Games Are Not Starting on a Mile High : Olympic Festival: Change of professional sports landscape in Denver affects ticket sales to Colorado’s nine-day event.

Things are off to a rocky start in the Rocky Mountain state’s U.S. Olympic Festival.

Nothing is wrong with the Festival itself, which held its opening ceremony Friday and will have 3,600 athletes competing in 36 sports through the next nine days. Participants and administrators agree that the facilities are great and so is the support.

But by featuring the up-and-coming athletes and Olympic heroes of yesteryear, the Festival has become the affordable housing of the movement--newlyweds and the elderly are filling up the neighborhood.

That’s a hard sell, evidenced by the fact that ticket sales are about $300,000 short of the $1.9-million goal.

Jack McDonald, executive director of this year’s Festival, explained that when the Denver area was awarded the event in 1991, it was not the same sports town it is today.

“The most successful Festivals financially have been in communities that don’t have to compete with four major franchises,” McDonald said this week.

Indeed, Denver circa ’91 had only football in the Broncos and basketball in the Nuggets. But the Nuggets were losers, so Denver was a one-horse town.

Or the kind of the town that U.S. Olympic Committee officials wanted.

But the Nuggets got better, major league baseball arrived with the Colorado Rockies in 1993, and professional hockey is coming now that the Quebec Nordiques are relocating to Denver this year. To make matters worse for the Festival, the Nugget and Nordique season ticket deposits are due this month.

So, McDonald was understandably worried until ticket sales increased significantly this week. Corporate sponsorship, which also had been a problem, also picked up.

“We’re happy to report that we have averaged about $45,000 a day the last few days,” said Tim Leiweke, a Festival co-chairman. “We are optimistic that we will continue that pace not only today but through the 10 days of the Festival. We believe that with $1.9 million we will have a financially successful Olympic Festival.”

One of the most popular sports should be track and field, which will feature several Olympians who will try to take advantage of the mile-high altitude.

Carl Lewis, who turned 34 on July 1, will compete in the long jump, Quincy Watts in the 400 meters and Kevin Young in the 400-meter hurdles. Dan O’Brien and Dave Johnson also are competing, although not in the decathlon.

Things also look bright with emerging stars such as UCLA’s Toby Bailey in basketball, Sydney Vogel in figure skating, Amanda Beard in swimming and Dominique Moceanu in gymnastics.

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Olympic Festival Notes

Venues will be spread among Denver, Colorado Springs and Boulder. . . . The Festival has switched to being held in odd-numbered years instead of every non-Olympic year. Part of the reason is that the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics have started to alternate in even-numbered years. The move also is likely to save money. An announcement about future Festivals is likely to come after the U.S. Olympic Committee’s executive committee meeting this afternoon.