Ted Turner Sought to Quell Global Conflicts Through Sports, Business

Ted Turner peacemaker: CNN founder used Goodwill Games to thaw Cold War ice

James Okafor | GlobalBeat

Atlanta media billionaire Ted Turner bankrolled the 1986 Goodwill Games in Moscow to give Soviet and U.S. athletes a thaw in nuclear tensions.

The $80 million event drew 3,500 athletes from 79 countries at the nadir of Reagan-era arms buildup, Turner told reporters at the opening ceremony.

Turner, who launched CNN in 1980, said sports diplomacy beat missile diplomacy. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed, dispatching 600 athletes and allowing U.S. television crews unprecedented access to shoot inside the USSR.

Soviet sprinter Sergey Bubka broke the pole-vault world record before 45,000 spectators in Lenin Stadium, then traded shoes with American rival Billy Olson. The swap became front-page news in both Pravda and The New York Times, the first joint sports photo published during the Cold War.

The games lost $26 million but Turner called the expense cheap compared with the $2 billion cost of a single Trident submarine. He bankrolled subsequent editions in Seattle (1990), St. Petersburg (1994) and New York (1998) as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova, then 9, carried the torch at the 1990 Seattle opening, later crediting Turner with giving her generation its first taste of American crowds. U.S. basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski recalled Soviet players crying during the national anthem, saying “they finally felt seen.”

Turner sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner for $7.5 billion in 1996 but kept underwriting amateur sports exchanges. His foundation gave $1 billion to the United Nations in 1997, earmarking part for youth games in conflict zones from Belfast to Bogotá.

Background

During the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the Soviet bloc boycotted in retaliation for the U.S.-led snub of Moscow 1980. Los Angeles organizers scrambled to fill lanes; only 140 countries competed, the smallest Summer Games turnout since 1956. Turner, watching ratings tumble, vowed privately to “give athletes a stage politics can’t shut down.”

The first Goodwill Games torch relay began in Olympia, Greece, then flew to Moscow on a Soviet Aeroflot jet staffed by TBS cameramen. Turner rode in coach, handing out CNN lapel pins to passengers. Soviet customs held the torch for 3 hours, insisting the flame was “radioactive,” before a junior KGB officer waved it through.

What’s Next

Ted Turner, 87, retired from public life after revealing Lewy body dementia in 2018. His son, Beau Turner, continues the family’s sports-diplomacy legacy through the Turner Foundation’s $50 million endowment for youth cricket leagues in post-conflict Sri Lanka and Colombia.