That makes you a perfect example. Casual fans used to watch a lot more tennis and skating. I have lots of friends who don't watch either anymore. There needs to an investment in the sport not just by the governing bodies but also by the broadcasters. They want lightning in a bottle that takes little work on their part, but that won't yield long term results. Don't take your audience for granted and assume they will show up.
That's just what I'm getting at. Both tennis and skating used to feature not only professional (tennis) and Oly eligible (skating) competitions on weekends, but also lots of made for TV events as well. Tennis had it's boom in the latter area in the 70s and early 80's. Before it trimmed down to primarily main tour level events on TV in 80s 90s and 00s and now to almost nothing. Skating's boom on TV actually lasted a lot longer from the 70's to the early part of this decade. But the mainstream competitions are dropping off TV at a much faster rate. Skating, like tennis, used to be really effective counter programming against football and other demographically "male" sports. Tennis had the advantage of appealing to women and men equally. It still does, just a much smaller share of them. Skating's primary appeal was to women and is now being crowded out by the rise in other sports which women, and men, find appealing. Golf is at the top of the list, but other traditionally "male" sports have made inroads in popularity with women also from NASCAR to the NFL.
Also, golf may not have the drop off you are predicting, at least not like skating. Tiger will play for a very long time and is already attracting legions of new players. That's why skating's presence on TV matters. It's a recruitment tool. The PGA and LPGA are light years better at marketing themselves than either tennis or skating. That's partly due to the nature of the sport which is accessible to far more people of different ages and abilities, but also because there has been a major investment in making the players other than Tiger well known, regardless of where they are from. They are all but required to help market the sport because they have an ownership stake in it. The PGA and LPGA are both trade associations/unions. The other governing bodies and broadcasters work closely with them out of a sense of common interest and purpose. In skating and tennis, there is far less universal cooperation.
Witt was well liked by a wide international audience by the time Calgary came around and would have been even if Debi had not been such a great rival. That's because TV invested heavily in promoting her. Torvill and Dean were superstars before they went to Sarajevo. Again, because they had a pre-made image to sell. Yes, some stars are made at the Games, but others already exist before they get there.
I would say that the events held in the lead up to the Olympics should be used as a building cycle. That's the advantage to NBC having broadcast rights. They don't have to cram all the human interest work into Vancouver. They can lay the groundwork now. I'm sure they will try, but the job will be a lot harder with a lot of Worlds on hard to find cable. Let's face it, 2010 will have a lot of foreign faces in contention for skating medals. I think that's a good thing. Skating fans all over the world enthusiastically embrace skaters from far flung places. Like Johnny in Asia and Russia. That should be a selling point. Plus, the host nation is likely to field a very strong team in each discipline. Why not give them some love too? They are all attractive and marketable. Tessa and Scott could be models in their spare time. Why not use that to mine ratings gold? The US has the chance to build a new legacy in ice dance. Give that some emphasis too. There should be fewer preconditions on where new stars should be coming from. The emphasis should be on finding them, humanizing and promoting them and focusing on the quality of the overall competition rather than the countries. The Olympics will necessarily create a nationalistic atmosphere no matter what.
Still, much of this is out of our hands. I can only hope that it's not too late to reverse the trend.
