In these harsh economic times, many things can be excused. Seemingly every week another group of people are removing their clothes for a calendar, until now it's hard to find one that isn't nude pensioners or kittens.
We've also seen the nude rollerblader, the nude swimmers, and numerous other athletes, strapped-for-cash, and removing clothes (by the way "Nicole Begg" has become a very NSFW Google search). A few have fallen fowl of their respective sports.
In the 90s, swimmer Toni Jeffs caused a small ruckus within the organisation when she received sponsorship from a strip club. As always the argument was: well, they are willing to give me money. Jeffs went on to win a Commonwealth Games bronze.
With the current collapse of potential sponsors every week, teams and individuals are turning to alternate sponsors. And it's not just struggling amateurs. The NFL's recent relaxing of revenue streams saw the New England Patriots sell out to the local lottery, the Raiders partner with a Chinese airline and the Cowboys consider letting a strip club advertise on their practice uniforms. It's all about the revenue streams.
So what to make of Logan Campbell? The young Tae Kwon Do Olympic hopeful spent $150,000 prepping for Beijing and figures he'll need about twice that to prep for London. So he opened a brothel gentleman's club.
It's not clear whether Campbell decided on this course of action before or after his SPARC performance enhancement grant was retracted – because Campbell wasn't competing – by Tae Kwon Do New Zealand (TNZ). But it does seem clear that Campbell isn't doing this because there is no other option. In fact he seems quite keen on the whole enterprise.
But would he, as TNZ assert, be bringing the sport into disrepute if selected for international competition? Assuming Campbell keeps his nose clean and runs a respectable club; would he not just be a successful business man? A successful businessman who rents women out for money (note he says he "hires" them, so this is not an individual contractor situation).
I suppose I would rather an athlete associated with a brothel than one associated with cigarettes (and maybe even alcohol, I'll take that on a case by case basis), and I suppose it would be nice to send an athlete that is flush with cash, rather than having to train on a diet of 2-Minute noodles. And of course SPARC hasn't got an unlimited bucket of money to help everyone.
Interesting though that Campbell, unlike cyclist Nicole Tasker who lap-danced to raise money, didn't think offer up his services for a bit of rough and tumble. Naked Tae Kwon Do anyone?