It’s Now a One-Day Stand : Indoor track: Today’s meet at the Sports Arena is the only one left in the Southland.

It has arrived, the one-day indoor track and field season in Southern California.

There was a time not so long ago when indoor track and field here resembled a real season. Three of the most prominent meets on North America’s Mobil Grand Prix circuit were held each year in Los Angeles and San Diego.

But the economics of track and field and Southern California have conspired to reduce the local schedule to a solitary meet, today’s 34th annual Sunkist Invitational at the Sports Arena.

About 1,200 high school athletes are scheduled to begin competition at 12:15 p.m., followed by open events at 6 p.m.

Promoter Al Franken has constructed his open field on a foundation of champions from the 1992 Summer Olympics, including Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Gail Devers, Kevin Young, Mike Stulce and Robert Zmelik, and a few names, such as Greg Foster, Dan O’Brien and Randy Barnes, that glitter even without the gold.

The supporting cast is not so imposing, primarily because an increasing number of U.S., European and African athletes are choosing to compete in more lucrative European meets. Also, revenues from sponsorship and television are static at best. ESPN is delaying the telecast until Sunday. But, under the circumstances, Franken does not believe he could have done much better.

“We’re not as deep as we’d like in some events, but we got most of the people we wanted,” he said. “We’ve got some marquee names.”

There is a double-feature, matching Olympic champions against world record-holders in the shotput and a so-called mini-decathlon that North American promoters devised this winter to capitalize on the Dan vs. Dave phenomenon of last year.

Dave Johnson has not participated while recuperating from a stress fracture in his ankle, but a determined O’Brien has been impressive with a series of victories over Zmelik of the Czech Republic.

O’Brien might be challenged tonight, however, by Al Joyner, the 1984 Olympic triple jump champion who plans to make his debut this year as a decathlete. The three events in the mini-decathlon at the Sports Arena, the 50-meter hurdles, the 50-meters and the long jump, will favor him if he is in shape.

In the shotput, Stulce, the Olympic champion, will meet Barnes, the indoor and outdoor world record-holder who did not compete at Barcelona because he was under suspension for failing a disputed drug test in 1990. In his first meet in 2 1/2 years, Barnes will return to the site of his indoor world record of 74-4 1/4 that he set in 1989.

Franken’s greatest aggravation this year came in putting together a shotput field. Besides Stulce and Barnes, he also had agreements with the world’s second- and fourth-ranked shotputters from last year, Olympic silver medalist Jim Doehring and Gregg Tafralis.

But no contemporary track and field meet is complete without a dispute over money. When they discovered the disparity in their appearance fees compared to those of Stulce and Barnes, Doehring and Tafralis withdrew.

“They understand that Barnes is the world record-holder and Stulce is the Olympic champion,” said Tom Sturak, the agent for Doehring and Tafralis. “They’re not asking for the same money, but they would like to be in the same ballpark. We’re not talking holdup sums here.”

But Franken put his hands up anyway, playing the role of victim.

“We had a firm deal,” he said.

As of Friday, Tafralis had decided to compete. Doehring had not.

There have been other aggravations.

--Two prominent women’s milers withdrew, Mary Slaney because of an injury suffered when she slipped on ice and Suzy Hamilton because she has not been running well.

--The No. 1-ranked high school runner in the 100 and the 200, Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks, might or might not be under suspension because she failed to show for a random drug test that she was not notified until too late that she was supposed to take.

--Butch Reynolds, the 400-meter world record-holder, dropped out because of another commitment, and Quincy Watts, the 400-meter Olympic champion, decided not to compete indoors. Watts, however, will join Young, Foster and Valerie Brisco in conducting a clinic for junior high and high school athletes between 11 a.m. and noon at the Sports Arena.