They were anticipated to result in a $2 1/2 million sales tax bonanza for Nassau County.

But as this newspaper reported in a pre-event story in early July, miscues between the major entities involved in bringing the games off and far fewer spectators in the stands than had been expected, appear to have made the games -- from a fiscal point of view -- a complete wash for the county.

Over the course of the games, which ended this past weekend, a field of 1,500 athletes from more than 60 nations -- many of them the very biggest names in their respective sports, including Michelle Kwan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Dan O'Brien -- competed for $5 million in prize money and world record/performance incentives.

In essence, the Goodwill Games were Nassau County's Olympics, and featured, among the competitors, a host of both past and future Olympians.

The belief going into the games was that these star athletes would draw people into Nassau from throughout the metropolitan area, and in fact, from around the world.

Some events, did indeed draw pretty well -- at least two of the four nights of track and field had paid admissions in excess of 9,000 spectators, as did the gold medal women's soccer match and the finals of the women's figure skating event drew the largest amount of spectators of all, close to 16,000.

Others, however, including many events at the Nassau County Swimming and Diving Center in Eisenhower Park were, at best, sparsely attended -- and there is no way presently to assess whether those spectators came from Floral Park or Macedonia; no way to tell if money spent at the games was money already in the local economy or a new revenue stream.

(By way of comparison, Belmont Park, which hosts thoroughbred horse racing five days a week in the spring and early autumn draws approximately 9,000 to 11,000 patrons a day, and as many as 80,000 on Belmont Stakes day alone.)

Given that the Village of Westbury was supposed to be one of the major transportation points for spectators arriving to attend various Goodwill Games events, Long Island Bus made Westbury train station a focal point for its shuttle bus service.

The first afternoon of the games, this newspaper visited the station and found a half dozen large buses idling adjacent to the Holy Rood Cemetery, and the drivers of at least two of the buses sleeping.

At the time, about 2:30 p.m. on July 19, a synchronized swimming competition was being held at the Diving Center, 12 athletic events were transpiring at the Mitchel Park track and field complex, and gymnastics was underway at the Nassau Coliseum.

So did the Goodwill Games bonanza touch down in Westbury?

"Not that I know of," said Frank Telese, president of the Westbury Chamber of Commerce. "I know the BID was supposed to be working on that and things were supposed to be put in place to capture extra business for Westbury, but speaking to merchants, I don't think they benefited from the games being held here.

"Originally, the people we talked to from the county were talking of a constant flow of people pouring into town and onto the buses. A lot of people here were excited about that.

"From what I've been told however, in terms of an impact on local businesses, they say barely nothing," he continued.

"I don't want to say that it was a bust, but Westbury didn't profit any. Maybe, all in all, this whole thing isn't as profitable as they said it would be."

According to Nassau County Comptroller Fred Parola, the $2 1/2 million estimate for sales tax revenue generated by the games was always believed by his office to be "an optimistic number."

"We always thought it was a little bit toward the high end, but one of the problems we had in looking at this and developing models to make fiscal projections, was that we really had nothing, in terms of a track record, to really base our projections on," he said.

The comptroller's office put its own estimate of projected Goodwill Games related revenues at closer to $1.7 million.

"You have to bear in mind that Nassau is a big economy and that overall, our entire sales tax revenue is $748 million. So, looked at from that perspective, even if we had achieved the most optimistic financial goals, you still would have only been talking about revenues representing 1/3 of a percent of our anticipated total sales tax revenue," Parola continued.

"The bottom line is, for the county, if we don't achieve those numbers, it's not going to make that much of a difference.

"Now, the good news is, the games inspired local restaurants to hire more waiters and waitresses; more help was needed at the Marriott; shopping, I hear, was up a little at Roosevelt Field. That all trickles into the economy.

"At the same time, hosting the largest percentage of Goodwill Games events put us on the map in terms of presenting world class athletic events here. In addition, everyone I've spoken to believes these games were run very, very well... and all that bodes well for our future."

And yet there was about the games a sense that the public officials who had so hyped them as a windfall, had become disenchanted with them only a few days into their two week run.

Though a number of those officials participated in the medal presentations at various events, among them County Executive Thomas S. Gulotta, Congressman Peter King, and County Legislators Edward H. Ward, Bruce Blakeman, and Norma Gonsalves, some events had no official representation.

When this newspaper inquired about the absence of public officials in the stands, one legislator said that that came about, most likely, from a memo the legislators received before the games advising them not to loiter at the events and that they couldn't accept free tickets.

Given the absence of freebies, most officials stayed away entirely.

And then too, some were very disheartened that their constant talking about the games, on television and in print, had not caused more area sports fans to materialize at the games.

"When we saw, right off the bat, that the spectators just weren't there, we should have had some kind of mechanism in place to give tickets away, to underprivilege kids and the churches.

"Briding Newell, director of the Minority Affairs Office is doing some of that, but it's just not enough to fill up the empty seats," said one county legislator who didn't wish to speak for attribution.

By the middle of last week, 10 days into the games' 15 day run, only 237,000 of the total of 600,000 tickets printed for the Goodwill Games had been sold.

Another 80,000 were reportedly given to charitable groups and agencies helping the disadvantaged. As the legislator quoted above said, in an effort to bolster attendance, the Nassau Office of Minority Affairs gave away an estimated 2,000 of those tickets to the women's soccer final.

Another 20,000 tickets were given away to event sponsors.

The problem with having fewer than expected spectators in the stands is that the licensing agreement struck between Turner Broadcasting, Inc., of Atlanta, which owns the rights to the games, and the county, placed the bulk of the potential revenue for the county -- which, along with New York State spent close to $52 million to build both the Swimming and Diving Center and the track facilities -- in the municipality's sharing a portion of the merchandizing monies at those venues.

Few spectators at those two sites, obviously, meant few souvenir and concession sales.

At the Coliseum, where the gymnastics and figure skating events were held, the agreement between Turner Broadcasting and Philadelphia-based Spectacorp, which operates the facility, is considered confidential.

However, sources in the county said that in terms of revenue fro m the Goodwill Games, the county would likely be receiving the same percentage it does from other events there, roughly a 50 percent cut of the advertising, parking and concessions.

For all the potential revenue streams the county could have benefitted from, the only sure thing was a "host fee" of less than $200,000 paid to Nassau in three installments by Turner Broadcasting.

Of that total, $25,000 was paid to the county immediately upon execution of the agreement in May, 1997; $75,000 was paid on July 19, and the remaining $94,000 was paid on Friday, August 1.

As detailed in section four of the contract, the host fee was intended to pay for use of the two new venues; for overtime costs incurred as a result of county employees being used to staff the venues; and for basic "venue services" such as customary cleaning of the bathrooms and locker rooms, use of the public address system, and access to on-site training facilities.

Also, as per the contract, revenue generated through the sale of advertising inside the venue would be split between Turner Broadcasting and the county, with Turner receiving 85 percent of that revenue and the county the remainder.

More important than the money, though, say those who consider the games to have been a success for Nassau, was the exposure the international competition gave the region in an area where it has traditionally been absent -- on national television.

"Long Island benefited from the fact that we were exposed to the world as a destination and a name," Michael Hollander, president of the Long Island Convention and Visitors Bureau said.

"We're always trying to stick the Long Island name in front of people."

In an effort to promote Nassau County, officials here insisted that two specific provisions be included in the contract.

One called for Turner Broadcasting to provide the county with a full page, four color advertisement on the back of programs given to spectators attending events here.

The other mandated that for every hour that the games were on broadcast television, three minutes of that hour be from Nassau County.

When it was suggested to him by a reporter that the Goodwill Games had been great sports but something less than a panacea for Nassau, County Legislator Ed Ward suggested that it was far too early to decide that the county hadn't met all of its goals with the games.

"After all, remember, we do have two brand new athletic facilities in the county now, for which the lion's share was paid by the state," he said.

"Not only will these facilities be the sites of future events, but they'll also be available for use by our residents."

Many local officials said that if nothing else, this year's Goodwill Games provided them with a hands-on dry run for next year's Empire State Games,which will be held in many of the same facilities and are expected to draw close to 7,000 athletes.

Still, the absence of an economic ground swell from the games left some local business people scratching their heads.

"I don't know why it didn't draw more people to the area," Frank Telese said. "After all, people turn out in droves for the Olympics, where they spend hundreds of dollars to see events, and yet, with the same athletes just down the road for half the price or less, they couldn't be enticed to come out."

As he continued to talk, considering different sides of the same question, the chamber president did begin to formulate a multi-faceted answer in regard to the lack of spectators.

"First of all, I guess, people just never really grasped what the Goodwill Games were," he said. "People thought they were the games for the physically challenged and so forth.

"The other thing is, there's currently a lot of money in the economy. Times are pretty good. So this summer, for the first time in a long time, you've got a lot of people taking family vacations. And this is prime vacation time."

Robert Franceschini, owner and chef at Piccolo's Steak and Pasta on Jericho Turnpike in Mineola, about 10 minutes away from the Goodwill Games venues, also cited vacation time as a possible reason that attendance at the events was so low.

"It's a bad time of year for this kind of thing," he said. "People have either already made plans or left on their summer vacations."

Asked if he'd seen any increase in his business as a result of the games Franceschini said, "I haven't seen any impact at all, but then, I didn't really expect to given that there are so many restaurants between the venues and here."

George Strifas, owner of the Colony Diner on Hempstead Turnpike in East Meadow, which is even closer to the venues than Piccolo's Steak and Pasta, also reported little impact from the games.

"We did ok during the Goodwill Games. Nothing great. There was a gradual influx of business while they were going on, mostly from our starting to get Goodwill Games employees coming here.

"We never did get that great jump in customers after an event let out or anything like that," Strifas said.