The Enhanced Games faces plenty of pushback generated by people who don’t want it to succeed

Open this photo in gallery:

Proving the modern rule that every Saturday Night Live skit is a documentary of the future, the Enhanced Games are getting some great press lately.

One stuffed shirt at a sports conference recently called them “dangerous and irresponsible.”

Another clutched at something on his person and said, “Someone will die.”

A third compared them to “Squid Games or Hunger Games.”

Great point. Why would anyone want to be invest in something similar to two of the biggest entertainment franchises going?

The Enhanced Games is what it sounds like – a sports competition in which performance-enhancing drugs are not only tolerated, but encouraged. It is the brainchild of an Australian businessman and troublemaking buddies in tech. In a twist on our current obsessions, it bills itself as “the most inclusive sports league in history.”

The advertorial is heavy on calls for equity (“Pay the athletes”) and contrariness (“Sports can be safer without drug testing”). What it all means, precisely, is not yet clear.

What they’ve got right now is some serious seed cash, a rough start date (2025) and media heat generated by people who want to see it dead.

The news cycle really got spinning in February after organizers said they would give a million dollars to anyone who set a world record. That drew in a former world 50-metre freestyle swimming champion, Australia’s James Magnussen.

“I’ll juice to the gills, and I’ll break it in six months,” he said.

That line was widely quoted, elevating the Enhanced Games into a genuine thing. Magnussen later said he regretted putting it like that, but I doubt it.

Everything else Magnussen said was more interesting.

He plans to go to the United States and “get the right advice and take the right supplements” (i.e. juice to the gills).

He wants to “document” his journey (i.e. make himself a standalone streaming star).

He wants to show how this can be done “safely” and “properly” (i.e. were you listening when they said a million dollars?).

I had no idea who James Magnussen was before he said all this, but now I’m intrigued. It beats watching bad baseball in August.

Mostly, it has possibilities as a one-off spectacle.

Remember when Michael Phelps said he was going to race a great white shark? Everyone loved that idea, especially the people who said they hated it.

It turned out Phelps didn’t intend to get into the water with a man-eater. He raced side by side with a CGI shark.

All that technology, and they couldn’t make it look like the shark cared. I’m not sure that shark knew it was racing for an entire species.

Afterward, people were angry about the bait and switch. Their disappointment dominated the Internet for a few hours. Five million Americans tuned in on a specialty channel. That’s not nothing.

What’s the lesson? Next time, hire a real fish.

The Enhanced Games is the Olympics, plus a shark. It’s a pure stunt. People like those. It also fills a need.

If sport is a cultural object, the thing missing from it is transgression. Everywhere you turn, it’s all inclusion paired with rigid adherence to rules. Everybody’s welcome, as long they never say or do anything unpopular. Even cage fighting has been rounded at the edges until it’s family friendly entertainment.

Something dangerous and irresponsible? Yeah, I’ll try a little of that, thanks. For purposes of philosophical debate if no other.

Maybe this is why the issue of trans athletes in women’s events gets people so exercised. On both sides, it’s a way to argue about sports that doesn’t seem trivial. That’s different and thrilling.

You see those same muscles spasming in arguments about the Enhanced Games. People may die!

If that’s a reason to stop a sporting event, we cannot in good conscience ever run a car race again. Or attend a football game. Or mountain climb.

Is the worry here that having seen the example, more people will do drugs in order to get better at sport?

If so, that horse has left the barn. It’s trotted into town, booked a plane ticket and attended every elite sporting event you’ve watched in the past 25 years.

Drugs are omnipresent in sport. All of the sports. Where it gets tricky is around the word “banned.” The smart ones know how to circumvent the system. The dim ones take their chances.

There are no ‘clean’ games anywhere. There are games that aspire to be clean, though that aspiration varies. Is the NFL ‘clean’? Do people care? Obviously not.

At minimum, the Enhanced Games are asking us to think about the idea of complicity. You already watch dirty sport, but are not asked to confront that fact. Would it matter if you were? Discuss.

For myself, I’m already sold. What happens if this comes off (still doubtful) and records tumble? The only worse outcome for the purists is if they stage it with serious competitors, now ‘roided up, and no one gets anywhere near the records. What does that tell you about the current records?

A couple of Olympics ago, I was in the tent after a teenage nobody won a gold medal in the 400-metre freestyle. He wasn’t even having a good meet. He started the final in Lane 8.

Instead of the usual celebrations, his victory presser turned into an interrogation by the Australian media. They were seething because their own man finished second.

Everyone knew what they were actually talking about, but no one could say the words out loud. It would be interesting to do a sort of Olympics where you can call things by their proper names.

Is that enough to make the Enhanced Games a reality? Probably not. If this takes off, it would start eating the IOC’s lunch, which cannot be permitted.

The X factor here are all the Chicken Littles in the sporting establishment. If they keep chirping about where the sky’s headed, the Enhanced Games may find its audience of free thinkers, cynics and would-be millionaires.