Biggest fanbases in figure skating?

[chopinskate]

I'm glad someone mentioned Yagudin. This was before there was such a thing as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Even back then, there were multiple fan sites devoted to him, and he had the largest international following at that time. World-wide, he was was more popular than his contemporary, Michelle Kwan. (Is this me saying this? )

Why do you think this is?

I will say... Yagudin and Kwan are probably the best ever skaters of their respective disciplines. They both came from big (at the time, at least, in the case of the US) skating nations. What happened to give Yagudin more popularity? The Olympic and World medals? The rivalry with Plushenko?

 

[Rissa]

I'd also include Julia Lipniskaya among skaters with a big fan base.

How would Julia's fanbase from 2013-2015 compare to today's Medvedeva's? I was under an impression that Julia was extremely popular for a skater with a relatively short career in seniors and without accomplishments like Medvedeva.

 

[laiyamanika]

Just to clarify

I’m not saying that Yuzuru Hanyu became famous only because of YOI. His fanbase was huge after his win in Sochi but I think it became bigger because of YOI and social media. Many people (including myself) were invested in FS and became huge fans of him because YOI and I’m not saying that it is a bad thing. In fact I’m thankful that there was YOI because there was a surge of FS fans in spite of the controversy from Sochi.

 

[laiyamanika]

As for V/M, I respect V/M and won’t deny that they are one of the best ice dancers in history

But my issue lies within the fandom itself.

Since Pyeongchang, fans are becoming too obsessed with their possible off-ice relationship that most of the twitter/Tumblr posts in recent months are shipper posts.

They are also too pre-occupied with the “will they or won’t they” relationship to the point that VM fans are fighting each other because of the status of their relationship. There is too much drama every time Scott denies their romantic relationship or whenever he mentions that they are both single. There is even bullying between the shippers and the cynics who both claim as V/M fans.

It is just so weird that instead of focusing on their FS achievements (as what V/M always wanted), their own fans are too obsessed with the “romantic part” of their partnership

 

[Tulipstar]

Judging by amount of replies in their thread, Russian Ladies skaters are most interesting to people on this forum:agree:

 

[emdee]

As for V/M, I respect V/M and won’t deny that they are one of the best ice dancers in history

But my issue lies within the fandom itself.

Since Pyeongchang, fans are becoming too obsessed with their possible off-ice relationship that most of the twitter/Tumblr posts in recent months are shipper posts.

They are also too pre-occupied with the “will they or won’t they” relationship to the point that VM fans are fighting each other because of the status of their relationship. There is too much drama every time Scott denies their romantic relationship or whenever he mentions that they are both single. There is even bullying between the shippers and the cynics who both claim as V/M fans.

It is just so weird that instead of focusing on their FS achievements (as what V/M always wanted), their own fans are too obsessed with the “romantic part” of their partnership

There was the same obsession after 2010 maybe it is on a wider basis. Clearly the shippers are casual fans. However, i can cite performances and competitions that I have attended in the last 6 years where fans were quick to whip out their VM shirts and their flags. They had a huge fan base that they developed in Korea when they skated with Yuna in All That Skate. Even during the 2013 worlds a Korean gentleman gave us Korean paddleboards with Yuna and VM paddleboards with their faces. He asked for them back after they skated so they could be used in other competitions.

The blogs and websites about VM have been around at least 8 years and some of them go back before that.

 

[narcissa]

I agree that Yuzuru and Yuna have the biggest fan bases.

Yuna is at least a semi-household name in North America (where I'm from) which is awesome because she's not North American. In addition, after her retirement, Yuna became not only a figure skating star but a general celebrity -- she hosted a reality show, organized the 2018 Olympics, started singing, etc. When I was in Pyeongchang, Koreans told me that everybody likes Yuna because she is very humble.

Yuzuru definitely has a lot of fans in China at a magnitude that people who only stick to English speaking forums aren't aware of Like someone else said, Chinese fans usually have their own forums and groups. This was a recent sign on the tallest building in Guangzhou, the Canton Tower -- https://twitter.com/sanyuanniunai/status/1029517039663108096 it's estimated to cost over $80k USD and says I love you Yuzuru Hanyu (Yes I know it's a bit much...) Some Chinese fans have even joined TCC so they could skate near him.

When I visited ACI and the Olympics, I met more Chinese fans than Japanese fans. In fact every Chinese fan I met was a Yuzu fan whereas not every Japanese fan was a Yuzu fan (some were solely Shoma fans). Most of the Chinese fans were not longtime figure skating fans, but they are young, dedicated, and open-minded. Many of them have quickly become fans of other skaters, including their own skaters, and it's really a huge growing market there because of Yuzuru and Boyang being at the top of the sport. Plenty of junior and novice skaters from China, Taiwan, and Malaysia have mentioned Yuzuru as their main skating idol.

 

[largeman]

alainechartrand	9.7K
polina_tsurskaya	17.4K
serafima_sakhanovich	22.6K
therealtonyaharding	23.4K
rikaskate0721	28.2K
wakababy_sk8r	52.5K
kristiyamaguchi	59.3K
liza_tuktik	68.2K
karebearsk8	82.7K
kaetkiss	96.3K
michellewkwan	103K
lenok_radionova	137K
graciegold95	310K
adelinasotnikova_2014	326K
maoasada2509	354K
tessavirtue17	365K
sunnylipnitskaya	369K
marin_honda	383K
azagitova	460K
yunakim	538K
jmedvedevaj	696K

Source: https://instagram.com

End of debate.

 

[narcissa]

alainechartrand	9.7K
polina_tsurskaya	17.4K
serafima_sakhanovich	22.6K
therealtonyaharding	23.4K
rikaskate0721	28.2K
wakababy_sk8r	52.5K
kristiyamaguchi	59.3K
liza_tuktik	68.2K
karebearsk8	82.7K
kaetkiss	96.3K
michellewkwan	103K
lenok_radionova	137K
graciegold95	310K
adelinasotnikova_2014	326K
maoasada2509	354K
tessavirtue17	365K
sunnylipnitskaya	369K
marin_honda	383K
azagitova	460K
yunakim	538K
jmedvedevaj	696K

Source: https://instagram.com

End of debate.

Well..not really. Instagram is a recent(ish) site, so someone like Michelle Kwan wouldn't have had one when she was competing. All of her followers came way after her competitive career And Yuna Kim hardly posts, yet still has the second highest following. Amazing. (Not to mention not all skaters have Instagram.)

 

[largeman]

Well..not really. Instagram is a recent(ish) site, so someone like Michelle Kwan wouldn't have had one when she was competing. All of her followers came way after her competitive career And Yuna Kim hardly posts, yet still has the second highest following. Amazing. (Not to mention not all skaters have Instagram.)

I know.. I was just being cheeky

 

[plushyfan]

This was before there was such a thing as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Even back then, there were multiple fan sites devoted to him, and he had the largest international following at that time. World-wide, he was was more popular than his contemporary, Michelle Kwan. (Is this me saying this?

Yes, you can tell this about Plush. His fans followed him around the World i his peaktime.. He was the rock star in FS "There is a movie star quality in him" - commentators

Not anymore but, Peggy Flemming was extremely popular in the US. She had commercials and a TV Special here in the US. As a huge fan of Plushy's, I know that he is very popular all over Europe. Currently, I think the most famous US skater is Adam Rippon.

Plush is extremly popular in Japan, too. He was their sunnyboy, the blond Russian prince from 1998. Some yeras ago he was the most popular foreign athlete and if I remember well he was the most popular Russian. ( Putin was the second ) He received bodyguards sometimes and not in Japan, but in Italy, too.

In 2010 when he had a great show tour (50 shows in summer) :

"Thanks to all the Japanese fans for your love to Zhenya, he is happy, today he saw your eyes, in the hotel all the staff is shocked because the gifts

We will order the container, because Zhenya wanted to take every bit from you in Russia, in our home! Gifts already more than 500 kg )

But the main thing that every Japanese girl, with her kindness and attentiveness makes him stronger, he loves you, even at night sleeps badly,
because he has so much experience of communicating with you, thank you for the supply of energy, I pray that he can compete in Sochi 2014, for the sake of you!"

I'm sure what Plush did after 2006 he couldn't have done without the support of his fans. The whole fan camp was next to him support him him and he knew it felt it and thanked to us many times.

One of the evenings in Tokyo. His fans made traffic jam before the hotel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsEpvr0_eV4

In Taipei his first show there he arrived in the airport:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubeiQRIkKcU LOL!

And many more videos when his fans express their love! I love those videos! I'm brave to say in Europe among those Fs fans who don't follow the FS closely, don't read the forums but like this sport he is more popular and famous as Hanyu or anyone else. His name is well-known and great ticket seller.

I posted in other thread he has many followers on the social media, some automatic poster ( Icoudn't use the other word in GS)are dedicated to him on Twitter, he has working fan groups on Facebook, on the Twitter are working two accounts Plushenkonews ( English and Russian). His huge official page there are 392 topics and cca 20 millions viewers ( this is not an accurate date, but I don't want to count exactly there are many more)

I said he inspired his fans continously there are thousands fan arts on him over the years but he inspired many real artists, he is in one of the Russian Museums, his figure was in cartoons (Russian, and in Japanese , I'm not talking about the YOI), anime artists were inspired by him many people think in one of the computer games (I don't remember now) he is Prussia. On his official Youtube channel he has more than 260 fan montages and those aren't all of the videos. There were more but those were deleted over the years. In Russia:

In 2014 Plushy was the favorite athlete in voting of Russian citizens, according to fund "Public Opinion"! Poll is "Man of the Year", categories: politic, culture and sport... He beat Yulia and Adelina, too

Another annual a survey by big All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM)... according to Russian citizens, Plushy is most popular Russian athlete in 2014 - 3rd time in a row! -

But he was the Athlete of the year in 2006 and 2007! , 3rd 2008 and 2009, 2nd 2010, 3rd 2011...I don't know any other Russian winter athletes has such results..... or summer sport athlete..

He had many Russian off ice awards and he has international off ice award, too.

He had reality show on Russian MTV in 2008-2009. "Live c Plushenko" Edvin Marton the Nijinsky's composer were with him in many series. I adore this selection of the serie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTT2fgiHD80 - Fun with Plushenko and Marton :-D Part 1

It's fun to Google "figure skaters' net worth." I found out that Madison Chock is the 13th richest figure skater in the world.

http://tsmsportz.com/list/richest-figure-skaters/

Also, that Maia Shibutani (born in the United Arab Emirates) is worth $US 7 million.

https://knownetworth.com/maia-shibutani-net-worth

This one I do believe, though. The richest Winter Olympian is Wayne Gretzky. If you can't trust wealthygorilla.com, who can you trust?

https://wealthygorilla.com/wayne-gretzky-net-worth/Would Wealthygorrilla.com

this article is so stupid! For ex Plushy started his pro career in 1986! But the data about Plush income is correct probably they read on Russian Forbes. Plush earned $ 24-25 millions after 2006. Probably he had income before 2006( he won everything and he had many shows, too)

-----------------

I didn't write all evidences about how popular he is. But he has great international fan base thus I'm sure in EU he has/had( the time flies he is 36 in November) more fans than Yuna and Mao they have great fan base but most of them are in their home countries.

And I'm 100% sure he is the most famous figure skater ( The most popular is Hanyu, of course)

But he has haters, too especially on Twitter, they believe every word of that stupid article in DM they misinterpreted translated wrongly the Russian text becaue of political reason( they are celebrities and Plush is a russian superstar). And those persons on Twitter are too young and arrogant to get to know the truth. (Many Plush fans had debate with them, but totally unnecessary)

 

[Reth]

Judging by amount of replies in their thread, Russian Ladies skaters are most interesting to people on this forum:agree:

I’m curious who is the most popular on this site. Someone should make a poll. Yuzuru might not win because a lot of fans left and created their own space. Then again if there is a poll they might come back just to vote

 

[Tulipstar]

I’m curious who is the most popular on this site. Someone should make a poll. Yuzuru might not win because a lot of fans left and created their own space. Then again if there is a poll they might come back just to vote

That would be fun

 

[Henni147]

Yuzus fanbase and popularity strikes out in different ways, especially since PyeongChang 2018:

Olympic Channel seems to be the biggest fan now (after Ambesi/Dolfini of course)
Nearly every figure skating related tweet mentions Yuzu in some way and they follow every single step of him... The Yuzu-Retweet-Marathon is OC' absolute topseller at the moment beating every other sport and athlete by a landslide.

Yuzu has made it to the ESPN World Fame 100 list this year only by internet presence (no endorsement or sm followers). That's quite something to be listed alongside the big names like Ronaldo, Messi or Federer. Despite the Olympic season Yuzu was one of only three wintersport athletes, who made it to the list (besides Shaun White and Lyndsey Vonn).

Then all those fancams, fanarts, AMV's, fanfics and everything you can find about him... There's even a video with "50 ways, how to fan Yuzu" (with Eng Sub)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cdI7NX_s5c

And last but not least... the recent ticket bloodbaths... I tried Helsinki and Rostelecom and failed both times to get decent seats in the first 60 seconds (to be fair, my internet is a mess)... They were not only Japanese fans, but literally from everywhere. China, Russia, Italy, Poland, Germany, Estonia, Argentina... it's mindblowing. As a local fan of Borussia Dortmund I should be used to that crazyness, but that was something else.

 

[Mathman]

I'm glad someone mentioned Yagudin. This was before there was such a thing as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Even back then, there were multiple fan sites devoted to him, and he had the largest international following at that time. World-wide, he was was more popular than his contemporary, Michelle Kwan. (Is this me saying this? )

Why do you think this is?

I will say... Yagudin and Kwan are probably the best ever skaters of their respective disciplines. They both came from big (at the time, at least, in the case of the US) skating nations. What happened to give Yagudin more popularity? The Olympic and World medals? The rivalry with Plushenko?

I think that Michelle Kwan was very much more popular and better known in the U.S. than in other countries around the world. There was a time when you could hardly turn on the TV without seeing a Cheesefest or Disney special starring Michelle. As a competitor, she was not eager to skate outside North America. (After 1998, her only Grand Prix events were Skate America (4 times)and Skate Canada (3 times)).

In this respect she was like Janet Lynn. Janet Lynn was from a different era when there were not many international competitions. Like Michelle, Janet Lynn was America's sweetheart of the ice, based on 5 consecutive U.S. championships (Michelle has 8). In both cases, this was back in the days when winning the U.S. championship was a big deal in its own right.

Yagudin was always an international skater. Strangely, he never won the Russian national championships, although he won Worlds 4 times. He competed in all the Grand Prix events all over the world, winning 16 medals. (Interestingly, he competed at Cup or Russia fewer times -- twice -- than in any other country. He lived in the United States for several years, where he toured with Champions on Ice and Stars on Ice and also took part in Pro competitions.

AsI recall, for some reason Yagudin had a big following among Russian expatriots who immigrated to other countries in Europe and to North America.

 

[chopinskate]

I think that Michelle Kwan was very much more popular and better known in the U.S. than in other countries around the world. There was a time when you could hardly turn on the TV without seeing a Cheesefest or Disney special starring Michelle. As a competitor, she was not eager to skate outside North America. (After 1998, her only Grand Prix events were Skate America (4 times)and Skate Canada (3 times)).

So even though she was the dominant skater based off her world titles (and she definitely competed outside of North America for those), she might still have been less popular than other skaters because she didn't do enough GP events outside the US?

 

[Mathman]

It is just so weird that instead of focusing on their FS achievements (as what V/M always wanted), their own fans are too obsessed with the “romantic part” of their partnership

Well, I think it is safe to say that more people are interested in celebrity romance than in figure skating. Meryl Davis was twice as famous for maybe/maybe-notting with her Dancing With the Stars partner Maks Chmerkovsky, than she ever was for winning a Olympic Gold Medal.

 

[Mathman]

So even though she was the dominant skater based off her world titles (and she definitely competed outside of North America for those), she might still have been less popular than other skaters because she didn't do enough GP events outside the US?

I would put it this way. Michelle's fame and fortune was rooted in the American tradition of producing a Peggy Fleming, Janet Lynn, Dorothy Hamill or Kristi Yamaguchi every few years. When Michelle won a world championship, this was America sending out their champion to conquer the world.

I think that Yagudin was more at home in the role of international performer and athlete. Plus, Michelle's peak of popularity was 1998, while Yagudin's was 2002. Those are the very years that the Internet was becoming a vehicle for wide-spread fandom across national and regional borders.

 

[Nika09]

It's really difficult to compare fanbase capacity, when they all were competing in different years and even decades. Even couple of years make big difference.
So we just could guess now, how huge and wild fanbase T.Harding, S.Bonaly or S.Cohen would have if they were competing nowadays.

(it seems like the one thing remains all that time - is relative unpopularity of Pairs discipline )

Well, I think it is safe to say that more people are interested in celebrity romance than in figure skating. Meryl Davis was twice as famous for maybe/maybe-notting with her Dancing With the Stars partner Maks Chmerkovsky, than she ever was for winning a Olympic Gold Medal.

as a very unpopular and very off topic note: I liked the chemistry between Meryl and Val C. in one single tango much more than with Maks C. the whole season. But I'm all for Davis/White anyways!

 

[Mathman]

(it seems like the one thing remains all that time - is relative unpopularity of Pairs discipline )

Back in the day I think there was a certain amount of interest in Berezhnaya & Sikharudlidze and Sale & Pelletier. Plus, in ice dance the whole Grishuk (bad girl), Usova (good girl), Platov and Zhulin quartet was fun.

And way back in the day, Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner had a pretty big following in the U.S.

More recently, Shen and Zhao were universally adored.

All of this was before Twitter and Google trending, of course.