I think the big difference is in the popularity of professional skating shows. Dorothy Hamill said about the importance of the Olympics that it was either win the gold medal and sign with Ice Capades or win the silver and go back to her job as a secretary. (In fact, she bought Ice Capades.)
Ice Follies was big enough in the 1970s to offer Janet Lynn a 1.5 million dollar contract, making her the highest paid female athlete in the world.
Shows like this were basically Las Vegas variety shows on ice, featuring high-kicking showgirls in feathered costumes. Times change, tastes in entertainment evolve. We don't care so much about that sort of thing any more. (For one thing, it doesn't translate to television very well.)
http://figureskating.about.com/od/skatingstarsofthepast/p/follies.htm
Around that time, I went to an ice show that had Peggy Fleming in it. It also had Big Bird. I was bored to distraction most of the time. Then a few years later, Toller Cranston mounted an ice show that was performed on the iced-over stage of a theater. It featured nothing but skating, just routines by Toller and a few other mostly American individual skaters, pairs, and ice dance couples. (The place where I fell in fangirl love with Canadian ice dancer David Porter.) I remember I wrote a fan letter (addressed to the theater--who knows if anyone received it) thanking Cranston for doing a show with "no lutzing Muppets."
I guess skating is as esoteric as ballet in its way. But I am struck by the idea that the one thing we all would have sworn was too esoteric for the American public would have been ballroom dancing. And bingo, we have the hugely popular Dancing with the Stars. I understand (because we've seen it with our own eyes) that it's not as easy to teach a celebrity to ice skate. But a canny publicist could surely figure out (no pun intended) another way to present ice skaters so that everyone would want to see them.