That is practically everything else over a 4 year period. I am sure someone has "shook hands" with $peedy from NBC.The ISU only deals with the ISU Grand Prix Events and World Championships, Four Continents, and European Championships.
That is practically everything else over a 4 year period. I am sure someone has "shook hands" with $peedy from NBC.The ISU only deals with the ISU Grand Prix Events and World Championships, Four Continents, and European Championships.
"The innovative approach that U.S. Figure Skating has taken to re-formatting this event, with its four major disciplines all on the last weekend of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, allows not only a spectacular show for the spectators in the city where the event is held each year, but more importantly, it allows us to show our viewers all four finals live. It gives us a terrific event to promote.
"I would not have been interested, no matter what the deal was, if they did not have this innovative scheduling. The idea that they have taken this event, which has been a terrific television property for more than four decades and radically re-formatted it so that all of the championships are over a two-day, weekend period where it can all be broadcast live, it's terrific. It's almost like creating their own 'final four' of figure skating. It's a very innovative approach and one that when I first heard about it, I was excited about."
We have had discussions about this new contract with most of our sponsors and they are extremely excited about this new partnership and what it means for the sport, the athletes and what it means for the sponsors themselves."
"All of those years the event was on ABC and ESPN, I don't think there was a clear commitment to promotion. This is not an issue for us. Not only will we promote it well and heavily on the NBC television network, it will be promoted across the USA Network, America's No. 1 cable network. I think the commitment to promotion is much more robust here because figure skating is such a key component of the Olympics."
"Figure skating is a sport with its own subculture that is filled with all kinds of behind the scenes intrigue and fashion and glamour and tremendous drama and you want to find ways to bring that in. I think we will mount a program on NBCSports.com around that week and weekend leading into the event to feed into what Olympic Ice so beautifully achieved."
I'm not so sure that "fashion, glamour and behind the scenes intrigue" promotes the notion of figure skating as a serious sport.Visaliakid said:Well, to me all these comments indicate the seriousness that NBC plans to bring to the promotion of these two events as well as treating Figure Skating as a sport.NBC's Ebersol said:"Figure skating is a sport with its own subculture that is filled with all kinds of behind the scenes intrigue and fashion and glamour and tremendous drama and you want to find ways to bring that in...
It says they are showing the finals live, but what about the SPs/CD/OD? Will we get to see them at all?
Yes, while I was in Europe and saw Eurosport covering Worlds. Very good! but do they do LIVE when Worlds is in Japan?Eurosport does live coverage, and at least on British Eurosport, there is slo-mo review of all of the major elements, with commentary by Howarth and Slater that's worth listening to.
I think this is the audience that NBC will try to attract (i.e., those that don't care much about the international scene in an Olympic off-year). I think their slant on Skate America is that it is an "Olympic style event," something like a mini-Olympic preview. I bet they hype Kimmie to the hilt as the next U.S. ladies Olympic contender -- keep tuned until 2010!At least I can catch the NBC coverage if nothing else. The international scene still does not interest me much.
I bet they hype Kimmie to the hilt as the next U.S. ladies Olympic contender -- keep tuned until 2010!
(Prediction: Rachel Flatt will win the 2008 U.S. championship.)