Yup.
But I wonder if something like top 8 teams go to the championship and play one quarter each game (including the final) in an elimination tournament might not attract more viewers than top 2 teams playing four quarters. That should fit easily into one weekend, if not a single broadcast.
After all, the most exciting do-or-die moments probably happen in the fourth quarter when the score is tied going in, so why not start with only that phase of the game, score tied at 0-0 going in, and dispense with all the early-game maneuvering?
Plus that way more viewers will be invested in a hometown team competing during the one televised event.
Sure, there are reasons why football doesn't work that way, but if it were approximately as popular as figure skating to begin with, that would probably be better than all that traveling early in the season that only diehard fans who buy tickets and travel to the games would ever get to see.
Right. And they started out that way. And the NFL started out as for-profit sports entertainment. And all are focused specifically on American productions for American participants and American audiences. They would be structured very differently if they had to serve a global market, e.g., if the winners of American Idol and Canadian Idol and every other country's Idol competition went on to a World Idol competition that was more prestigious than the national events.
Figure skating started out as an amateur sport funded entirely buy the well-to-do participants and earning money from skating not only was looked on as déclassé but could also get you banned. Later some federations and governments started paying for training to develop medal contenders for the glory of the homeland. Later still amateur rules were relaxed across all Olympic sports to allow skaters to earn money from skating and still compete at the highest level, but with no guarantee of funding. And then, at the peak of competitive skating's popularity, some prize money directly from the ISU was introduced, never enough for any but the handful of most successful competitors to fund their training with and reduced to lesser amounts and fewer recipients as popularity waned in more lucrative markets.
Meanwhile, international competition at the highest level continues to be international in scope and which countries is most successful/dominant, which countries have the most interested audiences, will vary over the years. They can't keep changing the format significantly to appeal to the US sometimes and Russia or France or Japan or Canada a different year. Not to mention that their mandate as an international membership organization means they also have to meet the needs of Swedish and British and German and Austrian participants even if it's been decades since those countries have had world medal contenders.
If there were to be an organized professional circuit aimed at giving audiences a good show and the participants who make it possible good salaries, would it be appropriate for the ISU to change its mandate to privilege for-profit entertainment ahead of serving all its members? Should there be a separate organization to administer professional skating? Should it be global in scope or (as was the case in the heyday of pro competitions in the 1990s) should it be primarily organized around appealing to American audiences, bringing in skaters from other countries who had already earned name recognition with US audiences through their ISU-circuit accomplishments.
If a one-country-focused pro circuit existed in, say, Russia or Japan, should American fans complain if it's not shown on US TV and doesn't feature as many US skaters?
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