Goodwill Games

The Goodwill Games were an international sports competition created by Ted Turner in reaction to the political troubles surrounding the Olympic Games of the 1980s. In 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan caused the United States and other Western countries to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, an act reciprocated when the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries (with the exception of Romania) boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The idea came to Turner in 1984 during his visit to Moscow. He was disappointed with the boycott, evaluating it as a negative outcome for both sides in the conflict. The magnate also believed that it was an opportune moment to create alternative high-level competitions that could "steal" some of the success from the Olympics. The organization of the competition, which started in 1986, cost him more than $11 million. Like the Olympics, the Goodwill Games were held every four years (with the exception of the final Games), and had a summer and winter component. However, unlike the Olympics, figure skating, ice hockey and short track speed skating were part of summer editions. The Summer Goodwill Games occurred five times, between 1986 and 2001, while the Winter Goodwill Games occurred only once, in 2000. They were cancelled by Time Warner, which had bought ownership of them in 1996, because of low television ratings after the 2001 Games in Brisbane.