Jump hype or soap opera: what can make the general public of the U.S. fall in love with figure skating again?

[cailuj365]

One major change though is that pro skating that used to exist is basically dead with few exceptions. That means that a skater has to stay active in the competive skating much long than in the past. In the old days a skater with an OGM could turn Pro and sign million dollar contracts for TV specials and professional ice shows. Those opportunities no longer exist in any meaningful way so skaters who want to make a living at skating have stay longer in the Olympic eligible ranks to do so. Jason who is still skating at 30 years old is not as rare as it used to be. In the old days he would have turned pro and probably made money doing so but because that pathway has closed so he still skating competitively to pay the bills. Nathan Chen just went back to school and all but retired and outside of of a few shows he hasn't skated since. That the Olympic Gold Medalist did not think it was worth the effort to even try to fix his hip issue to try again says volumes about the sport and the direction it is going. Ilia might be one to change things a bit because he doesn't want to follow the rules that have been laid out for skaters, he wants to transform the sport and bring in a whole new audience to skating and skating really needs reset and Ilia might be able to do it. I want skating to relevant again and popular again and we need to do something different for that to happen.

Nah, I think Nathan had always set sights on his post-skating life. One doesn't enroll at Yale while still being an active competitor just for fun. I never saw him continuing him post-Beijing. The man just has different goals in life. Why try to mess up your hip even more when your ultimate goal is to become a doctor?


Overall, I agree with some points from everyone above.
- To raise the profile of figure skating, a champion or beloved skater has to continue to be in the spotlight after they've reached success. In the past, that was the pro circuit and shows that were shown on TV, and TV was also the only major form of entertainment back then. Today, it's going to have to be with continuing as an active competitive skater and having an online presence.

- Longevity matters so that we can be familiar with an athlete and their backstory. It's about creating a persona that people get attached to over time. Edit: This is something that Alysa has already started to build. We knew her as a junior and prodigy, she went on Jimmy Fallon and the Today Show as a cute youngster, she went to the Olympics, and now she's back and winning on her terms. It's a great story.

- Ilia's trying his best to show something unique and different in skating, and I do think random people are intrigued by that, whether it's because of his music choices or his moves/jumps/flips. He has done well to give himself a brand and a nickname that he uses over and over. Sadly, it will have little impact if the online evidence of his best skates do not stay up for more than a few weeks in his country, so the copyright era is against him. Interestingly, he also has very little social media engagement - he just reposts what others post about him. He used to be much more active, but perhaps for his own mental health reasons, he's not interested in being that active on SM. We'll see if he goes back to Twitch. Alysa and Amber have more active TikToks.

- The best case scenario for Team USA is if they duplicate at Milano Cortino what they did in Boston and get the team medal, and Ilia AND Alysa and/or Isabeau also stay active. They are all young enough. Maybe even Amber too depending on what her interest is in skating after Milano. (I'm also assuming that those three are the US women's team.) If that happens, I could really see people being interested in making an effort to go and see their champions and favorite skaters live at shows and/or competitions.

 

[Jontor]

For me it's very simple. For a sport to be/become popular, you need to focus on the sport. Not shows and gossip about skaters.

Figure skating is and has always been a difficult sport to understand for non-skaters. So, the competitions should be packaged differently so things can be explained. The 6 minute warm-ups/20 min re-surfacing are excellent opportunities to educate the viewers in how different elements work, upcoming skaters contents and what the difference/risk is, and how the points work.

I have often gotten the comment from friends who accidentally have watched figure skating, that as soon as a skater falls - they lose. I explain to them that's not necessarily the case, and they look like questionmarks. To them it is like you are trying to make a goal but missed the shot, or you don't make a pole jump, or you straddle a gate in slalom. People just don't understand how figure skating works, so naturally it is difficult to draw new people in...

 

[Magill]

One major change though is that pro skating that used to exist is basically dead with few exceptions. That means that a skater has to stay active in the competive skating much long than in the past. In the old days a skater with an OGM could turn Pro and sign million dollar contracts for TV specials and professional ice shows. Those opportunities no longer exist in any meaningful way so skaters who want to make a living at skating have stay longer in the Olympic eligible ranks to do so. Jason who is still skating at 30 years old is not as rare as it used to be. In the old days he would have turned pro and probably made money doing so but because that pathway has closed so he still skating competitively to pay the bills. Nathan Chen just went back to school and all but retired and outside of of a few shows he hasn't skated since. That the Olympic Gold Medalist did not think it was worth the effort to even try to fix his hip issue to try again says volumes about the sport and the direction it is going. Ilia might be one to change things a bit because he doesn't want to follow the rules that have been laid out for skaters, he wants to transform the sport and bring in a whole new audience to skating and skating really needs reset and Ilia might be able to do it. I want skating to relevant again and popular again and we need to do something different for that to happen.

I think it is completely the other way round, actually. And, no, the show career has never closed for Jason, he's performing at some show even now as we are speaking. Jason is really very popular in Japanese shows, probably most popular of the current US crop in any discipline. While longevity is obviously a factor, it is mostly because he's a great skater, a great performer which is important in shows, and he's also very, very likable as a person. Speaking Japanese probably also helps, even if just a bit. FYI, he did try to turn pro some two years ago, but came back to competitive skating at the request of the US fed as the American no 2 in men, so that they could send him to Worlds and keep their precious spots. He didn't go back to competitive skating to pay the bills. Why do all the skaters dream about being invited to Japan for shows? Because this is where they make money to pay the bills, not the other way round.
Now, why US skaters need to travel to Japan to earn butter for their bread? Because this is where the ice show market is thriving nowadays, while it is kind of dead in US. Why is that? Hmmm...
As for Nathan, I do think he disappeared after winning OGM just because he wanted to focus on his studies. But, he was around for 1.5 of Olympic cycles being hyped all the way through. In Beijing he was at the same point of longevity in which Yuzuru Hanyu was at Pyeongchang, and yet their popularity was completely different at these points respectively. So clearly it was not just about the length of time they were around. There is some magic about winning the public's love, the IT factor, or whatever. It is not just about medals, and not just about an organized hype. Nathan was a very decorated skater but not that hugely popular. Yuzuru was both. As for Ilia Malinin, we'll see how his career develops. Nothing is a given yet.
Still it makes me think that maybe Japan has the most thriving ice show market because they nourish excellent but well-rounded skaters and do not just hype jumps. And the same goes the other way. maybe Japanese skaters care to develop PCS and show-relevant skills because they know there is the show market round the corner ready to absorb and reward them provided they prove good enough...

 

[TallyT]

Figure skating is and has always been a difficult sport to understand for non-skaters. ...

I have often gotten the comment from friends who accidentally have watched figure skating, that as soon as a skater falls - they lose. I explain to them that's not necessarily the case, and they look like questionmarks. To them it is like you are trying to make a goal but missed the shot, or you don't make a pole jump, or you straddle a gate in slalom. People just don't understand how figure skating works, so naturally it is difficult to draw new people in...

{funny how all this is not a problem for audiences elsewhere... could it be a furphy? Surely not.}

 

[Mathman]

I have often gotten the comment from friends who accidentally have watched figure skating, that as soon as a skater falls - they lose. I explain to them that's not necessarily the case, and they look like questionmarks. To them it is like you are trying to make a goal but missed the shot, or you don't make a pole jump, or you straddle a gate in slalom. People just don't understand how figure skating works, so naturally it is difficult to draw new people in...

That was the beauty of 6.0 ordinal judging. It was clear to viewers that you don't have to clear a certain bar to win, you just have to do better than the other guys. One skater was relatively best, another was relatively second best, someone else was relativelly third best. Gold, silver, bronze. What's not to understand?.

 

[Diana Delafield]

That was the beauty of 6.0 ordinal judging. It was clear to viewers that you don't have to clear a certain bar to win, you just have to do better than the other guys. One skater was relatively best, another was relatively second best, someone else was relativelly third best. Gold, silver, bronze. What's not to understand?.

There was a fairly widespread wish, in Canada anyway, among those of us who competed in that era that the mark was out of 10 like in gymnastics. We understood the tradition behind the choice of 6, but using 10 would have given the judges more leeway when marking the earlier performances.

 

[Magill]

That was the beauty of 6.0 ordinal judging. It was clear to viewers that you don't have to clear a certain bar to win, you just have to do better than the other guys. One skater was relatively best, another was relatively second best, someone else was relativelly third best. Gold, silver, bronze. What's not to understand?.

Sorry, but speaking from a casual viewer experience at that time, it wasn't clear at all. I did watch FS under 6.0 system as a kid and no one around me ever knew it was "ordinal". There was a widespread feeling the marks were given like marks in schools, just more precise. Not 4+or 4-, but 4.7 or 3.8, with the mean calculated as the final "mark". That's not how it worked? How come! Quite a novelty!
And just like marks in schools., some were perceived as justified, some as biased, some "teachers" were perceived as "just", some as pushing their favourites and keeping down their competitors, some just a bit, some quite scandalously. Some thought a fall should have been penalised with an "F", some others thought other things were more important for the final note. Nothing was better understood by default.

 

[Jontor]

Nothing was better understood by default.

Agree, and that was me back in the day.

Speaking of my own experience, in 1994 I was home from school with the flu. I was lying on my sofa watching TV, and Europeans in Figure skating was on. I had never watched fs before in my life, and now I was watching it all. Short programs, long programs, all disciplines. The commentators where excellent and before each segment they were discussing the skaters coming up. And during the breaks for re-surfacing the ice, there was a fs school where they showed and discussed all the different jumps and other elements. That was a wow moment for me, and after a short while I found myself knowing which jump would come up because of the skating steps before it.

I have been a fan since. But I never would have gotten into it if I didn't watch that Europeans back in '94 and I got those skating lessons.

 

[Mathman]

There was a fairly widespread wish, in Canada anyway, among those of us who competed in that era that the mark was out of 10 like in gymnastics. We understood the tradition behind the choice of 6, but using 10 would have given the judges more leeway when marking the earlier performances.

What was cool about scoring from 0 to 6 instead of 0 to 10 or 1 to 10 is that it matches the psychology of human decision making. Studies consistently show that humans cam distinguish between 7 categories with a fair amountt if accuracy and confidence, but no more. If there are. say, ten boxes to sort things into, humans cannot decide with reliability wherther a particular item goes in graded box #3 or ingraded box #4, out of ten graded boxes. (I know that this is not the reason why the number 6 was chosen for figure skating, bt it could have been, )

 

[Mathman]

Sorry, but speaking from a casual viewer experience at that time, it wasn't clear at all. I did watch FS under 6.0 system as a kid and no one around me ever knew it was "ordinal". There was a widespread feeling the marks were given like marks in schools, just more precise. Not 4+or 4-, but 4.7 or 3.8, with the mean calculated as the final "mark". That's not how it worked? How come! Quite a novelty!

That's the next thing that was cool about the ordinal system. No, it's not like taking the mean of a set of numbers at all. Rather, it falls into the mathematical/statistical field of "social choice theory"

The analogy in politicical science is voting. The 9 judges are the voters. Whoever gets the most votes wins the election. The 5.7s and 5.8s play no role at all except as mnemonic aids in the case of a large field of "candidates" (skaters). The problem is if no candidate receives a majority of viotes. Then you have to scramble with run-offs and various other stratagems which in figure skating led to undesirable situations like "flip-flops" that could seem baffling and unfair.

No wonder figure skating judging back in the 6.0 days was considered "political." (Now of course we have the IJS. Someday soon this will be refined by AI to the single voter model -- i.e., a dictatorship. )

 

[Skater Boy]

One major change though is that pro skating that used to exist is basically dead with few exceptions. That means that a skater has to stay active in the competive skating much long than in the past. In the old days a skater with an OGM could turn Pro and sign million dollar contracts for TV specials and professional ice shows. Those opportunities no longer exist in any meaningful way so skaters who want to make a living at skatiSng have stay longer in the Olympic eligible ranks to do so. Jason who is still skating at 30 years old is not as rare as it used to be. In the old days he would have turned pro and probably made money doing so but because that pathway has closed so he still skating competitively to pay the bills. Nathan Chen just went back to school and all but retired and outside of of a few shows he hasn't skated since. That the Olympic Gold Medalist did not think it was worth the effort to even try to fix his hip issue to try again says volumes about the sport and the direction it is going. Ilia might be one to change things a bit because he doesn't want to follow the rules that have been laid out for skaters, he wants to transform the sport and bring in a whole new audience to skating and skating really needs reset and Ilia might be able to do it. I want skating to relevant again and popular again and we need to do something different for that to happen.

Patrick Chan had a relatively very successful skating career but his pro life was very short because in weighing things the money wasn't there to support him and his family. Being Canadian didn't help as there are fewer skating shows with Canada being ten times smaller than the USA. Good for Nathan; I did not realize he made so much he is a good jumper but his programs were not inspiring or memorable like Jason's. He does not have the personality like Ilia It's hard; there is a much greater market in Japan or Europe. So a skater like Jason does well because he is loved in Japan. Nathan and Patrick not so much.

 

[cailuj365]

Nearly all the NBC skate videos have been pulled. Gone are:
- Alysa's SP and LP (3 million views)
- Ilia's SP and LP (2 million views)
- Chock/Bates FD (500k views)
- Isabeau's SP

Only Efimova/Mitrofanov's LP remains, which for some reason must have extended copyright privileges. I noticed their Nationals LP was also up for a long time and just got taken down now.

I noticed that NBC has kept up separate interview and recap videos for the 3 winners, probably because they knew they were going to pull the performance videos. Still extremely disappointing. This sport is going nowhere in the US if we can't even keep their performances up. I just feel sorry for the athletes who deserve to rewatch their winning performances without having to VPN into a different country.

 

[TallyT]

Nearly all the NBC skate videos have been pulled. Gone are:
- Alysa's SP and LP (3 million views)
- Ilia's SP and LP (2 million views)
- Chock/Bates FD (500k views)
- Isabeau's SP

Only Efimova/Mitrofanov's LP remains, which for some reason must have extended copyright privileges. I noticed their Nationals LP was also up for a long time and just got taken down now.

I noticed that NBC has kept up separate interview and recap videos for the 3 winners, probably because they knew they were going to pull the performance videos. Still extremely disappointing. This sport is going nowhere in the US if we can't even keep their performances up. I just feel sorry for the athletes who deserve to rewatch their winning performances without having to VPN into a different country.

Are they pulled completely or just not available in NA?

 

[cailuj365]

Are they pulled completely or just not available in NA?

Pulled completely. They are made as private videos. These videos are usually not available outside of USA anyway, even when they were active.

 

[Arigato]

 

[Jeanie19]

Nearly all the NBC skate videos have been pulled. Gone are:
- Alysa's SP and LP (3 million views)
- Ilia's SP and LP (2 million views)
- Chock/Bates FD (500k views)
- Isabeau's SP

Only Efimova/Mitrofanov's LP remains, which for some reason must have extended copyright privileges. I noticed their Nationals LP was also up for a long time and just got taken down now.

I noticed that NBC has kept up separate interview and recap videos for the 3 winners, probably because they knew they were going to pull the performance videos. Still extremely disappointing. This sport is going nowhere in the US if we can't even keep their performances up. I just feel sorry for the athletes who deserve to rewatch their winning performances without having to VPN into a different country.

I am so tired of this. A video that goes viral can only help the sport. So disappointing.

 

[Mathman]

This seems to be standard operatuing procedure now, perhaps related to copyright issues. As I understand it ,copyright laws allow exemptions for "news." In the first few days, a sporting event is news. After that, it's not news any more and stricter rules apply. (?)

 

[Kris135]

I am so tired of this. A video that goes viral can only help the sport. So disappointing.

You would think that NBC would have enough money that deal with copyright issues to keep the video up longer. Heck Ilia Nationals skate was up until Worlds so why can't they keep up the clips though the summer. I am tried of this because it used to not be this hard just to watch skating. All I want to know is how this drive up viewership for the upcoming Winter Olympics that NBC paid billions for the broadcast rights to. You think allowing people to know who is actually competing for the United States would get more people to watch but it seems that they are almost ashamed of the skater actually competing so they pull it down as quickly as they can.

 

[jenaj]

This seems to be standard operatuing procedure now, perhaps related to copyright issues. As I understand it ,copyright laws allow exemptions for "news." In the first few days, a sporting event is news. After that, it's not news any more and stricter rules apply. (?)

I assume you mean the copyrights to the music, since NBC owns the copyright to the broadcast.

 

[Mathman]

Yes, I was thinking about the music.

But TV networks are also funny about their own broadcast rights. They always make a big deal about announcing, "NBC (or the National; Football League, etc.) owns the rights to this broadcast and you can't reproduce it or rebroadcast it it without our permission, etc., etc." For big money sports like football I think they sell the rights to old games to some minor network for a fee, if anyone wants to rewatch USC against Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl in 1926. It always amazed my that anyone would want to re-watch an old football game when you already know who won. I guess figure skating is unique in that regard, that fans like to watch performances over and over.