Two international sports spectacles will take center stage in 1994, giving fans plenty to cheer about.
It starts with perhaps the biggest of all breaks in sports tradition - an Olympics that stands alone.Just two years after it was extinguished in Albertville, France, the Olympic flame will roar to life again in Lillehammer, Norway, Feb. 12-27, as the Winter Games mark the beginning of a grand experiment by the International Olympic Committee.
From now on, the Olympics will be held every two years - the next Summer Games in 1996 in Atlanta, then the Winter Games in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, and the Summer Games again in 2000 in Sydney, Australia.
Since the first Winter Olympics were staged in 1924, the two Games always have been held in the same year. The IOC, a group not known for breaking away from tradition, decided in 1986 to split the games, to create more interest in - and more money from - winter sports.
"Not to put the Games in the same year is to put the Olympic Winter Games in a much better position," said IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch.
The switch seems to be working. CBS paid $300 million for the U.S. television rights to Lillehammer, almost $60 million more than the network paid for the Albertville Games.
"The Winter Olympics is the most anticipated event of 1994, the first year when there will be only one Olympics to capture the attention and imagination of America's television viewers," said George F. Schweitzer, CBS senior vice president.
If this separate Winter Games is designed to break the ice, this summer will see an event meant to break new ground.
The biggest single tournament in sports - soccer's World Cup - comes to the United States for the first time, from June 17 through July 17.
FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, hopes the spectacle of 24 nations competing for a tiny jeweled trophy and the cheers of billions of viewers will finally bring the sport into the mainstream in one of the few countries in the world where it is ignored. That strategy, too, may be on target.
Stadiums in all nine cities - East Rutherford, N.J.; Foxboro, Mass.; Washington; Pontiac, Mich.; Orlando, Fla.; Dallas; Stanford, Calif.; and Pasadena, Calif.; - were virtually sold out last fall and marketing programs have pulled in millions of dollars.