Still too soon to get concrete data of course, but we never had a figure skater amass 7,5 million new Instagram followers not even a month after her Olympic victory
LOL! That's because there was no Instagram or social media during much earlier Olympics, so Alysa's specific IG follower numbers cannot accurately be measured against, for e.g., Dorothy Hamill's huge popularity post the 1976 Olympics. Dorothy has often discussed the mountains of fan mail she received post-Olympics. Not to mention her influential hairstyle that became a viral fad in a very different way and time period.
John Curry's 1976 win and his balletic vision, added to Toller Cranston's unique creativity, had widespread impact, and led to popular artistic skating shows.
The Battle of the Brians and
Battle of the Carmens p.r. generated great interest pre and post the 1988 Olympics, which led to well-attended tours, and to the Emmy-winning television skating production of
Carmen, starring Boitano, Kat Witt, and Brian Orser. I had always hoped more would come of that kind of creative, well-received, and well-produced collaboration. I suppose it did herald the huge popularity of skating shows on tv in the 1990s. Plus, pro events were a big deal in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, until they were killed off by fearful and unsavvy ISU and USfigsk honchos (who were afraid that interest in pro skaters would diminish interest in up-and-coming skaters). How clueless and wrong they were.
Furthering pro opportunities would have hugely benefited all skaters and vastly enriched the sport's growth, IMO!
In today's landscape, it is very difficult to know how the widespread interest in Alysa might benefit the sport. Is there anyone in a high position in the sport actively charting this most recent phenomenon and seeking the right kind of advice on how to measure and to leverage it for the sport's overall benefit? I seriously doubt that is happening. More likely, Alysa herself is being fielded lucrative offers. Every four years, when there are popular outcomes for high profile skaters at the Olympics, fans get excited and engage in varying versions of this same debate regarding whether the sport might benefit via more mainstream interest, and whether or not such interest immediately after the Olympics might be sustained. Aside, that is, from the 2022 Olympics when there was way too much negative publicity and detrimental outcomes, e.g., the music rights lawsuit's long shadow that continues to adversely impact skaters and fans.
Torvill/ Dean were hugely popular post the 1984 Olympic's
Bolero. The huge interest did not translate into growing the sport, despite the sustained, iconic popularity of
Bolero, and of Jayne & Chris. Dick Button, Peggy Fleming, and Scott Hamilton all personally benefited from their Olympic gold medal notoreity. Each of them parlayed their success into enormous contributions to the sport (re commentating; serving as role models; creating shows for pros and for eligible skaters; counseling skaters; doing benefit fundraising to aid the development of skaters, and so on). But none ever wielded enough insider ISU power to speak of that could somehow be translated into significant and sustained growth for the sport. Nor could their star power influence beneficial rules changes or help solve endemic problems the sport faces that have only become more complicated and chaotic. At this juncture, is it even possible or viable for figure skating to transcend being a niche sport?
Of course, there are skaters who have transcended the sport on a cultural level, including Michelle Kwan, and to certain degrees, Brian Boitano, Johnny Weir, Jason Brown, Nathan Chen, Adam Rippon, Denis Ten, Yuzuru Hanyu, Yuna Kim, et al. Most recently, of course, Ilia Malinin and the subject of this thread, Alysa Liu.
Still, even the 1994 Olympic's Tonya/ Nancy scandal was mischaracterized, misunderstood, and unwisely utilized mainly to make quick money on Battle of the Skating Stars genre of shows. The unfortunate incident might have been navigated more wisely. Instead of solely being focused on as titillating cultural entertainment, it could have been positioned more as a jumping off point or learning tool to generate fundamental, sustained, and historic interest in figure skating. IMO, there was absolutely a way to do that. But the opportunity was lost and fizzled out, only to become a punchline, and later a popular film, here and gone, completely disconnected to skaters' actual realities or to the sport's complex realities and current crises.
The basic and ongoing problem, IMO, is that there are no passionate power players within the sport who possess leadership and vision regarding helping figure skating evolve and update its complicated and antiquated competitive structure in beneficial ways. Again, I believe that's due in large part to speedskaters controlling the ISU. They do not understand and have never fundamentally understood figure skating. Their main concern has been continuing to fund and benefit speedskating via capitalizing on figure skating's larger revenue and more substantive niche popularity. Figure skaters, always the ISU's lowly stepchildren, have long been indoctrinated to go along to get along.
. But then again, bigger numbers could be caused by general post-olympic interest. Consequently, if any future competitions with Alyssa will have significantly bigger audience than without Alyssa, then can we talk about sport popularity or is it just skater popularity?
Last summer, the stands were empty like Covid. Why not try if Alysa can change that? She'd do a Challenger series event anyway. All elite skaters do prior to the GP season. Then why not the domestic one?
, but the resultant 'smiley' jewelry looks good on her.
