When Olympic torches started turning up on eBay last month there was general dismay at the thought of people profiting from their "moment to shine".
By comparison, the London organising committee’s reaction was muted. They said only that they hoped the torches “go to a good home”.
Now we know why. Locog was planning to cash in in precisely the same way.
Yesterday the organising committee announced that it will be auctioning off up to 1,000 torches to the highest bidder. And it is not just torches. Memorabilia from the Games will also be up for grabs, including the baton from the 4 x 100m relay, balls from Wimbledon, signed photos of Seb Coe and, one suspects, anything else that isn’t nailed down in the stadium when the flame goes out.
The proceeds of this Olympic boot sale, surely the most crass and transparently grasping initiative of London 2012, will not be going to charity. Nor will the money be used to recoup the £9.3bn taxpayer investment without which the Games would not be happening.
Instead the money will be used to “subsidise the costs of Torches to Torchbearers and contribute towards the staging of the Games.”
If this makes you feel better about the torch auction, think again. The torch relay is paid for by sponsors, and Coca-Cola, Samsung and Lloyds-TSB make unlikely candidates for subsidy. (You might even think that after a £17bn bail-out the bank has had quite enoughalready.)
The crashing disconnect between what Locog claims about the torch relay and this scuffling pursuit of a few hundred thousand pounds is deeply distasteful.
I travelled to Olympia for the lighting of the flame, and accompanied it home along with a delegation including the Princess Royal and David Beckham on the yellow-liveried plane. (Another sponsor stunt that one, BA this time.)
Throughout Locog stressed that the torch relay was the moment the UK would come alive to the magic of the Games, inspired by the sacred flame lit from the Greek sun. The 8,000 torch bearers, we were told, were truly special people, privileged to be taking part, and only they would be allowed to buy the torches, at £199 a pop to keep the momento of a lifetime.
That spirit was embraced by the public on the road when I followed the relay around the west country last month. The crowds thronging Cotswold villages were willing to ignore the dismal racket of the sponsors' buses and embrace the purer principles claimed for the torch.
It turns out they were being take for a ride. Now anyone can buy a torch because Locog needs every penny, and not at an equable flat-fee but in an auction that will best exploit the market.
The man responsible for this catastrophically misjudged initiative, Locog commercial director Chris Townsend, said this yesterday: “The Flame will carry with it the values and spirit of the Olympic Games across the UK.”
We can only conclude that the “spirit” to which Townsend refers is a desire to wring every last penny from the British public via cheap stunts with high price tags.
Nobody expects the Olympics to operate without commercial support but in the race for revenue Locog has lost sight of what is appropriate, and demeaned the relay.
The defence offered yesterday was equally misguided. Locog argues that it needs the cash, and if misses its £2bn revenue target the taxpayer will have to make up the difference. This is from the “one more step and the baby gets it” school of corporate justification, and translates thus: Either way the public pays, but at least with the auction you get a momento, even if it is now tainted.
Even experienced Olympic figures are shocked. Michael Payne, the former IOC marketing director responsible for turning the Games into a formidable commercial machine, tweeted today that the auction was “demeaning”.
If Locog had done the decent thing and used the sell-off to raise money for sport, or any of the numerous charities in receipt of Lottery cash who have seen reduced grants because of the Games, they would be cheered to the echo here.
Instead they have contrived the biggest own-goal of the Olympics so far. The market may yet prove Locog right. The torches and memorabilia may fly off the (officially licensed) auction site. But that will not make it anything other than a grubby misjudgment.
Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk
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