WHAT HAPPENED TO WHOLESOMENESS?

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Frank McCourt said something at his Dodger Stadium press conference Thursday that's more significant now, after Super Bowl X-Rated.

The new Dodgers owner was asked if he plans to lower the price of ballpark beer - as new Angels owner Arte Moreno did to great acclaim, establishing a lowbrow litmus test for sports bosses.

McCourt resisted the invitation to pander.

``My focus is not going to be on beer,'' he said. ``My focus is going to be on families.''

Without elaborating, McCourt said a mouthful. Ballgames as clean, sane, sober fun for the whole family. Now there's a concept!

Sports promoters like to talk about their efforts to attract the proverbial family of four through special ticket pricing, bleacher sections free of alcohol and cursing, and grandstand arcades.

But then come days like Sunday and you wonder if executives, players and broadcasters realize that families generally include children.

During the Super Bowl halftime show in Houston, Justin Timberlake tears off part of Janet Jackson's top, momentarily exposing a breast to CBS viewers. Timberlake says it was an accidental ``wardrobe malfunction.'' Jackson admits the stunt was planned.

In an interview following the Lakers' victory in Toronto, Shaquille O'Neal drops obscenities into a rant about the referees. Channel 9's John Ireland points out that they're on live TV. Shaq says, ``I don't give a (bleep).''

Back at the Super Bowl, a G-stringed streaker delays the second-half kickoff with his mid-field bump and grind. CBS's cameras show no close-ups of the guy. Its announcers, however, make clear their amusement.

Greg Gumbel and Phil Simms must have loved the Super Bowl commercials, which seemed designed to appeal to a frat boy with a potency problem.

And then there's the Lingerie Bowl, but at least that halftime diversion is shown only on pay-per-view TV - not shoved into the living rooms of unsuspecting parents and kids.

The shame is that none of what happened is shocking.

``We haven't seen too much moderation (in sports),'' David Carter, the Redondo Beach sports-business expert who teaches at USC, said as he clicked off recent examples ranging from Olympic-committee and college-recruiting scandals to athletes' criminal behavior and hockey parents' violent streaks. ``Why now are we surprised that Shaq would go off, or that an MTV-produced halftime show would be edgy? It seems like it should be expected. Not welcomed, but expected.''

Tell that, though, to the mom who was watching with the kids Sunday as Timberlake and Jackson put on a show better suited to a strip joint. Tell it to the dad who was listening with the kids as O'Neal launched into a rant fit for a nightclub microphone. Tell it to anybody old enough to remember when sports, not yet in bed with the entertainment industry, were equated with wholesomeness.

How eager are they going to be to tune in the next Super Bowl or Lakers game?

If acts like Jackson's and Shaq's titillate the coveted 18-to-34-year- old demographic but drive away the under-12s and the over-40s, how does that help sports in the long run?

Wardrobe malfunctions aside, when you hear the music played at stadiums and arenas, don't you wonder if the hipsters at the controls care about anyone younger or older than themselves?

I make no moral judgment here. I think nudity has many fine applications. I expect four-letter words in the locker room.

It's a practical issue: If parents aren't taking their kids to the ballpark, whether because of the expense or the environment, then kids won't be going to the ballpark at drinking age. How many children do you suppose attended Super Bowl XXXVIII? (The Daily News' Billy Witz said he can't remember seeing any.) How many children go to Lakers games? (Very few.)

``All these sports talk about wanting to reach the next generation of fans,'' Carter said. ``But that's a problem, because most of these guys aren't going to own the team when the next generation (are adults). An owner is more interested in attracting the $8 beer drinker. In the short run, it's not as profitable to have kids at the game.

``But if sports won't pay attention, they're going to wake up one day and realize nobody's coming to the games.''

Monday might have been the day sports bolted awake. The NFL vowed things will be different at future Super Bowl halftime shows. The NBA suspended O'Neal for a game without pay, and Shaq apologized.

Meanwhile, McCourt, in promising to court families, sounded as if he got it before sports' Smutty Sunday.