Some Events Sold Out, but Not All Moscow Is Sold on Goodwill Games

If Muscovites know only what they read in the Soviet newspapers, they must believe that the Goodwill Games have attracted the world’s best athletes to participate in marvelously organized competitions, which are taking place in the most magnificent facilities, all in the name of peace and friendship.

Muscovites have to take the newspapers’ words for it because they are not coming to out to see for themselves.

Even though Soviet sports officials contend that attendance has been outstanding, representatives of the two television broadcasters, Gostelradio, the Soviet television committee, and WTBS, Ted Turner’s superstation, have complained.

“I’ve been on these turkeys since the opening day, trying to get more people here,” WTBS executive vice-president Robert Wussler said during a press conference last week. “They know. The head of the Soviet television committee calls me each night, saying we’ve got to do something.”

The head of Soviet television, Henrikas Yushkiavitshus, who sat next to Wussler at the press conference, shrugged. He suggested that television’s problems with the attendance, or lack of it, are caused by television.

Of 90 million television sets in the Soviet Union, 65% are tuned each night to the Goodwill Games, he said.

Since there are no Nielsen ratings in the Soviet Union, Yushkiavitshus did not explain how he arrived at this figure.

But he could be certain of one thing. No one in the Soviet press would challenge him.

Throughout the city, there are red and blue banners in support of “sport, friendship, peace.” Any foreigner who wants a favor, or needs to get out of a tight spot, has only to say “Igre Dobro Voli” or “Goodwill Games” and it is as if a genie has been released from a bottle.

In that spirit, seldom has been heard a disparaging word from the Soviet press.

Sotsialisticheskaya Industria quotes WTBS commentator Bill Russell: “I am greatly impressed by Moscow and the Muscovites. I especially admire clear streets, squares and avenues and the warmth and outgoing friendliness of people.”

Krasnaya Zveda quotes Ecuadorian cyclist Mario Ponz: “It is my first visit to the capital of your hospitable country, but I do not feel the difference separating our countries. Your people are so kind and friendly, and your competitions are organized so wonderfully.”

Komsomolskaya Pravda quotes U.S. heptathlon winner Jackie Joyner: “The Goodwill Games should become a tradition by all means. I hope that now nobody doubts their expediency and need both for sport and for peace.”

There is more, but you probably get the picture. The Soviet press is telling the world, particularly the West, what it missed by boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics.

The Soviet news agency, Tass, has been particularly put out by American journalists who have not looked at everything through red-colored glasses.

In his first column from Moscow, Newsday’s Joe Gergen described his plight after one of his suitcases had not arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport at the same time that he did.

Gergen’s humor was lost on Tass, which interpreted the column as an insult to the Soviet Union.

“Although this kind of service has not been envisaged for the Goodwill Games, we developed a philanthropic urge the other day to offer Mr. Joseph Gergen a pair of pajamas and a shaving kit,” a Tass correspondent wrote.

“The matter is that the U.S. journalist reported that all his sleeping outfit consisted of was a pocket flashlight and that there was a beard growing on his exhausted face.

“It appears that he does not want to tell (his readers) what is really happening in Moscow--the exciting competitions in athletics, swimming, cycling and other sports on the Goodwill Games program.

“His vision has proved most selective. So isn’t it high time that Mr. Gergen switched on that flashlight he has brought to Moscow only he himself knows for what reason?”

When Sovietsky Sport published the article, it ran under the headline: “Pajamas for Mr. Gergen.”

The Soviet press was more outraged by an article in the Washington Post, in which two American pole vaulters, Mike Tully and Earl Bell, speculated on the source of Soviet pole vaulter Sergei Bubka’s strength.

Tass dispatched a correspondent to Bubka’s Ukrainian home in Donetsk for an interview, in which the pole vaulter said, “I say that the Washington Post wants to show mistrust and discord between Soviet and American sportsmen, to cast aspersion on my accomplishments and those of Soviet athletes in general, to poison the atmosphere of the Goodwill Games.”

Tickets for the women’s basketball final in the 7,000-seat Druzhba Gym were the most difficult to acquire during the first week of competition. It was sold out well in advance, forcing fans who wanted tickets to stand outside the gym and “shoot rabbits.” That is the Russian expression for having the good fortune to find a scalper with a spare ticket.

Marat Gramov, chairman of the Soviet Sports Committee, said last week that more than 100,000 applications for tickets had been received for motoball, a soccer-like game that is played on motorcycles, and that cycling, gymnastics and figure skating also are sold out.

For the most part, however, attendance has lagged, even though ticket prices are reasonable, ranging from one ruble to one and a half rubles, between $1.40 and $2.11 according to the official exchange rate.

Track and field events attracted crowds ranging from 25,000 to 56,000, which is excellent for the sport under ordinary circumstances but far below the expectations of the organizers for the Goodwill Games. They expected Olympic-size crowds of 100,000.

Yushkiavitshus, the Soviet television official, may indeed be correct that sports fans are not attending the events because they are so readily available on television. There is no blackout rule here.

Of the four channels normally available in Moscow, two are televising the Goodwill Games. For the first-time ever, an English-speaking network is being broadcast into the homes of Muscovites who have televisions with UHF channels. But since that network is WTBS, it also is televising the Goodwill Games.

There are other reasons for the disappointing attendance. One is that many Muscovites have gone to the country for the summer. Another is that the city is closed during the Goodwill Games to citizens from outside Moscow. Normally, many of them would be here on holiday and would be expected to buy tickets to an international sporting event. How many times can they go to the circus?

There also is this theory. Muscovites are sophisticated sports fans who, despite what the press tells them, know that the Goodwill Games are not the Olympics and do not want to waste their hard-earned rubles on an imitation.

“Turner had an excellent idea,” a 35-year-old Soviet sports fan told Reuters. “Because for the past 10 years, no athlete has been able to say, ‘I was the best in my field.’ But you can’t talk about fierce competition because many of the best American athletes didn’t come.

“The whole atmosphere in Moscow was different for the Olympics.”

But attendance also was disappointing for the Olympics, which figured to be a smash hit even though the United States and other countries boycotted.

Which leads to Turner’s own theory.

“Moscow isn’t a good sports town,” he said last week. “It’s like Atlanta.”

But leave it to Turner to find a silver lining.

“That just goes to show you that these people aren’t that much different from us,” he said. “The government can’t make them go to events. It’s a free country.”

Turner also said last week that the Soviet Union is not a Communist country. “They have a first-class section on their airplanes,” he said. “Their rich people drive around in limos, just like I do. They aren’t Communists.”

But that’s another story.