Olympic committee goes for gold

Opinion: August 7, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

San Jose Mercury News: No one goes for the gold quite like the International Olympic Committee.

The NFL and its Super Bowl? FIFA, soccer’s governing body, and its World Cup? When it comes to crass commercialism, they’re pikers by comparison. The IOC will rake in $6 billion from the London Olympics, and its elite governing board couldn’t care less that more than half of the participants have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet.

Nothing gets past IOC

The IOC is so intent on protecting its brand that it has nearly 300 enforcers on its payroll whose job is to wander London’s boroughs and report violators.

So far, according to journalists covering the Games, they have forced a London butcher to take down a sign made out of sausages in the shape of the Olympic rings, threatened a London restaurant with a $30,000 fine for calling itself “Cafe Olympic,” and made sure another chef stopped offering a menu featuring a “flaming torch bacon and egg baguette.”