade runner" who is being allowed to participate in the olympics. While I have great compasion for his tradgedy, it is not in any way fair to other athletes who are competing against him.

Everyone should also be aware that the medals are no longer guaranteed to go to the best athletes, due to the limitation of 2 athletes per nation per finals. This means that if one country's athletes came in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the preliminaries, only the 1st and 2nd would be allowed to proceed to the finals. How does this meet the objective of finding and recognizing the "best in the world?"

I just find myself deeply disappointed that the Olympics has become much less than what it was in the past, and I fear this is just one example of where we're all headed. I think that citizens in all countries, where there is remaining any amount of freedom and liberty, need to think and act very carefully both to preserve what we have and to regain what we've lost.

Agree or disagree, but for me this is the real philosophical question underlying this news article.

###
 
i read somewhere it was Samsung who started this complain to Olympic committees as they thought it is free advertising for HTC.
 
I am personally boycotting any brand that tries to impose on the neutrality, heart, spirit and freedom of the Olympic Games. Panasonic is now added to that list. I urge more people to stand up and take a stand against this corporate nonsense. Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.
 
> As far as becoming a politically correct stage, most folks are aware of the "blade runner"
> who is being allowed to participate in the olympics. While I have great compasion for his
> tradgedy, it is not in any way fair to other athletes who are competing against him.

Oh dear. In what way is Oscar Pistorius life a tragedy? He just ran a decent time in an Olympic semi-final… what have you done with your life?

As for Coke-sponsored athletes not drinking Pepsi, they will have signed a contract. If you take the money, you follow the rules. The very definition of personal freedom is making decisions and taking the consequences - if you want to drink Pepsi AND Coke, don't sign an exclusive deal with Coke.

The issue with the headphones (not mentioning the brand) is that they shipped a crate of them to the British Olympic team trying to get some free advertising. The BOA are just reminding athletes to make sure they watch out for cheap stunts trying to exploit their visibility; I'd hope they're also saying 'wait until the games are over and then get PAID to advertise them, don't just take a free pair of headphones'.
 
[citation][nom]Bob99999999[/nom]> As far as becoming a politically correct stage, most folks are aware of the "blade runner" > who is being allowed to participate in the olympics. While I have great compasion for his > tradgedy, it is not in any way fair to other athletes who are competing against him.Oh dear. In what way is Oscar Pistorius life a tragedy? He just ran a decent time in an Olympic semi-final… what have you done with your life?As for Coke-sponsored athletes not drinking Pepsi, they will have signed a contract. If you take the money, you follow the rules. The very definition of personal freedom is making decisions and taking the consequences - if you want to drink Pepsi AND Coke, don't sign an exclusive deal with Coke.The issue with the headphones (not mentioning the brand) is that they shipped a crate of them to the British Olympic team trying to get some free advertising. The BOA are just reminding athletes to make sure they watch out for cheap stunts trying to exploit their visibility; I'd hope they're also saying 'wait until the games are over and then get PAID to advertise them, don't just take a free pair of headphones'.[/citation]

Hi Bob99999999,
From your profile it appears that you've joined this forum today, just now, just to reply to me. I have been a member of this forum for 3 years, and this is the first time I have commented on a news article. I appreciate the opportunity to exchange thoughts with you.

I don't believe that I implied that the Olympic blade runner's life was a tradgedy. I have compassion for any individual who has endured hardship, and I admire what he has accomplished in spite of his handicap. Perhaps I can state my thoughts more clearly with respect to the competition. For an individual to run with a prosthetic enhancement of any kind and then attempt to compare that with an able-bodied Olympian is a dis-service to both. I take nothing away from the blade runner, but I don't understand how a prosthetic-enhanced run is an equivalent basis for competition. I feel that the Olympic committee has agreed to let him run as a show of political correctness.

Your ad-hominem attack against me, rather than discussing the ideas I set forth, is both unfortunate and irrelevant. Neither you nor I can offer any evidence for our own accomplishments (or lack thereof) that would serve as proof-of-fact on this discussion board, and so it's best we stick to the topic of discussion.

I agree with you that, in my example, if the athletes have contractually signed away their liberty for an endorsement, then that would have been their choice. I believe the proposition and the philosophical question is how far should the sponsors be allowed to go. If we accept the premise that individuals must sign away their core freedom and liberty in order to train and participate in the Olympics, or for any other purpose, then we are in a very, very, bad place. Philosophically, what individual freedoms and liberties, if any, should a person reasonably be forced to forefit in order to pursue their ambitions?

I am unaware that any of the headphones in question were shipped to the athletes. This article does not make mention of this, and I have not seen it in any other related news articles. Can you provide a reference, as I would like to know the facts. To your point, though, the Olympic committee was far from reminding athletes to "watch out for cheap stunts ..." The Olympic committee was specifically threatening to disquality the athletes.

Again, back to my premise, if the Olympics have such mercenary restrictions for qualifying and competing, then it's really not about who is the best athlete in the world. It's more about what are you willing to give up for a short term benefit (fame, fortune, etc.) I take nothing away from the hard work that any of the Olympians put into their training. I simply ask that we ask ourselves the question - At what price Freedom? At what price Liberty?

Thanks again,
###
 
The issue is that all the sponsors have paid an arm and a leg to be at there Olympics and would be very upset to see other brand who haven't spent much being advertised. Without these funding where do you think they will get the rest of the money from?? tax payers ad ticket holders. most of these athlete are even getting paid to wear this stuff, so really who are the greedy ones??
 
[citation][nom]JBB-SaDo[/nom]The Fair tax would be nice.What's wrong with the rich getting richer? Who makes jobs? Yeah there are "poor" people who start business(there for creating jobs), but for the most part it is the "rich", that expand their business. Which in turn helps the "poor" people get a job get rich. I realize this is not a perfect world so my statement above is not going to happen every time. But do you get my point?[/citation]

The "rich" do not create jobs. The "rich" get rich from the working class. The "rich" are parasites for the most part. They depend on the working class to survive, yet they have much more than what the working class has.

I first realized this when I was working for a small tech firm several years ago. The "techs" as they labeled us, did 100% of the work which included high level networking maintenance, repair, planning, etc, etc, etc, for hospitals, schools, etc. The techs were paid between $9.50-$15.00/hr, yet we were billing around 95% of working hours at rates well over $130 (Tier 1 tech / and not a true Tier 1 tech, but someone who was very good at what they did - hence the reason hospitals with systems admins getting paid 80k+/yr were hiring us in to fix things for them) - I remember the people working there telling me that the only thing they looked forward to was the Christmas bonus usually about $1000 dollars.

Guess what... that year the owners gave us company labeled jackets with a $100 dollar bill in the pocket as our Christmas bonus. They said it was because of the economy even though we had sold a multi-million dollar project that very same year and the owners bought their-selves a private plane and had professional lessons to learn how to fly it.

Here is the part that just proves my point. I quit. The other good "techs" quit. We decided to not make these guys rich. The working class has the power to make money, not the "rich". The two owners (brothers) tried to keep the business running, but they were unable to do so because they couldn't find any good "techs" (for 10$/hr). They bankrupted and now they are back to square one where they have to get real jobs and actually work for their money.

 
[citation][nom]cookoy[/nom]i like the Olympics then when only amateurs competed and were given a chance to show their potentials and become future top professionals.[/citation]
+1 For you.

Nothing like the miracle on ice (1980 winter games) could ever happen any more.


With all the pros in the Olympics these days, I find at least some of the sports, particularly those with pros, completely uninteresting, and refuse to watch. To me, it sounds like it is becoming nothing more than a giant marketing event.
 
Samsung is an official sponsor of the games... are they banning iPhones?...
 
This article needs to point out that Panasonic has not asked this to be enforced; The organizing committee is the one to blame for the heavy-handed tactics. The previous games at Vancouver and Beijing were nowhere near this strict.
 
Beats headphones suck anyways. Take the quality of apple headphones, and now make them have 3x as much bass as the distorted treble. Now make them 300$
 


How about the "official headphone sponsor" just help fund the games so that these athletes, whose skills in many cases wouldn't be worth a tinker's damn, have a chance to compete on a world stage and potentially win a medal that could help them make millions in sponsorship money?

Seriously, athletics of this level are a luxuries spawned from of a culture of excess. If the worst one of these athletes has to suffer is not getting to use their headset of choice, tough beans... Because in a culture that wasn't so overflowing with wealth so as to make something like this an issue, they might well be tilling soil to try and grow beans so they don't starve, rather than sitting there worrying that a company dumping resources into an athletic competition won't let them use their headset of choice.
 
Well, beats by Dre aren't particularly good headphones, so who cares? But if I were an athlete and I was told not to wear my headphones because they're not a sponsor, I'd tell them to get lost.
 
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