As a result, companies line up for Olympic sponsorship. In earlier days of the Olympics, the ideal of amateurism was enforced, though this primarily served to keep out working-class competitors. Eventually the pressures for professionalisation became too great, and today the truly amateur Olympic athlete is the exception. Successful athletes in the most prominent sports now can become rich through sponsorships. Prize money is of secondary importance to those with a media profile.
Athletes benefit from their association with the Olympics, which in turn reflects on their sponsors.
With the advent of global television coverage, the IOC has become a major transnational corporate enterprise itself, with hundreds of millions of dollars in income hinging on television rights. Ironically, the IOC has turned the image of high-minded sporting competitions, seemingly above the sordid realm of politics and commerce, into a vehicle for making huge amounts of money. Like any corporation and its trademarks, the IOC jealously guards which companies are allowed any association with the five Olympic rings. Just as the IOC has avoided any moral judgement of governments, so it has abdicated any moral role in relation to corporate sponsorship. Whether running shoes are made by Third World workers in horrible conditions at low pay or whether a drink is of nutritional value is of little concern to the IOC, except for possible bad publicity.