2023 Four Continents Women's Short Program

[moonvine]

Okay, I don't know about the actual prices, what I had seen was 360 for the whole event, which I find a lot. If I came travelling from another place, I would take a few days off and would like to see the whole event. So day tickets/ individual disciplines in my eyes only make sense for people who live in the city and are casual viewers. So my guess was a mixture of prices and location.
But maybe there were other deals to have that I hadn't seen.

Ok I don’t think that’s much. That’s 8 competitions plus all practice sessions. I never have money to stay more days (I’m stretching it to stay 7), or I guess 5 for this. I spent $125 to see Ice Dreams tour plus meet and greet which was about 3 hours total for reference. $300 for Simone’s GOAT tour which is way more than I would spend (birthday present) and that was maybe 2 hours worth.

 

[mrrice]

Quite honestly I don’t think it will ever rebound in America due to the convoluted scoring system.

It's a sad thing to admit but, I totally agree. The 6.0 system was much easier for the general audience to understand. Even my dance students don't understand the "Bonus" period in scoring. They just say.....Can't they make it through the program without that bonus thing... They don't get that at all.

 

[BlissfulSynergy]

I think you're missing my point. My comment is about Crowd Size. I don't really care where they hold the event as long as there are enough people in the stands to make it profitable for the host venue. To call the crowds "Sparse" would be an understatement. Figure skating is such a thrill for us hardcore fans. However, if I'm an Advertiser, seeing that small audience does not make me want to run to your event with my products. I won't count worlds however, I have been to GP Events with packed houses in Canada as late as 2010. The word is not getting out to the "General Public" and that is a problem. Figure Skating will continue to dwindle here in the states if we can't get major advertisers like Campbells, Smucker's and Hershey to get these events to the masses. I was at this event in 2010 and I can tell you, that crowd was huge. It took forever to park but, it was worth it. These are the crowds we need to work to get back into arena's. Alissa Czisny winning the Gold Medal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93-ZN6upxhY&t=11s

Well, okay. But then you're talking about a lot of different, complicated things. Yet, you only said, "What about Korea?" As if that's the answer for what? For getting better crowds in the stands showing up on television? In general, the sport is more popular in South Korea and Japan, thus they have better revenue streams and more political clout with the ISU.

Choosing a venue is dependent upon a lot of factors, as I mentioned in my previous post, including availability of the facilities under consideration. One reason why 4CCs has been held so often in South Korea is because they bid on it so often and have really wanted it and pushed for it. Plus, they have a wonderful state-of-the-art facility that was built for when the Olympics was held there. It's convenient to schedule at the best facilities that have been proven can manage the event smoothly.

In the U.S., the Olympic Center facility in Colorado Springs, is state-of-the-art, and a lot of skating events as a result, are held there, regardless of who is worried about the altitude, or about U.S. skaters being favored. LOL! The judging panel generally determines who might be favored. U.S. fed no longer has the television contract money to use for clout with the ISU. And the U.S. has never understood how to effectively politick for their athletes, much less how to advocate for or promote the sport in the U.S. That's a battle which is not even being waged.

The other thing to recognize is that we are still feeling the effects of the pandemic. Crowds are beginning to come back, more in some places than in others. Building back an audience in stands will take time. Plus, another thing is high ticket prices; also, the sport's lack of huge popularity because it isn't marketed well on any level in the U.S. Most mainstream audiences in the U.S. barely understand what the sport is about, and they know next to nothing about its history, which IMO is an extremely important marketing tool. There is too much trivial hype written about fs in the U.S. media. There's not enough substance, meaningful depth, and relevance.

To deal with all of this, and even talking about any of this clearly, requires separating out these various issues. First of all, how important is 4CCs? It depends on who you ask. It's not important for veteran athletes focused on Worlds or Olympics, or in some years who have prior show commitments. In the scheme of things, it doesn't have the same prestige as European championships. It's become a good avenue for up-and-coming and second tier skaters to to do well and to add hardware to their resume. But it's logistically held too close to U.S. Nationals for some U.S. skaters to even want to participate. And those who might want to compete at 4CCs, may not be selected.

So, a lot issues to break down. At this point, the issues of having crowds showing up in the stands and making ticket prices affordable, and treating the aging fan base better, and laying groundwork to replace the dwindling fan base, are all clearly not on U.S. fed's priority list. Seriously, U S. fed can't even manage to get NBC/ Peacock to make broadcasts readily available to paying fans in the U.S.!!! SMH.

Somebody must have complained b/c suddenly they are showing replays of the RD and of the women's free skate, yet we didn't get replays of the short programs for pairs and singles!

 

[TallyT]

Here's the Commercial I was speaking about earlier. When you have a commercial like this going out to the entire country, it brings skating to the masses. We haven't seen a commercial like this in years. It Features Michelle Kwan, Tara Lipinski, and Nicole Bobek. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oygY7Nc-j18

Nice (I do like Kwan even if I'm not a fan fan), thank you for linking it.

 

[BlissfulSynergy]

I didn't compare to ticket prices but to a lover's night. Maybe it was distasteful, it sure was a bad joke, I simply wanted to say that I am in awe again and again at the prices of some skating competitions when I see half or 3/4 empty revenues - one has to ask why they don't simply lower the prices. I can't prove it, I have not done the marketing studies, but my very simply mind tells me that more people would come.
I am not sure if the rest of your post is adressed to me, it sounds like that, but I have explicitly stated that I don't think the US are the problem. I suppose you would be able to find a larger audience in some other places in the US. Why I think it is a problem in this specific facility? Ehm, because I saw the pictures??
The track cycling world championships are able to sell like 6000 thousand tickets - for track cycling!!
If I compare to other events figure skating competitions are simply overpriced, at least in my European view.

I don't have the final solution, but the problem is clear, many figure skating competitions nowadays lack the audience, and one needs to think about reasons and then solutions. Or do we just accept it the way it is?

Yep. See my previous post. There are a lot of issues going on here. Now, you're saying you weren't complaining about the event being held in the U.S. either. LOL! It surely takes any complaining off the table, when it's quite obvious the event has been held most often in Asian countries, especially South Korea in recent years, again because they bid for it, and they have a great venue, and an excellent fan base.

So you too are saying your focus is on the issue of attendance in the stands. I think that's a connected, but separate issue that the U.S. federation needs to deal with. Yeah, the ticket prices are too high. But the effects of the pandemic is a factor, along with an aging fan base, which is not being replaced because they aren't promoting the sport effectively. Even when there is popular interest in skaters and in fs on YouTube, the sport isn't taking effective advantage of the technology to build on the obvious interest by mainstream consumers. James/ Cipres became hugely popular with a number of YouTube viewers who were fascinated by their programs and their partnership. The sport didn't take notice or even seem to care about that example of viewers tuning in who weren't regular fans of the sport.

I don't think figure skating has ever been extremely popular in the U.S. vs big ball sports. It gained in popularity during the television era, after the 1968 Olympics and Peggy Fleming, and later Janet Lynn, and Dorothy Hamill. So in the U.S., the sports' popularity was built around girl-next-door athletic sweethearts who could skate beautifully and tear at our heartstrings. That model has unfortunately continued to this day, with too much over-hyping of very young ladies, as U.S. fed has relentlessly sought to fruitlessly find the next Michelle Kwan, instead of supporting all of their athletes equally.

The phenomenon of Michelle Kwan still resonates in women's figure skating. Her legacy is important, but by now, it needs to evolve into something different. MK was about much more than a pretty well-packaged young lady skating to pretty music and dominating the field. But the sport's handlers always fall back on the superficial and the trivial.

Michelle Kwan's substantial influence and legacy should be studied in terms of what she actually endured and ultimately achieved in her career. In one aspect, MK being Asian led to burgeoning popularity of fs in Asian communities in the U.S., and in Asian countries, particularly South Korea. Thus, the rise of YuNa Kim, who was inspired by Kwan. Japan OTOH, while also influenced by MK, they already had a long history of interest and participation in figure skating. Japanese men competed at Worlds as early as the 1930s. Also, Janet Lynn's skating in Japan during the Olympics led to a renaissance of interest in figure skating there, setting the stage for fs becoming a rockstar sport in Japan.

So once again, saying that there's an issue with 4CCs being held in the U.S., or in Colorado Springs because of no audience, due to high ticket prices, is just a deflection. Some posters in this thread were complaining about Isabeau and about U.S. skaters being favored. I saw the comments. Someone had specifically complained that Haien Lee was behind Amber and Bradie in the sp. LOL Actually, it was a 3-way tie. And Haien prevailed because she skated both programs cleanly and she deserved to win. Those who are fans of the skaters who prevailed, must be happy now.

So, the complaining has become about audiences and ticket prices. Those are separate issues that are part of the whole shebang of properly promoting the sport. Honestly, there are issues across-the-board globally for the sport. But there's not adequate, visionary leadership in the ISU. It's a bunch of people from different countries with variant, opposing conflicts of interest. There's not enough young people involved, or fresh thinking. It takes them too long to make beneficial policy decisions. I don't see anything changing for the near future in this sport. More of same-old, same-old. Once us old diehards die off, maybe change will begin to happen with some youthful leadership? But they will need to fully connect with the sport's amazing history to effectively promote the sport, IMO. But I probably won't be around when/ if that ever happens.

 

[Jontor]

I'd argue that in the Women discipline, Euros are much less deep (even in normal times) and WS points are given there just as much if not more.

Absolutely! Euros and 4CC get way too much WS points compared to GPs and CSs. But I disagree with how deep the fields are. Europe might be dominated by Russia, but there is some skaters here and there that stick up at times. 4CC has nothing outside the 4 countries Japan, Korea, US and Canada. And those 4 always send 3 skaters which means 12 spots and then it's hard to fill in the rest to get to 24.