NEW YORK – Performance-enhancing drugs destroy the bodies, minds and reputations of athletes. Nonetheless, a group of investors, including Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr, see a business opportunity.
They recently announced the first edition of the Enhanced Games – a kind of doping Olympics in which athletes are allowed and even encouraged to take PEDs – which will be held in Las Vegas next May.
It is a perverse concept, but that has not stopped four Olympians from already signing on. Other athletes will likely follow, lured by millions of dollars in prize money and appearance fees.
The actual Olympics have nothing to do with this, but the world’s most popular sporting event is not blameless. Its business model, under which athletes are paid little – if anything – creates the opportunity for something as warped as a sporting event that encourages doping to emerge.
Consider the dilemma faced by Kristian Gkolomeev, an accomplished 31-year-old swimmer who has competed in the last four Summer Olympics for Greece.
By his own admission, it has not exactly been a financially lucrative existence. In 2016, for example, the Greek government supported some of its top Olympians with stipends of less than US$1,000 (S$1,300) per month. Then and now medal winners receive lucrative bonuses, but Gkolomeev has never won one.
Enter the Enhanced Games.
In 2024, in hopes of drumming up interest in the event, organisers offered a US$1 million bounty for breaking the men’s 50 and 100-metre freestyle swim.
Gkolomeev signed up, juiced himself, and sure enough, “broke” – a term that should be used loosely when it involves steroid usage – the 50m record in February. In late May, at the Enhanced Games announcement, he was unapologetic when he told reporters: “A successful year at the Enhanced Games for me is more than I could make in 10 careers.”
That is a sorry commentary on the current state of Olympic sports such as swimming.
After all, it is not as if the International Olympic Committee is hurting. Lucrative media rights contracts and sponsorships allowed the organisation to earn US$7.6 billion between 2021 and 2024. What happens to that cash? The IOC says 90 per cent of it is distributed to organisations throughout the Olympic movement, from National Olympic Committees to host cities.
Unfortunately, most of that money does not reach competitors. Instead, it is devoted to things like training facilities, host city stadiums and executive salaries. According to a 2020 report by Global Athlete, an athlete welfare organisation, between 2013 and 2016, only 4.1 per cent of IOC and NOC funds went to contestants.
The situation does not appear to have improved over the last decade.
In 2024, a congressionally mandated report found that around 26 per cent of American participants in the Olympic and Paralympic pipelines earn less than US$15,000 per year.
Athletes in developing countries often have it worse. In Kenya, for example, some who trained for the 2024 Olympics received allowances of roughly US$7.50 per day. Bonuses for winning medals can make up some financial ground. In Kenya, a 2024 gold medal was worth around US$23,000; in the US, it earned US$37,500.
That is a nice check, but once an athlete spreads it out over four years (or more) and accounts for intensive, often full-time training, it is far less impressive. US Olympians, for example, report spending an average of US$21,700 annually on just competition fees and memberships.
That compensation and expense structure is not an accident or oversight. The modern Olympic Games were launched by a European aristocrat who expected athletes to compete for the joy of sport, not money. That sentiment has remained stubbornly intact even as the Games have evolved into a multi-billion-dollar advertising platform for the world’s biggest brands.
In 2024, for example, the IOC reacted furiously when World Athletics, the governing body for sports such as track and field, announced plans to pay US$50,000 to gold medalists in its events.
From the IOC’s perspective, compensation only serves to widen the gaps between more and less privileged countries and competitors. It is a tone-deaf response that highlights how out of touch – and perhaps ambivalent – the Olympics are with the lived reality of the athletes who generate its revenue.
The Enhanced Games are built to exploit the oversight.
“One of our core principles is we want to make our athletes as rich as possible,” explained Aron D’Souza, president of the sporting event, in a May interview with Men’s Health.
There will be ample opportunities to do that in Las Vegas. The Enhanced Games plan to host competitions in three categories – swimming, track and field, and weightlifting. Each event will feature a US$500,000 purse, with the winner earning US$250,000. In addition, everyone competing will receive an appearance fee and is eligible to win bonuses for “breaking” world records (as Gkolomeev did).
That is potentially a lot of money, though it is not likely to be enough for the world’s top Olympians – those who might win Olympic gold. They would be forfeiting their reputations and chances at sponsorship deals.
But the Enhanced Games does not need that kind of competitor. After all, enhancement is all about taking someone who cannot win a race or set a record and turning them into an athlete who can. There are many people who will never touch a medal podium who will be eligible for that role.
For anyone who cares about the integrity of sports, this is a tragic outcome. And it would not be the last of its kind. As long as the Olympics and other elite sporting competitions remain tethered to outdated beliefs of compensation, there will be opportunities for exploitation.
Over time, each instance will only serve to erode the public’s confidence in the fairness of competition. BLOOMBERG
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