“We believe that science is real and has an important place in supporting human flourishing. There is no better way to highlight the centrality of science in our modern world than in elite sports,” said Aron D’Souza, the president of the Enhanced Games. Planned for 2024, the Enhanced Games aims to be the first international sports event that fully supports performance enhancements. Consequently, the Enhanced Games will not adhere to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules with respect to track and field, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics, and combat sports competitions. As the event plan states, “Athletes will not be tested for performance enhancements, and are under no obligation to declare their enhanced status in order to compete.”
D’Souza, an Australian entrepreneur and Oxford-educated lawyer, among other things, led tech investor Peter Thiel’s successful invasion-of-privacy litigation against Gawker Media. The Enhanced Games Athletes Advisory Commission consists of elite athletes including Cayman Islands Olympic swimmer Brett Fraser, Canadian Olympic bobsleigher Christina Smith, and South African Olympic swimmer Roland Schoeman. The Scientific and Ethical Advisory Commission includes Harvard biomedical researcher George Church and biotech entrepreneur Julia Cooney.
Proponents of the Enhanced Games say that they embrace liberty, arguing that “adults, with free and informed consent, have full autonomy over their bodies and minds.” In addition, they reject the current model of “not-for-profit” international sports competition as “corrupt.” Funded privately, the Enhanced Games will cost taxpayers nothing and will use already-built sporting facilities. Proponents point out that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) generates billions in revenue while many of the world’s best athletes, under the IOC’s rules, are barely able to eke out their livings. “We embrace capitalism as central to everything we do and strive to be maximally efficient in our operations,” declares its value statement. “Excellence, particularly athletic excellence, deserves to be rewarded.”
The Enhanced Event Plan presents the framework for the project.
We have selected five core categories of sports – athletics, aquatics, gymnastics, strength, and combat. Whilst medals will be awarded to the best Enhanced athletes in each event, the ultimate monetary award will go to the peerless athletes who set new world records, thereby pushing the perceived limit of what we believe is possible.
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The underpayment of athletes is the core moral failing of the Olympic Movement; it is a vestige of the aristocratic sentiment behind the outdated unpaid ‘amateur’ requirement.
We have developed four potential remuneration models (milestone-based, leaderboard-based, participatory, and pure salaried), along with a hybrid revenue-sharing and salaried system, that will be put before the Enhanced Athletes Commission for their recommendation.
At Enhanced, we want to reward excellence, and put our athletes first. We call for the other sports leagues to put their money where their mouths are.
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We reject the kleptocracy of so-called “not-for-profit” sports federations. Unlike the Olympics, which is technically a non-profit organization, the Enhanced Games is a privately funded for-profit organization. This means that, whilst the Olympics leeches off of taxpayer funding, Enhanced (just like Formula 1) is able to raise private capital to pay its athletes and finance the organization of the Games.
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The costs of hosting the Olympic Games have skyrocketed over the past 20 years; a growing number of economists argue that the benefits of hosting the Games are at best exaggerated and at worst nonexistent, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Enhanced Games will avoid this destructive and wasteful use of government funding by using and reusing existing infrastructure – the Enhanced Games are designed to be hosted at a Division One university campus. No new stadiums will need to be built; no cities will be driven into debt.
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We are only scratching the surface of what the human body is capable of. The incorporation of the latest scientific breakthroughs in athletes’ performance therapies will find our athletes both stronger and faster.
Whilst gold, silver, and bronze medals will be awarded in each competition, the ultimate goal is to set a new world record – which will be rewarded with a prize bounty that will reflect the magnitude of the breakthrough.
