Figure skating has the unique ability among sports to combine artistry with athleticism. People enjoy watching athletic endeavors, and they also enjoy art. Tens of millions of people watch Dancing With The Stars, and even more enjoy watching football/soccer matches and other popular sports. So where does figure skating fit in?
Well I argue against people who claim or accept that figure skating is only a "niche sport", because the evidence speaks to the contrary.
There is a large group of people willing to enjoy figure skating if the sport presents itself in an appealing way.
How should figure skating do that? Time has proven that this sport is not popular as an athletic spectacle alone. Whenever I see skaters jump and then do crossovers and jump at the other end of the rink, back and forth, all I can think of is they look like a dog doing tricks. I think a majority of people agree with me, because the more CoP has emphasized technical content at the expense of artistry, the popularity of figure skating has declined. Neither can figure skating survive as a pretty frolic around the rink ... difficult athleticism and competition enhances the artistry in a way that separates it from dance, ballet, music and movies, etc.
The path forward for figure skating is to emphasize both artistry and athleticism, equally.
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In order to demonstrate how much people love this combination of sport and art, let me use the following example. I'm not sure how many of you have seen the movie "The Last Of The Mohicans", but in the final scene directed by Michael Mann, there is almost no dialogue; instead, the music Promontory plays on the soundtrack, and the music accurately matches the action, which shows the good guys battling bad guy after bad guy while charging up a mountain, trying to save their friends.
You can watch the scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9SEFMIBwAs
About 15 years later, Nike and the NFL hired Michael Mann to recreate this concept in a football commercial, using the same music, Promontory.
The result was this "Leave Nothing" commercial, which proved to be the most popular in the NFL's history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55BZ2gSsSmY
What made this commercial special? Well, football players and fans connected with the brutal physicality and endurance the commercial portrayed. The athletic part of football -- physically running and banging into countless people, and having to get up and do it over and over again, regardless of physical fatigue. That's football.
But it was also more than that. The music really resonated with the audience. Just like in the movie, the music fit with the action ... charging up that mountain or across that field, having to get past bad guy after bad guy, in order to obtain some goal. I remember reading the Youtube comments for that commercial and many young football players said they would listen to this music or watch the commercial to get hyped up "in the mood" for play and working out. Think about it, how many people wouldn't love to have their own theme music while playing a sport, or doing anything throughout their day?
And that's what figure skating can offer ... the combination of art and sport. Other athletics can provide more entertaining sport, but they can't enhance sport by combining it with art. Seven triples or two quads are meaningless to most audiences as standalone athletic achievements, but when you combine those triples and quads with a beautiful artistic performance, then the sport dramatically enhances the art, and vice versa.
And that's what figure skating should be about...and if it were, I have no doubt that tens of millions of people would watch it, just as they enjoyed that football commercial, and just as they watch DWTS. There is an audience out there, but the leadership in the figure skating community refuses to tap into it.
Well I argue against people who claim or accept that figure skating is only a "niche sport", because the evidence speaks to the contrary.
There is a large group of people willing to enjoy figure skating if the sport presents itself in an appealing way.
How should figure skating do that? Time has proven that this sport is not popular as an athletic spectacle alone. Whenever I see skaters jump and then do crossovers and jump at the other end of the rink, back and forth, all I can think of is they look like a dog doing tricks. I think a majority of people agree with me, because the more CoP has emphasized technical content at the expense of artistry, the popularity of figure skating has declined. Neither can figure skating survive as a pretty frolic around the rink ... difficult athleticism and competition enhances the artistry in a way that separates it from dance, ballet, music and movies, etc.
The path forward for figure skating is to emphasize both artistry and athleticism, equally.
-----
In order to demonstrate how much people love this combination of sport and art, let me use the following example. I'm not sure how many of you have seen the movie "The Last Of The Mohicans", but in the final scene directed by Michael Mann, there is almost no dialogue; instead, the music Promontory plays on the soundtrack, and the music accurately matches the action, which shows the good guys battling bad guy after bad guy while charging up a mountain, trying to save their friends.
You can watch the scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9SEFMIBwAs
About 15 years later, Nike and the NFL hired Michael Mann to recreate this concept in a football commercial, using the same music, Promontory.
The result was this "Leave Nothing" commercial, which proved to be the most popular in the NFL's history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55BZ2gSsSmY
What made this commercial special? Well, football players and fans connected with the brutal physicality and endurance the commercial portrayed. The athletic part of football -- physically running and banging into countless people, and having to get up and do it over and over again, regardless of physical fatigue. That's football.
But it was also more than that. The music really resonated with the audience. Just like in the movie, the music fit with the action ... charging up that mountain or across that field, having to get past bad guy after bad guy, in order to obtain some goal. I remember reading the Youtube comments for that commercial and many young football players said they would listen to this music or watch the commercial to get hyped up "in the mood" for play and working out. Think about it, how many people wouldn't love to have their own theme music while playing a sport, or doing anything throughout their day?
And that's what figure skating can offer ... the combination of art and sport. Other athletics can provide more entertaining sport, but they can't enhance sport by combining it with art. Seven triples or two quads are meaningless to most audiences as standalone athletic achievements, but when you combine those triples and quads with a beautiful artistic performance, then the sport dramatically enhances the art, and vice versa.
And that's what figure skating should be about...and if it were, I have no doubt that tens of millions of people would watch it, just as they enjoyed that football commercial, and just as they watch DWTS. There is an audience out there, but the leadership in the figure skating community refuses to tap into it.
