Saw a map on Facebook recently with most of the world coloured red and just two splotches of blue. The explanation with it was red=countries where football/soccer is the most watched sport. Blue was hockey. The two splotches were Canada and Finland.Soccer, for starters
Probably the most popular sport globally, completely irrelevant in US, and not caring one inch about it.,..
That's some nice poetry right there.
I loved watching galas as a kid, while actual competitions often bored me. Nowadays it's other way around.
Yeah, I agree that those shows were duds. Someone got the idea that what would increase the popularity of figure skating was to pair it with a hot band or live singer. Quite naturally the agents for the band/singer insisted on so many minutes of air time for their clients, during which the TV audience would just have to imagine that someone was out there skating.
The current skaters can't think outside of their COP box anymore. Take this or this for example. It is so ingrained in them that repetition of movements is bad, that for every turn you do in one direction, you also have to do in the other direction, that you have to use your upper body whenever possible. Mao doesn't care about these things and creates simple (?) and yet effective step sequences. (Obviously that's just my opinion that this is an issue
). Also rarely anyone has an iconic program anymore that you can't wait to see in a show? And no one shows the commitment that Mao showed for her exhibition programs even when she was still competing.
I think it's the same old "sport versus art" thing. The IJS gives more points to hard tricks than to easier ones, in common with all sports. It is harder to turn in both directions in a step sequence (with equal quality in both directions) than it is to turn in the same direction over and over. As for "art," it greatly helps when the audience is already predisposed to cheer a wildly popular and universally beloved artist/athlete of fond memory.
True. And yet, each "wildly popular and universally beloved artist/athlete of fond memory" was once a debutant known to no one, and had to gain this wild popularity and love against all the rest of the field, while subjected to the same scoring system as everybody else. And yet they have become who they are while 99% of their competition did not.
In my opinion it is impossible to anticipate or predict -- much less to orchestrate -- when such a perfect storm situation is going to develop.
Well, I did, I was introduced to US college gymnastics watched on internet even before Paris and I had not been a fan of this sport at all. I guess, having teen kids at the right age and into the college culture is enough, even if you are on a different continent
Yeah, it's like the NCAA women's gymnastics championships has been on network television since the early 00s, maybe before. It used to be tape-delayed on CBS, but the community has worked so hard over the past couple decades to get it live. They even changed the format for the post-season. I don't remember exactly when, but ESPN/ABC got the rights fairly recently, as well.Well, I did, I was introduced to US college gymnastics watched on internet even before Paris and I had not been a fan of this sport at all. I guess, having teen kids at the right age and into the college culture is enough, even if you are on a different continent
But Jordan Chiles is a great example. She was a part of the iconic all-Black Olympic podium which made the headlines all around the globe and which millions loved instantly even though so many of them had not watched even one of the routines in question, and those millions were later hugely disappointed when this iconic podium was taken away from them for what many thought "bureaucratic", or "airy-fairy" reasons. Shame, right? (Though if you ask me, it was Rebeca Andrade who was the real queen of the day from among the three queens, at least here, and again, so many people rooted for her and were delighted in her win for off-the-arena reasons).
Still, it just goes to show how a great story helps an athlete, or even several athletes, as is the case here, to become a legend, and how it can turn a champion into a star (mind you, in the case of Jordan it was not even the gold, and in the end of the day she ended up off the podium completely, at least for now, and yet it turned her into a star).
As much for those who claim a story is not important, and results are all that matter.... Nope.
So many things need to align together to shoot a new star onto the sky...
Happy Holidays!
Cranberry Open at the Skating club of Boston in Norwood was very inexpensive. And I went to the practices for free. The problem is is that there is no advertising of figure skating.
For a competition like Cranberry Open, the hosting club needs to get all the local TV and radio stations (and websites) to do features on the upcoming competition, to attract local audiences. Those fluffy interviews are worth a lot more in raising awareness than ads. Though ads at bus shelters, etc, could also be helpful in making people aware that an event is happening.
I liked it.
They were using (and I hope paying) Gracie for ads. She was on the Zamboni too. Well her image, not her physical presence.
LTS classes have gone from $65 to $95 in the past several years around here. I believe that’s 6 weeks.
