How popular is figure skating in comparison to other Olympic winter sports? | Golden Skate

How popular is figure skating in comparison to other Olympic winter sports?

GF2445

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Joined
Feb 7, 2012
How popular is figure skating in comparison to other Olympic winter sports?

Despite a definite decline in popularity in this sport, I still think that there are not many other winter sports that can match figure skating. Whenever there is an Olympics something spectacular happens in one of the skating events that define the games or at least takes much of the attention of the media at the Olympics.
 

Jammers

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Nov 4, 2010
Country
United-States
The Ladies event is still the main event at the Winter Olympics much like Women's gymnastics is at the Summer Games.
 

gmyers

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Mar 6, 2010
Figure skating has a great past as a main draw but the x games stuff shows how figure skating is going way downhill and is going to be replaced by all the different snowboarding events. I do think that snowboarding is going to replace figure skating in America as the biggest draw and showcase event. I'm not saying fs will be daytime stuff like biathlon but maybe just final flights will be shown in skating or it will be much less. Only reason why there was so much cd in ice dance on NBC was tech glitches.
 

rvi5

On the Ice
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Apr 22, 2010
I think it depends on which sports are popular in specific countries. For Canada, Mens hockey was definitely the highlight of the games in Vancouver. This was reflected in the ticket prices. Mens hockey had the most expensive tickets, while Figure skating and Womens hockey were about tied for the second most expensive. However, Joannie's hardship also helped draw extra attention to Figure skating in the news. Even some non-Figure skating fans around the world were tuning in to watch her.
 

pointyourtoe

On the Ice
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Apr 11, 2013
Figure skating has a great past as a main draw but the x games stuff shows how figure skating is going way downhill and is going to be replaced by all the different snowboarding events. I do think that snowboarding is going to replace figure skating in America as the biggest draw and showcase event. I'm not saying fs will be daytime stuff like biathlon but maybe just final flights will be shown in skating or it will be much less. Only reason why there was so much cd in ice dance on NBC was tech glitches.

I don't think snowboarding will ever get the kind of viewership skating got at its peak though.

Skating is so much more than a sport. It draws people in for the same reason that it turns many others off: the drama, the flamboyance, the pageantry. It has shades of both beauty contests and televised dancing competitions. (Granted, beauty pageants have fallen from favor drastically..)

We've discussed endlessly why skating declined in North America, but let's remember that in the 90's even Nationals had blockbuster ratings (for the ladies' event anyway)
 

gmyers

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Mar 6, 2010
I don't think snowboarding will ever get the kind of viewership skating got at its peak though.

Skating is so much more than a sport. It draws people in for the same reason that it turns many others off: the drama, the flamboyance, the pageantry. It has shades of both beauty contests and televised dancing competitions. (Granted, beauty pageants have fallen from favor drastically..)

We've discussed endlessly why skating declined in North America, but let's remember that in the 90's even Nationals had blockbuster ratings (for the ladies' event anyway)

I agree that snowboarding won't ever be as big as skating was but stronger going forward as a sport of major appeal. There are so many new snowboarding events since 1998. Huge expansion seldom before seen in the Olympics in such s short amount of time! Snowboard racing, half pipe, slopestyle, on and on and on! Maybe that will create it's own problem of overexposure but everyone saw how much of s blockbuster success 2010 was! I believe Shaun whites gold was the highest rated thing?
 

TontoK

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Jan 28, 2013
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The Winter Olympics have far fewer events than the summer, and all that air time has to be filled with something.

We'll see lots of figure skating, and, hopefully, we'll get to welcome new and renewed fans to the sport.

In North America, anyway, the ice dancing should be a premier event, with V/M and D/W squaring off. I would imagine that singles will be a huge draw in the increasingly important Asian markets.

There are some good story-lines for the Americans, and I suspect they'll be hugely hyped. America's sweetheart, Gracie Gold, and her boyfriend, the young and daring Quad king... blahblahblah.

I am very interested to see the impact of the Team Event, coming so early in the schedule (impact in terms of viewership throughout the Games... there are other threads discussing impact on the skaters).
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I think the main difference between figure skating and the other sports (hockey excepted) is that figure skating used to have a presence outside the Olympics. Tours, professional events and shows were popular and shindigs like U.S. Nationals, Skate America, and the cheesefests at least were shown on television.
 

gmyers

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Joined
Mar 6, 2010
The Winter Olympics have far fewer events than the summer, and all that air time has to be filled with something.

We'll see lots of figure skating, and, hopefully, we'll get to welcome new and renewed fans to the sport.

In North America, anyway, the ice dancing should be a premier event, with V/M and D/W squaring off. I would imagine that singles will be a huge draw in the increasingly important Asian markets.

There are some good story-lines for the Americans, and I suspect they'll be hugely hyped. America's sweetheart, Gracie Gold, and her boyfriend, the young and daring Quad king... blahblahblah.

I am very interested to see the impact of the Team Event, coming so early in the schedule (impact in terms of viewership throughout the Games... there are other threads discussing impact on the skaters).

That something filling up the air time is likely to be snowboarding events as that is expanding dramatically. The IOC knows skating is collapsing is America and they want to cater to America so you have all the events they're going to win in snowboarding. It's very likely US is going to win or certainly medal in all the snowboarding events. So US air time is going to be filled with Americans winning snowboard events.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
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Feb 27, 2012
... Only reason why there was so much cd in ice dance on NBC was tech glitches. ...

Assume that you are referring to the Vancouver Games. Please elaborate on what you mean about NBC's CD coverage. I'm curious as to what happened and why. Thx.
 

Cherryy

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 27, 2012
Well, as others said, it almost all depends in which country. In Poland a small percentage of people will watch figure skating, we have noone to root for. On the other hand, everyone, and I seriously mean everyone will be watching ski jumping and cross country. The only advatage figure skating has over other sports is that it's enjoyable to watch, there's the performance part and so on.
 

gmyers

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Mar 6, 2010
Assume that you are referring to the Vancouver Games. Please elaborate on what you mean about NBC's CD coverage. I'm curious as to what happened and why. Thx.

I forget exactly but something went wrong with the bobsled or skeleton feed or prerecorded tapes and the main thing available was the cd feed from ice dance so that was on almost all prime time. I recorded most of the CDs. The entire top 10 and more.
 

GF2445

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Feb 7, 2012
I hope that skating takes the most attention at the games (I don't really need to hope because most of the time, skating definitely takes a lot of the media attention). Some media scrutiny will be good for the sport in pressuring the ISU to make changes
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
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Joined
Feb 27, 2012
I forget exactly but something went wrong with the bobsled or skeleton feed or prerecorded tapes and the main thing available was the cd feed from ice dance so that was on almost all prime time. I recorded most of the CDs. The entire top 10 and more.

Thanks for filling me in, gmyers. So it was an accidental last hurrah (Olympic hurrah) for the CD, at least for U.S. viewers. ;) :popcorn:
 
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