Before its start, the London Olympics was billed as the Austerity Games, given the scraping together of coppers from the UK's collective piggy bank to stage the 30th Olympiad during the global recession.
But as the row over the corporates' hold over the Games rages, the claim that this is the Spartan Olympics is wearing increasingly thin.
The sponsors and the IOC are coming in for particular flak, especially over the empty VIP seats, the special lanes and the monopoly over food and drink on offer in the Olympic Park. The brand police who have swooped on anyone daring to use the Olympics rings are also a target.
Forced to defend the 'Olympic Family' and all those who hang onto its coat tails, Locog chief Sebastian Coe and IOC deputy chairman Mike Creedy have been doing the media rounds, pointing out that without the sponsors' money, there would be no London Games, or any Olympics, ever.
It's a strong argument. Without the dreaded, hated sponsors - whose brands are so imposed upon us they haunt us in our sleep - there would be few international sporting events. Tennis, golf, F1, basketball and football would all disappear in a puff of dust if the corporate limo sped off into the sunset, so the defence goes. Thus, Coe said, the sponsors deserved special attention in London, such as VIP seats and their own traffic lanes.
If truth be told, only around 7 to 8 per cent of the money spent on the London Olympics has come from private sponsors. And here's the rub that so riles the British public. The sponsors have been handed much more than 7 per cent of the seats - around 13 per cent in total. If you include the rest of the Olympic Family afforded VIP treatment, that's come to 20 per cent of seating.