As for the cave men, I understand FS was born when the first caveman gliding gracefully on a frozen lake suddenly jumped into the air, rotated there and landed without falling, and shouted to his friends: "Can you beat that?"
"Oh, yes" - said the guy from the second cave on the left. But instead of trying to glide faster, jump higher and rotate more times, he started to spin around like crazy.
Then a resident of yet different cave crossed the lake on one leg adding a little hop and a little turn here and there. "But can you beat THAT?" he exclaimed proudly.
I realize this is a joke.
But the fact that it doesn't include anything like a caveman showing off how he could draw perfect circles on the ice is very telling about what the understanding of how figure skating (as distinguished from distance/racing skating or just gliding around for fun) really was born historically or a significant aspect of what it still values.
You do agree that a spectator sport needs spectators, surely?
Sure. But I'm not sure that the ISU sees or necessarily should see its primary mission as producing an entertainment product for audiences or earning big profits for the organizers and if possible for actual skaters.
I think the mission is more, to organize competitions so that skaters can compare themselves to each other in meaningful ways on all aspects that the sport has come to value (blade-to-ice technical, athletic, and artistic all at once), including determining the best in the world, at least on the given occasion when the world championships (or Olympics) are held that year. But also at various levels of competition that may lead to skaters ultimately advancing to those elite global events, but other participants may never advance beyond.
I don't know that the ISU defines skating first of all as a spectator sport. I think it's more interested in skating as a participant sport.
It so happens that the athletic and artistic aspects can be very entertaining for audiences especially when performed by some of the best in the world. And that allows for bringing in income from broadcast/streaming rights and competition ticket sales that less audience-friendly sports with similar levels of global participation might envy.
As a result it can use that income to support not only the elite competitions and competitors, but also to support developmental programs like junior internationals and seminars for newer national federations, etc., that are of little direct interest to general audiences but help to broaden the base and the quality of future potential elites as well providing value to all those participants who will never reach elite levels.
(The most popular stars can earn lots of money from outside sources such as tours/shows/TV specials/endorsements, etc., not coming from the ISU itself, and it is in the ISU's interest to allow that in order to keep those stars competing in ISU events. But aside from loosening the restrictions maintaining strict amateurism to remain eligible for top-level competition, those sources of income for skaters are not directly depending on anything "the sport" does. It just now allows what used to be forbidden not so long ago.)
But who would you invite to these and would they bring an audience if the current competitions aren't doing it (oh, and who's going to pay for it?) Wasn't there a privately run competition for artistic skaters in the last few years, and how well did it do?
You mean Peggy Fleming Trophy? Or something else with a similar mission?
That was never intended to be marketed to wide audiences in order to make a profit. But it did provide a model for how an artistic competition might be structured with what kind of rules.
Could such a competition format be built up to a worldwide elite level that could be marketed to mass audiences? In theory yes, but either the ISU would need to sponsor such competitions or a competition circuit themselves or someone else would need to organize it with an agreement from the ISU to permit competitors to participate without losing ISU eligibility.
Other similar events included pro competitions that the ISU considered competition for their own events and caused participants to lose eligibility, and pro-ams sanctioned by the ISU in the 1990s/turn of the century, and similar-format events inviting a few retired stars to compete against current stars, often with a regulation short program followed by an artistic program.
Any of these could serve as templates for developing a new discipline. As well as the Solo Dance discipline which is going strong domestically in the US and elsewhere and reportedly is in the works as an international ISU-sponsored discipline.
Whatever the format, one question is whether it/they would best be developed from the bottom up or top down.
Bottom up: Local clubs (like the Peggy Fleming Trophy at Broadmoor) develop competition formats, several clubs offer competitions using similar or identical rules, a circuit develops among the various clubs for competitions in these disciplines at multiple skill levels, the national federation starts sponsoring a national-level circuit, different federations who each have programs within the same/similar disciplines join together to offer the participants to compete against others from other countries, and eventually the ISU decides to adopt this discipline and offer an international series of competitions and/or to start with a world championship (and continental and junior world championships?) in this discipline.
Top down: The ISU decides to institute a new discipline and starts at the top by inviting current and recent international medalists from standard disciplines to compete in the equivalent of a made-for-TV spectator-friendly event. This proves sufficiently popular with the skaters and with audiences that they decide to offer multiple such competitions per year and/or to offer a larger worldwide event in this discipline once a year that all federations can send participants to. Then as it grows even more popular and there are too many would-be participants for a single world event, they introduce continental championships or qualifying events at an international level, and federations who have many who would like to represent their countries at this event need to develop national championships and domestic qualifying events in this discipline.
I can see it happening either way. But at this point this idea is just my personal pipe dream, aside from solo dance which the ISU has already made a statement about.
(Oh, and let us not forget that while stars and champions are Very Important, so are the rest of them, because you cannot be a star and champion without someone to compete against, most of whom will never be. So keeping lots of them excited and encouraged and trying their best is rather important too.)
Very true.
And fans who love skating enjoy watching the up-and-comers and the less-successful journeyman veterans, etc. Which can excite and encourage the lower-level skaters and also-rans who earn applause and more from those fans.
But casual viewers may only tune in only for the Olympics and maybe Olympic qualifiers, or will watch something like a GP event or national championship on TV if it's convenient, or bring up an online video of a specific viral performance. But they don't become serious figure skating fans, just willing viewers when there's something specific that's exciting or convenient to watch.
How could the ISU turn more of those casual viewers into actual figure skating fans? And do they need to change the sport to put more emphasis only on those aspects that unknowledgeable viewers can understand, or are there ways to make the knowledge base more accessible to interested potential fans?
They knew all too well where their money was and - judging by memoirs of the time - any 4 kids with 3 guitars and a drum were given a fair chance to rock. While earlier, remember that famous quote "Bands with guitars are the thing of the past, you'd better give up on these Beetles and find yourself another hobby, Mr Epstein"? Maybe a year later the - heaven or hell, depending on which side you're on - broke loose.
