Old PPL training hours for sport pilot license?

I did around 20 hours PPL training before 9/11-twin towers event, which closed the cheap flight school I was using, and maybe a couple of hours a few times in the following years on a 3d class ticket. However, I have kept up with learning, etc., via reading and flight simulator.

Would hours that old count toward a sports pilot license now, decreasing the cost of getting the license, which is the only one available to me at this point?

 

If they are properly logged and earned, hours are hours.

However for cutting time off, 20 years ago, those hours might not help you much in being able to meet PTS specs any faster

 

Your training will take all the time needed, and not a bit less, even though your old hours still count. It's highly unlikely that you will be ready to rock'n'roll with only twenty more "new" hours, in any case.
I had some old hours, from the seventies, and I didn't even count them when I actually completed my training twenty years later! Heck, I didn't even log some of my time (due to laziness, not intentional, I could use the plane logs to fill it in, but I'm not ever going to fly for a living.)