Goodwill Games president Michael Plant told Reuters that just over 200,000 tickets had been sold to the 15-sport, 15-day affair that begins in earnest Sunday with track and field, basketball, gymnastics and synchronized swimming.
"Our goal has been to sell between 350,000 and 400,000 tickets," admitted Plant, who said the ultimate capacity for spectators at the various venues would be more than 500,000.
"Do we think we can sell 200,000 tickets in the 15 days of the Games? Absolutely. A lot of our marketing, and our ethnic marketing, is designed to run within 48 hours of the events. Like with the Cuban boxers. It's all part of the strategy."
Plant said holding the Games in New York, where venues are mainly split between Manhattan and Long Island, has presented the organisers with unique conditions, "both from the positive and challenging side."
"Among the challenges to winning interest is that it is simply summer in New York. There is no other city in the world with so many options for people to do things.
"But this is also the biggest place to come to. People from 160 different countries live here, and there are great sports fans here."
Plant, who is also vice president of sports properties for Turner Sports, a subsidiary of Time Warner, would not reveal financial figures for the Games, but Games founder Ted Turner has never been shy about the heavy losses incurred in staging the previous Games in Moscow, Seattle and St Petersburg, Russia.
"Ted has said he lost over $100 million on the first three Games," Plant said. "Some people consider it a loss. Others consider it an investment in a franchise this company owns. We are building up the property value in the franchise."
Of course, the Games have provided valuable television programming. Plant said there will be 45 hours broadcast live on the TBS superstation and repeats of the shows.
There will also be 10 hours of weekend coverage aired on the CBS network, and eight hours on HBO during the last four days of the boxing competition at the close of the Games.
"I look at the Super Bowl, the Final Four, USA Today, some ventures in sports, some not, and the last I checked they all didn't make money at the start," said Plant.
"We're starting to turn the corner. These Games will be more financially successful than any of them in the past."
The athletes also stand to be better off financially as the Games is offering a total of $5 million in prize money and performance incentives to assemble the best field possible.
On Saturday, the organisers are expected to announce other changes, including a shift of the timing of the next Games to the year 2001 so they don't compete with the 2002 Winter Olympics, the next World Cup soccer tournament, the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.
The next site of the Games, which were originally launched to help break down cold-war barriers between the Soviet Union and the United States, is expected to be awarded to a city outside the United States and Russia for the first time.
Reuters
The Goodwill Games are only half way to their ticket sales goal with the launch of the multi-sport extravaganza just four days away, but the top Games organiser is not concerned.
