Popularity of Figure Skating

Thanks for your input, poodle. I think your experience with those kids is important and telling. There has been a weather change in our society. I also have to wonder about the costs for a family, even at the lower levels as compared to 20 years ago. But gKelly is also right, as I alluded to. I couldnt stand on skates yet I love the sport and donate time and treasure to it. I have no problem becoming absorbed into a performance on the ice. But I watch 20 year old girls continually texting every 30 seconds or so during a wonderful performance. They have no attention span. I have no idea why they are even there.....Talk about giving up the teenage experience, Lucinda Ruh didnt reach puberty till she was 26...she used diet and exersise to keep herself out of it, intentional or not.

The docile comment as in reference to Poodle's post.

As for the new generation being completely hopeless, did you know that argument was first proposed by Ogg-bogg, the first elder of the prestigious Bugg-Rugg hunter-gatherer tribe? His immortal words were, loosely translated into English, "Young cavemen no good nowadays. Now they use pointy sticks and mammoth hunts much faster. They do not have patience to hunt with big, heavy rocks of olden days. Lazy and terrible."

However, some studies show Ogg-bogg's father disapproved of the new invention of big rocks, fearing that the younger generation would no longer participate in the character-building exercise of beating up sabertooth tigers with their own bare hands.

I know this isn't true of all texters at the rinks, but many of them are tweeting play by plays, etc... which is the new frontier for skating coverage it seems.

In Greece now is very popular this season, one ice rink pops after the other, I have one opposite my office door (but I m not allowed to go :disapp, mostly because of the Dancing on Ice show that premiered in greek tv only this season. Btw, the most popular partner that everybody is crazy about her is a skater from USA, her name is Nicole and her bio says she has won silver in nationals, but I dont know her. There are also some Alexei and Dima from Russia who are COR champions but never heard of them also. As you understand in the partner side there is no singe greek although I just learnt we have a national champion. But apart from this season I remember the most popular era on tv was 1998-2002.

I'm glad skating is becoming more popular in Greece. Are there any Greek skaters coming up?

Skate Figuring, I meant nothing racist against Asians. I was adding onto a comment by Coyote Chris about the family values of Asian Americans. In general, I think Asian and Asian American kids are less likely to rebel against their parents/authority than American kids of other ethnicities, not because they are weak and docile, but because of their culture and family expectations. Remember that book from last year, the Tiger Mom? She wouldn't let her daughters take gym, have friends, stop playing the piano when they were tired, and she had contempt for Disney movies where everyone wen to the beach instead of practicing and winning prizes. She claimed that was a representative Asian child rearing style, although many others disagreed. (Also, she only had a 50% success rate, as one of her kids was anything but docile after a while).

But anyway, I remember reading about athlete kids my age back in the 80's and into the 90's, and they had nothing like a teen experience. Michelle had no friends her own age in 1998 and didn't go to school, Tara didn't go to school, Nicole Bobek didn't go to school--and this was before homeschooling caught on in any way. Today, you don't hear of that as much. But as rare as it might have been to find a teenage girl to practice several hours after school or instead of school, and give up all her social life in the 80's and 90's, I would bet it's twice as rare today, based on my anecdotal experiences.

seniorita said:

In Greece now is very popular this season, one ice rink pops after the other, I have one opposite my office door (but I m not allowed to go :disapp, mostly because of the Dancing on Ice show that premiered in greek tv only this season. Btw, the most popular partner that everybody is crazy about her is a skater from USA, her name is Nicole and her bio says she has won silver in nationals, but I dont know her.]

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I tried to find out who this Nicole is, but no luck. According to Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_on_Ice_(Greece)

her name is Nicole N. Kennedy. In the link you gave,

http://www.antenna.gr/tv/doi/partner?aid=252723

do you think it says that she won a silver medal at the Pan American Games rather than U.S. Nationals? If so. then she might be a roller skater who switched over to ice skating. The Pan American Games are contested every four years in the year before the Summer Olympics, and they have competitions in men's and women's "artistic free-style (roller) skating." Nobody named Nicole medalled in this category in 2011 or in 2007, but she might have won some kind of runner-up prize in qualifying, or something like that. (?)

Either that or the television show just made up some credentials for her.

Edited to add Usually these Pan American events are dominated by South American athletes, but in 2007 the silver medalist was a U.S. skater , Abigail Burris. Here she is (too bad about that fall on the Axel jump.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpaKivkg5Eo

CoyoteChris said:

I dont think there is an easy answer here, but when I go to a skating event, its like going to an old folks home. And there are pleanty of empty seats. Sure, there are a few Tonis there and some young girls with their moms, but attendance is way down and I dont think the economy is much to blame.

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The rising ticket prices are definitely a reason why I don't go to a show like SOI every year.

However, several times I've been able to go with friends who only heard about it through me. They invariably loved it! In each case, they didn't know anything about the skaters (it made no difference to them) and they couldn't believe that they had never heard of this show and wondered why they never saw ads for something so enjoyable.

There's so much fussing about the drop in popularity, but how is someone who doesn't closely follow the sport supposed to know about an opportunity to see skaters perform and/or compete if they don't hear about it? And I mean really "hear" - lots of ads, both print and audio; the details of where/when/$$, etc. I know plenty of people who would shell out the money for a show like SOI if they just knew with enough advance time and had a pretty good idea what it was about. To just see a title, like "Stars on Ice", doesn't mean anything to most people unless it's explained.

With very little publicity, Holiday Dreams on Ice held at UPenn was pretty much sold out. Of course, lots of local skaters had parents, grandparents, etc. in the audience. Having Johnny Weir as your headliner practically guarantees a crowd. Stars on Ice, are you paying attention?

Hopefully the re-match of Evgeni Plushenko versus Evan Lysacek in the challenger's homeland of Russia will bring with it more publicity and popularity for the sport (USA in particular). Jmho.

The Evening with Champions event at Harvard was sold out.

Yuna skated there, though.

Mathman said:

I tried to find out who this Nicole is, but no luck. According to Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_on_Ice_(Greece)

her name is Nicole N. Kennedy. In the link you gave,

http://www.antenna.gr/tv/doi/partner?aid=252723

do you think it says that she won a silver medal at the Pan American Games rather than U.S. Nationals?

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Yes it says exactly silver medal in artistic skating (but in greek there is only a phrase and it means artistic ice skating, no rollerblades) in Panamerican games. I supposed it was the nationals or something big. She is pretty good for the game anyway.
I dont exclude it was created though to look more flashy cause the two russian men have never won Cup of Russia for sureneither russian cup series, i looked. Unless there is a st petersburg or moscow cup, and I dont know it.

Nicole is an ice skater, born and raised in California and has trained and skated since she was a very young girl. She has skated singles and partner and truely worked harder then most to be the skater she is today. I am not sure how many metals she has won, but I know she has won a few and made it fairly far in the ice skating world. It is a rough world for ice skaters and this opportunity sadly was not available her in the states, so glad Greece is able to appreciate and enjoy her dedication and great skating. As a few of you mentioned you just do not see the dedication, work and money put into ice skating these days.

Do you know how high TV rating is when Mao skates in a major event in Japan?
I do not remember which event that was, but it hit not 20 but 30 something %? Isn't it more than Superbowl here?

Anyway, as a Japanese national living in the state, my feeling about figure skating popularity is mixed.
It sucks that you have to go all over the internet to find event coverage, but at the same time you can get fairly good seats easily at major events such as Grand Prix, GPF and 4CC. My Japanese friends also told me that they do not allow public to watch practice in Japan. Here you can have the best seat to watch official practice. Also they told me that they sometimes got burn out in fighting over the ticket, which is more than $200 per event.

Here you can get all event pass around that price.
I just got 4cc all event pass and my seat is row A!!. I guess I feel more blessed than frustrated about the dwindling figure skating popularity these days.