PED 454/554
Sport Sociology

Book Review:

The Lords of the Rings

Lars Allenstein
CSU
04-22-99

Content:

I. Chapter summaries

Chapter 1: Welcome to Barcelona
Chapter 2: Horst′ s System
Chapter 3: Dassler Takes Coke
Chapter 4: From Montreal to Monaco
Chapter 5: With Arm Raised I Salute You
Chapter 6: The Clever Chameleon
Chapter 7: The Jewel in the Crown
Chapter 8: ISL Rules the World
Chapter 9: Flotsam and Jetsam
Chapter 10: Olympia′s Black Gold
Chapter 11: The Bumps on the Logs
Chapter 12: Twenty Million Dollars
Chapter 13: The Cheats
Chapter 14: Scandal
Chapter 15: Before Your Very Eyes
Chapter 16: A Lawyer From Des Moines
Chapter 17: Alarm Bells
Chapter 18: The Benevolent Dictator
Chapter 19: The Shoe Size of the Second Daughter
Chapter 20: Destroy the Olympics

II. Conflict Theory

III. Reaction to the Content

IV. Topics and Different Approaches

I. Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1: Welcome to Barcelona:

The authors Vyv Simson and Andrew Jennings begin their documentary with a background of the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. Since The Lords of the Rings was published in ′92, the Barcelona Games are the most recent example of the glamorous and commercialized modern-day Olympics.

The authors give an impressive statistical background of the world′s biggest and most sumptuous sport spectacle, the Olympics. Next they introduce the powerful International Olympic Committee (IOC), referring to it as The Club. The most powerful members of The Club are; president Juan Antonio Samaranch, FIFA (Federation of International Football Associations) boss Joao Havelange, the president of the IAAF (International Amateur Athletics Federation) Primo Nebiolo, ANOC′s (Association of National Olympic Committees) president Mario Vazquez Rana, the World Teakwondo Federation′s president Dr. Un Yong Kim, along with Dick Pound and Robert H. Helmick.

The next topic dealt with, is the rising value of the Olympics "as a global brand"(11) combined with the increasing amounts of money collected through the sponsorships of multinational corporations and official suppliers to the Olympic Games in Barcelona.

In the second part of this chapter the authors use the annual meeting of the IOC, which was held in Birmingham in 1991, as an example for the "constant and glittering round of first- class travel, five-star hotels, champagne receptions, extravagant banquets, mountains of gifts and lavish entertainment"(12) guaranteed for the Olympic family′s gatherings. Officially the annual IOC meeting (behind closed doors) is supposed to "debate and vote on the policies to be carried out in the name of the Olympics"(18). Jennings and Simson conclude that the IOC members′ lives are "a constant round of meetings, trades and deals in the now lucrative, powerful and high profile world of international sports"(20).

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