“You Cannot Offer More Money”- $450 Million Worth Arnold Schwarzenegger Recalled Ben Weider’s Absurd Condition to Save Mr. Olympia Competition’s Pride

The Austrian Oak, having retired in 1980, wanted to further his legacy in the bodybuilding realm. Hence, in 1989, the Arnold Sports Festival (ASF) was born. The competition’s fame grew rapidly with increasing rewards. But this did not sit pretty with the IFBB and the Weider brothers, who came up with a curious condition to sanction the ASF as an official IFBB event.

Ben Weider’s demand left Arnold Schwarzenegger dazed and confused

The 7x Mr. Olympia wanted to make ASF the biggest bodybuilding competition in the world. But the IFBB came up with an agreement that held him back.

While in conversation with YouTube’s ‘Nick’s Strength and Power’ channel, Schwarzenegger revealed they were doing well until Ben Weider intervened. “I always wanted to increase the cash prizes. So we were the first ones, I remember, in 1976, to offer $5000 in cash prize. Then, we went up to $10000, then to $25000. And this is how we went up and doubled and all this stuff.”

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Schwarzenegger further told the absurd condition kept forth by the IFBB for his Sports Fest to be sanctioned. “Until the IFBB came, Ben Weider, and said, ‘You have to have an agreement for you to be sanctioned by the IFBB as an official IFBB competition. And I said, ‘what’s the agreement?’ and he said, ‘you cannot offer more money than we’re offering for the Olympia.’ So we always held back.”

Schwarzenegger later came up with an ingenious workaround

Having made a deal of not going for a higher cash prize than Mr. Olympia, Schwarzenegger and co. had to think of a way to still give out better prizes. Hence, they devised a scheme that hit two birds with one stone.

The plan was simple- if the Mr. Olympia competition would give out a million dollars in prize money, the Arnold Sports Festival would give 999 thousand dollars. In addition, they would also give a “Hummer or a BMW electric car or something like that.” That way, “We’re throwing in something extra that is not really counted as a cash prize.”

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Today, while the winners of the Mr. Olympia events get only a cash prize, the ASF winners get a cheque, a Hummer, and an Audemars Piguet watch. So who do you think got the better end of the deal?