A lot of good points raised here, although I agree with some more than others. Some tentative thoughts:
-It's unquestionable, IMO, that skating's popularity in any market/country is tremendously affected by the presence (or absence) of a ladies singles champion (and the effect being perhaps an order of magnitude greater for an OGM champion). I agree with those who say that skating's popularity has basically waned since Michelle Kwan stopped competing. The anticipation of a revival sputtered and died in recent years as a string of Great American Hopes (eg Sasha, Alissa, Mirai) have always seemed to make it to the edge of, but have never leaped over, the final threshold. Everyone loves a winner (and I seem to recall a US President well into the last century who specifically referred to Americans in using the phrase). If Mirai were to win a couple of Worlds medals or an OGM, I suspect that the US media marketing machinery would be whirring so fast that some sort of time dilation would result (thus throwing us back to the 'Golden Age' of skating popularity, and disproving Einstein to boot
).
-That being said, I do think there is a certain "swimming against the tide" aspect in trying to enlarge the figure skating audience today. The media food chain is vastly broader and more cutthroat than it was, for reasons having to do with both hardware and software. A few decades ago, there were basically three networks in the US to disseminate visual content, and that was that. If you showed figure skating on a channel, you could get a goodly slice of the Nielsen pie (though you'd still be beat by "Six Million Dollar Man"
). Now, you've got a zillion cable channels, internet streaming, youtube, programs on demand, etc.; so many ways for the viewer to wiggle out of the prison that broadcast media used to be.
In conjunction with this proliferation in the gadgetry (and probably symbiotically), the breadth and volume of viewer content has exploded, whether it be indie films, made-for-TV productions by A&E, viral viewer-produced clips (which must take responsibility for unleashing Justin Bieber on the world), sports, music, the arts, basically any and everything. The choices are overwhelming.
These factors have led to the balkanization of Medialand and the micro-slicing of the available eyeballs and dollars; the three sharks that used to cruise around for a meal are being eaten up (the market share of the Big Three networks has shrunk) by swarms of piranha, each fighting for their fragment of the consumer corpus.
What this means, perhaps, is that it is inherently more difficult for figure skating to capture the level of following and viewership that it used to have.
-More difficult, but not impossible. An example of a traditionally niche offering that vaulted, in the past decade or so, to historically unseen levels of prominence is golf. I think a comparison is potentially instructive. Golf didn't achieve this by monkeying around with the rules (actually, the fact that the rules haven't changed in any significant way for at least a century is, in my view, a strength; all golf fans know how the game is played). As many of you know, the reason had to do with the athletes, and foremost an athlete, Tiger Woods. The fact that a photogenic player emerged who not only won majors in bushels but shattered scoring records, and did it over an extended period of time, was instrumental in allowing the media (pre-fire hydrant
) to execute a consistent message, and in the process created an icon for viewers to follow.
Here, too, skating faces some difficult conundrums. Golfers can win championships well into their forties. That the longtime pattern is for (ladies) skaters to compete and retire while still relatively young allows only a very short window to perform marketing magic. My thought is that for skating follow in golf's trajectory, it needs a champion skater willing and eager to stay in it for longer than is traditional, winning World Championships and a couple of OGMs. And more broadly, perhaps skating needs to institute a culture that encourages longevity. This is particularly important for the US market if the champion skater of the time period in question is not American. A personal musing: the elimination of the idea of competitors as "amateurs" (which is a sham in any case), and providing skaters with a fair share of financial incentives (if skating revenues grow, then their prize money grows with it) might be a good start. A more radical (and perhaps at this point fantastical) variant would be for competitions and shows to be incorporated under the same organizational umbrella, with profits negotiated in line with the standing and performance of the skaters (like any proper sport).
What about the LPGA, you may ask? Isn't it struggling? In terms of potential, the LPGA is always going to appeal to a smaller market than the PGA (for reasons analogous to why ladies skating is always going to be bigger than mens). Having said this, however, the (American) popularity of ladies golf is affected by the same issue: there is currently no breakout American superstar. I would bet my house that if Michelle Wie started winning majors, ratings would (relatively speaking) skyrocket. And as a matter of fact, they already show a bounce whenever the Big Wiesy is in the lead, because she is the photogenic American Hope of ladies golf.
I apologize for the somewhat lengthy post (but it wouldn't be my first time :sheesh
, and hope that this admittedly idiosyncratic view is of interest to some.
