Festival Would Play in Orange County

Science has been dutifully served, so we no longer need to ask the question: What if they threw an Olympic Festival and nobody came?

Now we know.

You’ve probably seen the numbers, now that the embarrassed L.A. Festival organizers have been horse-whipped into releasing them. Are they attendance figures or area codes?

Can we hear a 213 for water polo?

A 714 for men’s basketball?

And those are the announced crowd counts, never to be confused with the actual crowd counts. Actual crowd counts don’t include volunteers, statisticians, P.A. announcers, stray media types, ticket takers, peanut vendors and guys carrying mops. Pregnant women don’t count as two. Neither do schizophrenics. The other night at the diving venue, a Festival staffer looked out at the sheer dozens scattered through the stands and observed, “We must have about 750 tonight.” To which a reporter replied, “What, are you counting teeth?”

So synchronized roller taekwondo doesn’t play in L.A. This is a discovery? Whoever thought L.A. was the place for such a quaint, cozy, unequivocally minor exercise as an Olympic Festival--We Luv Ya, West!--gets the gold in the 200-meter Proceeding Blindly Without A Clue. This Festival was doomed from the moment of conception and as late as last winter, there was strong sentiment in favor of moving the event.

Unfortunately, cloudier heads prevailed.

An Olympic Festival plays best when it plays small. Colorado Springs? Can’t get enough of the Olympic Festival. Oklahoma City? Turned off the traffic signal and shut down the town for the Olympic Festival. Minneapolis, a small town in a big city’s body, drew more than 500,000 for last year’s 10-day Festival.

L.A., entering its merciful final weekend, stood with announced gate receipts totaling 136,435.

The Festival should have been moved, and if logistics were a worry, it needn’t have moved far. Just down the freeway, to the other side of the Orange Curtain, were arms more willing to embrace it.

“I think Orange County is more hungry for this type of event than a Los Angeles would be,” says Richard Foster, the Irvine-based attorney heading the group attempting to bring the 1998 Goodwill Games to the Tri-Cities--Anaheim, Irvine and Long Beach.

“L.A. is so big, an Olympic Festival kind of gets swallowed up. Jaded is probably a good word for it. The fans in L.A. are so sophisticated. How are you going to compete in L.A. with Magic and the Raiders?

“Orange County is a totally different market. It hasn’t had the big events. It would be more like the St. Paul-Minneapolis crowd. It would think of the Festival as a bigger thing. There would be a better reception for it in Orange County. It would be fresher.”

L.A. has had the big events. It had the biggest, the Olympics, in ’32 and ’84. By now, it knows the real thing when it sees it--and isn’t quite sure what to do when it sees the non-designer model.

“Personally, I think the L.A. sports market is confused about the Olympic Festival,” Foster says. “I’ve had people ask me, ‘If so-and-so is from California, how come he’s playing for the East?’ The Festival claims to be developmental for the U.S. Olympic team. Why, then, do they have 32-year-olds competing?”

Orange County probably would have been just as confused, but excited nonetheless. We’re used to the next-best-thing here. Los Angeles has teams that win Super Bowls and World Series. Orange County has the Rams and the Angels. L.A. County has the Rose Bowl. Orange County has the Freedom Bowl. L.A. has Wayne Gretzky. Orange County had Wayne Engelstad.

Already, Orange County has the venues, with the odd exception of the odd sport; shooting would have to be shipped out to Chino and cycling would stay at Cal State Dominguez Hills. Elsewhere, the county is set, with easy-to-access packaging.

One of the great successes of the Minneapolis Festival was its compactness. The University of Minnesota was the hub, with most of the remaining venues within a 30-minute drive, as opposed to L.A., where off-ramp to off-ramp is a 30-minute drive. Orange County’s Festival would have been spared the mind-numbing L.A. sprawl, clustering its events around UC Irvine, with Newport Beach and Cal State Fullerton serving as auxiliary branches.

Pick a sport. Track and field? UC Irvine has a world-class multi-purpose track that could be rigged for Festival crowds with a few portable bleachers. Then again, Irvine’s concrete steps could already handle the 673 who turned out Thursday at UCLA’s Drake Stadium. Maybe portable fans are the answer.

Boxing and basketball? The Bren Center. Swimming and water polo? Heritage Park or maybe Mission Viejo. Racquetball? Los Caballeros. Wrestling and team handball? Cal State Fullerton. Modern pentathlon? Coto de Caza. Canoeing and kayaking? Newport Bay.

What about skating, you ask. Take your pick. By blade--Ice Capades Chalet in Costa Mesa. By wheels--Skate Ranch in Santa Ana. Opening ceremonies could be held at Anaheim Stadium. Synchronized swimming wouldn’t have to be held at all.

Our Festival, our call.

Most likely, Orange County crowds wouldn’t compare to Minneapolis’. This is still a community that would rather run a marathon than watch one. But how would they compare to L.A.’s?

How could they do any worse?

There’s an old show business saying that goes something like this: When the people on the stage outnumber the people in the seats, it’s time to cancel the show.

At the L.A. Olympic Festival, they’re taking a long time to take the hint.