The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Rights groups target sponsors like Airbnb for Beijing Games
In one corner are the 15 leading Olympic sponsors, many household names like Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Visa, Toyota, Samsung, and General Electric. Together they pay at least $1 billion to the International Olympic Committee, and in the next four-year Olympic cycle the payments could reach $2 billion.
They are joined by Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics, which opens in just under a year. Sponsors want the Olympic connection, but they risk damaging their brand because of reported human-rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs, Tibetans and other minorities in China.
In the other corner is a small core of international lawyers and activists. The have branded these the “Genocide Games” and are pressuring sponsors, the IOC, and world sports federations to acknowledge the issues.
Thousands of Olympic athletes are caught in the middle. For most, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance for fame and a medal. But they’re on their own. Those who speak out may be banned by Olympic bodies, dropped by sponsors, and threatened by the Chinese state.
“It’s not fair that these huge institutions who can speak out are going to leave it to the individual athletes to do this,” Blair McDougall, campaign director for the British-based Stop Uyghur Genocide, told the Associated Press. “The governing bodies could speak out, the sponsors, the IOC.” Instead, there is silence. “Once again athletes are being used as pawns,” said Rob Koehler, director general of Global Athlete, an advocacy group for Olympic athletes.
Human-rights groups have initially targeted Airbnb and CEO Brian Chesky.
The World Uyghur Congress and other advocates for Uyghurs and Tibetans have previously called for
moving the games, or some type of boycott.
“Airbnb describe themselves as a company that talks of having an ethos,” McDougall said. “So far they have ignored us.”
To grab attention, campaigners have designed a mock-ad linking Airbnb to the internment camps and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Although sponsors account for about 18% of the IOC’s income, 73% comes from selling broadcast rights.
The American network NBC accounts for about half of the broadcast income.
This will be Beijing’s second Olympics in 14 years, following the 2008 Summer Games that were supposed to improve human rights in China. These Olympics landed in China after several European bidders withdrew over costs and public opposition. The IOC was left with two choices: Beijing or Almaty, Kazakhstan. Beijing won in a narrow 4440 vote.
“Our direct request of the sponsors is simple,” McDougall said. “Meet with the Uyghurs and people who have survived the network of camps so that you are not complicit in the use of the games in silencing the issue; in being used as a propaganda tool to distract from what’s happening.”
AP contacted the three Japan-based sponsors. Toyota’s reply was typical in regard to the internment of Uyghurs in northwestern China. Panasonic did not immediately respond, and Bridgestone sent a form letter from the IOC.
“As for the recent situation in Xinjiang, we are not in the position to comment on it,” Toyota said in a statement.
McDougall contacted the World Curling Federation, which initially responded by blocking him on social media.
He said they have since lifted the block “but have gone silent.”
“They’ll be getting pressure not to be the ones who break the dam of silence,” McDougall said.
Bill Goldberg punched through the drywall in his garage one day this week — not as some sort of masochistic training for his next WWE match — but as he repaired property damage suffered as a result of the deadly Texas storms.
The WWE Hall of Famer spent about 12 hours Wednesday replacing pumps in the wells on the ranch he owns just outside San Antonio, and then it was off to work on a garage and pool house that had been flooded.
“We’re much luckier than 98% of the people who fared through the storm,” Goldberg said. “It’s hard for me to complain, it really is.”
Goldberg said Thursday marked the eighth straight day his family had no running water and had to juggle the responsibility of caring for the “plethora of rejects” of nearly 50 animals on the ranch. The animal family expanded when three calves and two sheep were born in the midst of recent blackouts that left 4 million Texas customers without electricity and heat during a deadly winter freeze.
“We had to grab them and save their lives, basically. And that means bottle-feeding them now,” he said. “My wife is the one who takes care of that duty and she enjoys it but it’s been extremely stressful. You know, boiling snow throughout the storm for our animals has just been tough.”
The 54-year-old Goldberg built a career on toughness that included a stint in the NFL and a 25-year professional wrestling career. He burst onto the wrestling scene in the late 1990s with the now-defunct WCW and rolled off a winning streak highlighted by a win over
Hollywood Hulk Hogan for the championship. He moved on to WWE and still competes sporadically for the company that included a match last month at the Royal Rumble.
With his farm and family commitments, Goldberg noted it’s “harder and harder” to get pulled away from home.
He kind of feels like one of the family, though, when’s he on the set of the ABC sitcom “The Goldbergs.” Goldberg has made appearances — no, not as a member of the suburban Philadelphia Goldberg family — but as “Coach” Nick Mellor. He guest stars again in Wednesday’s episode and runs into a confrontation with William Penn’s pesky new Quaker Warden, Beverly Goldberg.
“It’s ironic that I’m the only Goldberg on the entire set,” he said. “I don’t know which seat to sit in when I get off set. Every seat says ‘Goldberg’ on it.”
Goldberg said he can’t bring himself to watch his wrestling matches — or even a recent WWE Network documentary on his undefeated streak — but he makes a point to round up the family and watch “The Goldbergs.”
“How can you not be funny around the number of actors who are actual comedians? It just rubs off through osmosis,” he said.
Goldberg played tough guys in a slew of action movies and said plans are moving forward in a potential spinoff series of his “NCIS: Los Angeles” character DOJ Agent Lance Hamilton.
He’s not ready to stick a pitchfork in his wrestling career.
Goldberg returned to great acclaim in 2016 after a 12-year break from WWE. He beat Brock Lesnar in his first match back and twice won the WWE Universal championship. Goldberg lost his last two matches in empty arena matches because of the pandemic — to Braun Strowman last year at WrestleMania and then to Drew McIntyre at the Rumble.
Still a major attraction, Goldberg said he fancied himself these days more of a relief pitcher who could be called on in any situation.
He wants to be known just as much as a friend of his community. He’s took his teenage son and other friends to an area Salvation Army on Feb. 26 to pass out water and food to people in need.
“There’s always someone that needs help more than you do,” Goldberg said.