Has men's skating eclipsed the ladies?

I imagine NBC showed the men's competition last because Hanyu is OGM, and Fernandez is from Spain competing in his home country.

The ladies event basically looked like Russian nationals, and I don't think most people watching NBC had a clue who Tuktamysheva & Radionova were, so probably couldn't have cared less about their podium finishes.

If men's have eclipsed the ladies, or if the men's discipline is currently more popular in the U.S., it's certainly not helping with the ratings, or the decline of figure skating popularity in general here.

Meoima said:

Wait until Liza brings out her 3A, and the Japanese junior ladies follow up. Then we might have ladies with quads!!!

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We've already had a lady with a quad

peg said:

We've already had a lady with a quad

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Miki's quads were never ratified. IIRC her 4S was always marked as 3S which was quite unfair. Today her quads could be marked as UR or downgraded but still quads.

Meoima said:

Miki's quads were never ratified. IIRC her 4S was always marked as 3S which was quite unfair. Today her quads could be marked as UR or downgraded but still quads.

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I thought at least one of them was. Maybe I'm wrong. :confused2:

Meoima said:

Wait until Liza brings out her 3A, and the Japanese junior ladies follow up. Then we might have ladies with quads!!!

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I watched the GPF on NBC earlier... and I never realized how huge her jumps are. Her 3Lz is huuuge. Definitely in Midori and Tonya's territory.

I love all 4 disciplines.

peg said:

I thought at least one of them was. Maybe I'm wrong. :confused2:

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One was ratified. I think it was a jgpf?

sabinfire said:

I imagine NBC showed the men's competition last because Hanyu is OGM, and Fernandez is from Spain competing in his home country.

The ladies event basically looked like Russian nationals, and I don't think most people watching NBC had a clue who Tuktamysheva & Radionova were, so probably couldn't have cared less about their podium finishes.

If men's have eclipsed the ladies, or if the men's discipline is currently more popular in the U.S., it's certainly not helping with the ratings, or the decline of figure skating popularity in general here.

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So true! Figure skating would only become popular here in the US if there was major (Kerrigan&Harding-esque) drama. That's what most Americans seem to gravitate to. If not, it will only be popular for a couple of weeks every 4 years here.

In response to the question, I do not think men's skating has eclipsed the ladies. Yeah, they do bigger/crazier jumps that makes the sport more "extreme" and exciting, but I still think a majority of people want to see the ladies. That could certainly be the case for the Olympics. In February, the Olympic skating buzz/talk at my school was centered around Lipnitskaya, Sotnikova, Yuna Kim, Gracie Gold, Ashley Wagner, all those ladies. That might be because I go to an all-male high school, but my friends and I never followed figure skating at the time, so the fact that those few names stuck, rather than Hanyu/Chan/Fernandez, is proof. I'm the only one of my friends who follow this sport at the moment, but whenever I bring up the Olympics, everyone seems to remember who Yulia was. So it's not a matter of difficult jumps/moves, it's a matter of who catches your eye the most, which could be an argument for both disciplines...

I prefer men's, but I think ladies is still the main focus in North America. I was watching the men's GPF with my brother and he wouldn't stop bringing up the "gay" comments (he's not a homophobe or anything). Actually, I was talking about how I'm a fan of some male figure skaters to my friend (a girl), and she was like, "Why? You know they're probably gay, right?" *Ugh*

As a gay male.... I mean, you have to face it, a good percentage (I usually estimate about a third on my gaydar) are gay... Shrug... Doesn't make it less interesting, at least for me if people of all sorts can watch modern family and American Idol then they can certainly watch men's figure skating hehe

Newbiespectator said:

Have men eclipsed the ladies?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdZEGE6e0p0
Leaves link and runs away...

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LOL! This is perfect!!!! Thank you so much for posting this!

Actually, those comments DO sound homophobic, AprilS. It's like he's questioning why you would be a fan of someone who's gay.

grantrf98 said:

So true! Figure skating would only become popular here in the US if there was major (Kerrigan&Harding-esque) drama. That's what most Americans seem to gravitate to. If not, it will only be popular for a couple of weeks every 4 years here.

In response to the question, I do not think men's skating has eclipsed the ladies. Yeah, they do bigger/crazier jumps that makes the sport more "extreme" and exciting, but I still think a majority of people want to see the ladies. That could certainly be the case for the Olympics. In February, the Olympic skating buzz/talk at my school was centered around Lipnitskaya, Sotnikova, Yuna Kim, all those ladies. That might be because I go to an all-male high school, but my friends and I never followed figure skating at the time, so the fact that those few names stuck, rather than Hanyu/Chan/Fernandez, is proof. I'm the only one of my friends who follow this sport at the moment, but whenever I bring up the Olympics, everyone seems to remember who Yulia was. So it's not a matter of difficult jumps/moves, it's a matter of who catches your eye the most, which could be an argument for both disciplines...

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This is *so* interesting to me, and maybe it is a matter of generation and/or gender? As one who is neither teen-aged nor male, hardly anyone I spoke with was watching the ladies. Particularly the Russian ladies. That may be nationalistic and jingoistic, but true nevetheless. All the "water-cooler" talk centered around Jason Brown, and, once the Olys hit and they saw his SP, Yuzu for the men. Of course D/W got big play, but not relevant to this discussion Now, none of my friends or colleagues follow figure skating, so it is a very limited sample, but I never heard *anyone* talk about Julia or Yuna, and barely about Adelina (as in, a Russian won? OK.) The young guy in the ponytail, yes. And of course, once the Olys ended, nobody talked about any of it.

Viri mulieres virosque mulieres his concordes sunt deliciae.

aromaticchicken said:

As a gay male.... I mean, you have to face it, a good percentage (I usually estimate about a third on my gaydar) are gay... Shrug... Doesn't make it less interesting, at least for me if people of all sorts can watch modern family and American Idol then they can certainly watch men's figure skating hehe

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Of course. And certainly no less interesting for me either. Great athletes are great athletes regardless of orientation. Unfortunately, in purely my own experience, many hetero men I know seem to feel emasculated watching figure skating (any discipline, but especially men's), while many females would rather watch rugged manly-men chase a ball or puck around.

Edit: yes, I know the comments sound homophobic. But since I actually know him personally, I know he himself is not (nor is my female friend- she thinks I can't be a fan of male athletes unless I'm attracted to them or something).

el henry said:

This is *so* interesting to me, and maybe it is a matter of generation and/or gender? As one who is neither teen-aged nor male, hardly anyone I spoke with was watching the ladies. Particularly the Russian ladies. That may be nationalistic and jingoistic, but true nevetheless. All the "water-cooler" talk centered around Jason Brown, and, once the Olys hit and they saw his SP, Yuzu for the men. Of course D/W got big play, but not relevant to this discussion Now, none of my friends or colleagues follow figure skating, so it is a very limited sample, but I never heard *anyone* talk about Julia or Yuna, and barely about Adelina (as in, a Russian won? OK.) The young guy in the ponytail, yes. And of course, once the Olys ended, nobody talked about any of it.

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Interesting...this question probably is a matter of opinion/preference rather than based on skill/fact/statistics. But since we are both from the US, we can't tell which discipline is the most popular because figure skating isn't popular here. Unless the US goes through a drastic shift in sports culture, most Americans will only talk about basketball, baseball, and American football, only bringing up figure skating for a day every 4 years.

I remember a time not too terribly long ago, when figure skating (ladies figure skating, in particular) had higher TV ratings than the Super Bowl, and was the most watched sports television program of all-time.

Hard to believe nowadays, eh?

I was going to disagree, but then I made a list of quality male and female skaters who have competed under the current judging system that I think have had at least a few interesting programs (and successful execution of such at competitions) and found that the gentlemen did indeed greatly outnumber the ladies.

This season on the women's side has been very boring. The Russian rivalry is the only interesting aspect of it, but none of those ladies are individually that interesting. Sorry, just the way I feel.

I think it just depends on the times. Right now I have a handful of women skaters I really look forward to watching, where for men I have twice as many. Last season I had a few more women than men. When the next round of junior skaters begin competing in seniors, I think the women will then be ahead on my skate radar once again. For me, the men are not inherently more interesting right now, it's just that there are a larger number of talents*.

eta: *I mean super-promising talents, skaters that get me excited every time they perform. Everyone competing is talented in their own right, I'm sure.

I noticed the same thing actually during this GPF. In my country, the national TV Bureau bought broadcasting right of all competitions but it is up to them to decide which competition to show, normally Ladies. Talking about this year's GPF, I'm pretty sure when I checked the TV schedule online the day before free skate (it was a replay), it was written as "Figure skating GPF Free Skate - Ladies and others" (yeah it is how they wrote it), but the day when I went back to check the exact time of broadcast it was clearly showing as "Figure skating GPF Free Skate - Mens and others":scratch:

However, I doubt if it is a trend that Mens eclipsing Ladies or if this GPF is just an exception; still I think most of the world enjoys Ladies more than Mens. Sometimes I think it might because (which is purely my personal perception and no meant to offend anyone), girls enjoys beauty no matter what gender of the performer / skater, but not every boy could do the same - using my own family as an example, my mom and I enjoy all 4 disciplines and we both have our own fav female / male skaters (more female skaters than male to be honesty), but my dad, a huge Mao / Julia / Elena.R fan, could barely enjoy Mens' competition except for Hanyu (actually Hanyu is the only male skater he appreciated).

I'd like to talk about Sochi men for a little more (sorry for OT but I think some mentioned in earlier - apologies that I forgot to quote). My Japanese friend told me that in Orser's new book (she's reading it) there is conversation between Orser and Hanyu regarding so, and here's a few points she summed:
1) team event took place 3 days before individuals, with free skate followed by short program the next day straight away;
2) short program literally finished at midnight but free skate official warm-up was scheduled next morning - Hanyu slept 4 hours only after the press conference;
3) warm-up was in the morning but competition started very late that night, the rink was used for other competitions (short track speeding IIRC) in the afternoon so ice condition changed a lot during the day.
I think these kinda explained why mens bombed in free skate one after one... and I sincerely hope that next time (worlds or olympics, especially olympics!) the official could do some better arrangement...

el henry said:

This is *so* interesting to me, and maybe it is a matter of generation and/or gender? As one who is neither teen-aged nor male, hardly anyone I spoke with was watching the ladies. Particularly the Russian ladies. That may be nationalistic and jingoistic, but true nevetheless. All the "water-cooler" talk centered around Jason Brown, and, once the Olys hit and they saw his SP, Yuzu for the men. Of course D/W got big play, but not relevant to this discussion Now, none of my friends or colleagues follow figure skating, so it is a very limited sample, but I never heard *anyone* talk about Julia or Yuna, and barely about Adelina (as in, a Russian won? OK.) The young guy in the ponytail, yes. And of course, once the Olys ended, nobody talked about any of it.

Viri mulieres virosque mulieres his concordes sunt deliciae.

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I had the opposite thing occur. Text message after text message, phone call after phone call during Sochi from aunts, cousins, friends, etc.... all about Yulia. Outside of a few of the moms that I speak with around my local rink no one knew or cared to discuss Jason Brown. Most of the kids at the rink talk about Mao, Yulia, Yuna, Yuzuru, Gracie, and Caro if you can even get them to discuss figure skating.

So aside from Yuzuru I really don't hear much about the men outside of GS. For the casual fan it seemed Yulia and Yuzuru were the buzz of the olympics. I play hockey also and even on my hockey team these two were topics of discussion, not brought up by me, in the locker rooms. No one outside of the figure skating community that I am a part of ever mentioned Jason Brown. The general comment about Yuzuru was "this dude has style" and about Yulia "wow.....she is from another planet".

Just my experience so take it as you will. I don't think I will ever care for the men as much as I do the ladies but I always find a few programs that I enjoy and I certainly have fun watching the Mens events. I guess there just isn't the same level of interest for me in the men. No reason to give it's just the way it is.