Curtain Falls on Turner’s Dream

The Goodwill Games, conceived by media mogul Ted Turner as a means to promote peace through international sports competition--while also promoting himself and his TV empire--ultimately fell victim to corporate cost-cutting and a dramatic change in world politics since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Turner’s pet project became a burden when Turner Broadcasting, the company he founded and headed, merged with the Time Warner empire.

And when Time Warner was, in turn, acquired by AOL, Turner was shunted aside in a ceremonial position as vice chairman and his money-losing Games were put on the endangered list.

Turner Broadcasting announced Thursday it would discontinue the Games, apparently for budgetary reasons.

“I am proud of all the Goodwill Games accomplished and appreciate the contribution of everyone who helped make it a success,” Turner said in a statement.

The first Goodwill Games were staged in 1986 in Moscow, as Turner sought to ease tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union after the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics and Soviet bloc nations boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

The first three competitions were held in Moscow, Seattle and St. Petersburg, Russia.

They attracted a parade of elite athletes by dangling lucrative bonuses but lost a cumulative $109 million.

The 1998 Goodwill Games in New York lost an estimated $10 million.

No financial figures are available for the sixth and last Games, held in Brisbane, Australia, last August and September.

Turner said in Brisbane he would consider funding the Games on his own if AOL Time Warner withdrew its financial support. However, the massive costs of staging such an event apparently discouraged him from attempting to do so.

The underlying premise of the Goodwill Games was weakened when the Soviet Union dissolved and Russia and other former Iron Curtain countries developed economic and sports ties to the West. With Russian and Eastern European athletes routinely competing against those from the West in many professional sports, the Goodwill Games lost their claim to being perhaps the only place East and West could come together in friendship.

The Goodwill Games drew many world-class athletes but never came close to matching the tradition or widespread appeal of the Olympic Games.

Among the Olympians who competed in various editions of the Goodwill Games are Jackie Joyner-Kersee--who set a world heptathlon record at the 1986 Goodwill Games--U.S. and world figure skating champion Michelle Kwan, runner Michael Johnson and Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe.