Ticket Sales Robust for Winter Games

Although NBC’s telecasts of the Sydney Olympics drew low ratings, ticket orders for the 2002 Salt Lake City Games suggest interest will be high for the Winter Olympics, which are 474 days away.

Ticket orders from U.S. purchasers have reached

$40 million,

$23 million of which were requested Oct. 10, the first day orders were accepted. The ticket request phase runs through Dec. 12, but those whose orders are received by Tuesday will get better seat allocations than those who order later.

“We expected a relatively modest level of sales and thought that as we got closer, we would get more requests,” said Mitt Romney, president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. “The first two days, we did $30 million in orders, which is extraordinary, given that our target is $80 million. Clearly, it will slow down, but this has been a bit of a surprise.”

Demand is highest for figure skating, skiing--which includes Alpine events, freestyle aerials, moguls and snowboarding--hockey and the opening ceremony. Romney said organizers were surprised only 10% of orders have come by mail, compared to 90% via the Internet, through the SLOC Web site, www.saltlake2002.com. The SLOC is working in partnership with tickets.com, an Orange County company. Tickets can also be ordered by mail. The request form and planning guide can be ordered by calling 1-800-TICKETS.

Buyers from Utah and California have ordered the most tickets. About 38% of orders have been in Olympic Experience Packages, which are groups of tickets sold together at one price. Those tickets are awarded before single-event tickets. Packages that include hotel accommodations are also available through the SLOC Web site.

Romney wasn’t worried that the lukewarm reception of NBC’s Sydney telecasts would hurt the Salt Lake Games. If anything, he said, the Summer Games spurred sales.

“I actually think Sydney’s Games were seen so positively by the media and TV, that’s one reason we came out with such a bang and blew the doors off for our business,” he said. “The ratings were lower for NBC than in previous Games, but because there were so many events on CNBC and cable affiliates, the numbers of hours watched by Americans were actually up.

“I think the coverage was really affected by the time delay [of the telecasts]. It will be different when the Games come to the U.S. Utah is in the center of the country, easily accessible, and the time difference is better for U.S. viewers.”

The SLOC has 850,000 tickets to allot to U.S. buyers. An additional $100 million in tickets will go to sponsors and international orders. An Internet auction of unallocated tickets is scheduled for the spring. Romney said organizers of the 1998 Nagano Games sold a total of $80 million in tickets.

Although demand is high, not every event will sell out.

“That never really happens, because there are events that have enormous spectator capacity,” Romney said. “Cross-country skiing and biathlon could hold a very, very large number of people, and those sports are not as popular here as they are in Europe.”

NO ROOM FOR ROOM-TRASHING

Mindful of the public relations disaster caused by unidentified members of the U.S. men’s hockey team who damaged two dorm rooms at the Nagano Olympics, executives of USA Hockey have begun searching for a general manager who can build a team that will erase that sour memory.

Larry Pleau of the St. Louis Blues and Craig Patrick of the Pittsburgh Penguins are the top contenders. They may be chosen as a tandem--and it may take both to do this job.

Besides polishing the team’s image, the general manager and coach must contend with history. The U.S. won the gold medal in the last two Winter Olympics in which it had home-ice advantage--at Squaw Valley in 1960 and at Lake Placid in 1980--and anything less at Salt Lake City may be seen as a failure.

“Obviously, what occurred at Nagano was a very large embarrassment, not only to our organization but to our country,” said Doug Palazzari, USA Hockey’s executive director and a recent selection to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. “By the same token, I think it was blown out of proportion. You can’t live in the past. The necessary apologies were made and we’ve done all we can to rectify it, and we want to move on.

“That team was much maligned, but from my vantage point, those players have represented us a number of times and have represented us in exemplary fashion. . . . We were disappointed, but this is a new Olympics and we have no fear of this happening again.”

Palazzari said USA Hockey has submitted to the U.S. Olympic Committee’s games preparation committee a proposal for how the general manager and coach will be selected. The general manager(s) will have some say in the coaching decision, but he--or they--have limited choices.

There is only one U.S.-born coach in the NHL--Curt Fraser of the Atlanta Thrashers. Washington’s Ron Wilson, a U.S. citizen, coached at Nagano and won few plaudits after the team lost in the quarterfinals.

“As an organization, we’re quite disappointed in the number of opportunities that are provided to American coaches and GMs and even trainers and officials,” Palazzari said. “Then again, we have a lot of European coaches coming into the league [two this season] and we are certainly not pleased with the fact that there’s more competition for those jobs.”

General Manager Bob Gainey of the Dallas Stars is expected to be the general manager of Team Canada, perhaps with Mighty Duck GM Pierre Gauthier as an assistant. Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock is the top candidate for the coaching job.

LOOP-DE-QUADRUPLE LOOP

After finishing 10th at the 1992 Albertville Games and fourth at Nagano in 1998--he didn’t compete at Lillehammer in 1994--figure skater Todd Eldredge wasn’t sure he wanted to try again at Salt Lake City. But after skating in pro-am shows for two years, he discovered last winter he was still improving--and that he wanted one more shot at that elusive gold medal.

“I was working on a quad [jump] on tour and I was landing it,” he said. “And I knew with the training time between then and the Olympics, I would be able technically and artistically to do everything I had to do to compete with the top guys.”

Eldredge, 29, last week became the oldest skater to land a quad in competition when he won the Masters of Skating event in Boise, Idaho. He plans to do at least one, probably in combination, at Skate America this week in Colorado Springs, Colo. The event will mark his return to a full schedule of Olympic-eligible competition.

“I don’t feel like I have accomplished what I’d like to accomplish at the Olympics yet,” said Eldredge, the 1996 world champion and a five-time U.S. champion. “I’ve accomplished pretty much everything else. But as far as the Olympics, I haven’t had the great performance or good performance I’d like to have.”

*

Naomi Nari Nam of Irvine, who finished second at the 1999 U.S. championships and eighth this year, withdrew from two Junior Grand Prix events because of a stress fracture in her hip. . . . Jessica Miller and Jeffrey Weiss, sixth among pairs at the 2000 U.S. championships, will compete at Skate America in place of third-place finishers Larisa Spielberg and Craig Joeright. Spielberg has a broken left foot. Laura Handy and Jonathon Hunt will replace Spielberg and Joeright at Skate Canada next week. . . . Atlanta was awarded the 2004 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The 2001 event will be in Boston, 2002 at Staples Center and 2003 in Dallas.

THIS ‘N’ THAT

A panel of Olympians nominated six Sydney participants for the U.S. Olympic Spirit Award, to be given to the male and female athletes who showed courage, commitment and perseverance during the Sydney Games.

Voting will be conducted on the USOC’s Web site, www.usolympicteam.com. Voting ends Jan. 31.

The nominees are Lance Armstrong, cycling; Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana, beach volleyball; Rulon Gardner, Greco-Roman wrestling; Misty Hyman, swimming; Tara Nott, weightlifting, and Laura Wilkinson, diving.

Ten Sydney Olympians will be contestants on special editions of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” this week. Gardner, Wilkinson, swimmers Lenny Krayzelburg, Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres and Gary Hall Jr., basketball’s Lisa Leslie, sprinter Maurice Greene, soccer’s Julie Foudy and pole vaulter Stacy Dragila will match wits. Each is guaranteed $16,000 but can designate half of the winnings for charity. . . . Marla Runyan, the legally blind runner who finished eighth in the 1,500 meters at Sydney, will appear on the “Today” show Tuesday to promote the “Gift of Sight” program, which provides eyeglasses to the needy in the U.S. and 15 other countries.