PARIS (AP) — Dire monetary straits are main droves of Olympic athletes to promote pictures of their our bodies to subscribers on OnlyFans — recognized for sexually specific content material — to maintain their desires of gold on the Video games. As they wrestle to make ends meet, a highlight is being solid on an Olympics funding system that watchdog teams condemn as “damaged,” claiming most athletes “can barely pay their lease.”
The Olympics, the world’s biggest sporting stage, usher in billions of {dollars} in TV rights, ticket gross sales and sponsorship, however most athletes should fend for themselves financially.
The Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) didn’t categorical concern in regards to the state of affairs. When requested by The Related Press about athletes turning to OnlyFans, IOC spokesman Mark Adams stated, “I might assume that athletes, like all residents, are allowed to do what they’ll.”
Watching his sponsorships dry up and going through mounting prices, Jack Laugher was among the many pantheon of Olympic athletes utilizing the often-controversial platform to get to the Video games — or just survive.
After medaling on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Laugher, who scored another bronze in Paris final week for the U.Ok., stated he was ready for funding that by no means materialized. His account, costing $10 a month for a subscription, says he posts “SFW (protected for work) content material in Speedos, briefs, boxers.” A latest put up from the Olympics bought greater than 1,400 likes.
“For me, it’s been an absolute lifeline,” he stated, earlier than he was whisked away mid-interview by a British group official, underscoring the sensitivity of the difficulty.
The AP spoke to a number of present and former Olympians who painted a sobering portrait of what they needed to do — and naked — to get to Paris.
Laugher, and different present and former Olympians — rower Robbie Manson (New Zealand), pole vaulter Alysha Newman (Canada), divers Timo Barthel (Germany), Diego Belleza Isaias (Mexico) and Matthew Mitcham (Australia), the primary openly gay Olympic gold medalist — discovered a measure of monetary stability in OnlyFans that different funding failed to supply.
Unable to safe conventional sponsorships, Mitcham started posting photographs on OnlyFans, together with semi-frontal nudes, incomes triple the quantity he acquired as a prime athlete.
“That physique is a tremendous commodity that folks need to pay to see. It’s a privilege to see a physique that has six hours of labor daily, six days per week put into it to make it Adonis-like,” stated Mitcham, who describes himself as a “intercourse worker-lite.”
Manson, in the meantime, credited OnlyFans with boosting his athletic efficiency, saying his content material included “thirst traps,” however nothing pornographic.
“My content material is nude or implied nude. I maintain it creative, I’ve enjoyable with it and take a look at to not take myself too significantly. That’s one thing I’ve additionally tried to take care of in my strategy to rowing … This strategy has helped me obtain a private finest consequence on the Olympics,” he advised the AP.
Whereas some athletes say they don’t see what they’re doing as intercourse work, German diver Bartel put it frankly: “In sport, you put on nothing however a Speedo, so that you’re near being bare.”
World Athlete, a company created by athletes to deal with the facility imbalance in sports activities, decried the dire state of Olympic financing.
“Your entire funding mannequin for Olympic sport is damaged. The IOC generates now over US$1.7 billion per 12 months they usually refuse to pay athletes who attend the Olympics,” stated Rob Koehler, World Athlete’s director basic.
He criticized the IOC for forcing athletes to signal away their picture rights.
“The vast majority of athletes can barely pay their lease, but the IOC, nationwide Olympic committees and nationwide federations that oversee the game have staff making over six figures. All of them are being profitable off the backs of athletes. In a method, it’s akin to modern-day slavery,” Koehler stated.
The AP spoke to a number of athletes who verify they’ve needed to pay their very own option to the Olympics. Whereas stars like Michael Phelps and Simone Biles could make thousands and thousands, most athletes wrestle to cowl the price of competing on the worldwide stage.
These can embrace teaching, bodily remedy and tools, at a value of hundreds of {dollars} a month, in addition to primary dwelling bills. Some delegations fund coaching, with the athletes protecting medical payments and each day bills. In different delegations, athletes pay for every little thing themselves.
Olympic athletes are usually given only one or two tickets for family and friends, obliging them to pay for added tickets so their family members can attend their occasions.
“The IOC tries to persuade these athletes that their lives will change after changing into an Olympian — there’s nothing farther from the reality. The very fact is almost all of athletes are left in debt, face despair, and they’re misplaced as soon as ending sport with no future employment pathway,” Koehler stated.
Pole vaulter Alysha Newman has used the cash she earned from OnlyFans to purchase property and construct up her financial savings.
“I by no means cherished how beginner athletes can by no means make some huge cash,” she stated. “That is the place my entrepreneurial abilities got here in.”
Adams, the IOC spokesman, stated at a press convention Thursday he wasn’t conscious of the development and dismissed concern in regards to the topic. The AP requested particulars from the IOC on the way it helps athletes financially, and the IOC referred the AP to a swathe of hyperlinks with scant element, with out elaborating or offering additional remark. A press release from the IOC Govt Board stated the IOC distributes 90% of its revenues to “the event of sport and athletes,” however didn’t go into element.
OnlyFans has expressed solidarity for its athletes.
“OnlyFans helps them to assist coaching and dwelling prices, and offering the instruments for fulfillment on and off the sector,” the platform stated in a press release.
It highlights different “exceptionally gifted OnlyFans athlete creators who had been unable to compete in Paris this 12 months,” together with British divers Matthew Dixon, Daniel Goodfellow, and Matty Lee, together with British pace skater Elise Christie and Spanish fencer Yulen Pereira.
Athletes on OnlyFans say they’ve been pressured to grapple with societal stigma. Some advised the AP they’d been requested in the event that they had been now porn stars, and one diver’s profile even clarified: “I’m a Staff GB (Nice Britain) diver, not a porn star.”
However others like Mitcham have been vocal about their experiences.
“Some individuals are judgy about intercourse work. Folks say it’s a disgrace and even that it’s shameful,” Mitcham stated. “However what I do is a really mild model of intercourse work, just like the low-fat model of mayonnaise … promoting the sizzle relatively than the steak.”
Mexican diver Diego Balleza Isaias, nonetheless, stated the expertise left him feeling dejected. Balleza Isaias stated he joined OnlyFans in 2023 to get to the Olympics and assist his household. After failing to qualify for Paris, he deliberate to shut his account.
“I firmly imagine that no athlete does this as a result of they prefer it,” he stated. “It’s all the time going to be as a result of you’ll want to.”
The monetary incentive may be appreciable. French pole vaulter Anthony Ammirati shot to sudden fame when his genitals snagged on the bar at a qualifying occasion. In response to TMZ and different retailers, an grownup website then supplied him a six-figure sum to showcase his “expertise” on its platform.
Mitcham prompt OnlyFans was superior to GoFundMe, as athletes aren’t simply asking for cash or “handouts.”
“With OnlyFans, athletes are literally offering a services or products, one thing of worth for the cash they’re receiving,” he defined, emphasizing the necessity to reframe considering.
“It’s making athletes entrepreneurs.”
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Related Press journalists Graham Dunbar and Pat Graham contributed to this report from Paris.
