Skating Ratings Shock Espn (Hirsh article)

[Vash01]

Ok, I just wrote a really long letter to ESPN. I won't bore you with the whole thing, but here are my 10 points.

1. Put someone in charge who respects the SPORT and treats it like one.
2. Skating coverage is shown too far out from the competition. Time zone delays are acceptable. Days and weeks aren't.
3. Too much fluff. We should be able to see the top flight of skaters. The top 2 flights would be better.
4. The announcers do not have to talk nonstop. We do like to listen to the music too.
5. The stupid obnoxious beep when they do the news crawl across the bottom of the screen. (see point #4 regarding music).
6. When skating coverage is shown, it gets cut short if another sport went overtime.
7. Most people were not aware of the switch from ABC to ESPN and the butter and candy wrapper ads did not convey the sport aspect.
8. We want commentators to tell us the technical aspects of the sport and we do not want to see "The Great American Hype". There are skaters from other countries that we love.
9. Have they considered a PPV of the ENTIRE competition without commentary. Fans would kill to have that.
10. Speedy is killing the sport but apparently no one wants to do much about it. Try the other 9 suggestions and wait for his untimely demise.

Did I cover it all or do you have suggestions to add?

I liked 1 through 8. I am not for pay per view. I pay for the cable and I don't want to have to shell out extra money to see the competitions.

If Speedy disappears, someone else can take his place. You cannot hope that something out of your control will happen. Actually Speedy introduced the COP and sounds like the majority likes it (I am not totally for it). It is still better to have an ISU than to have a biased group of people forming WSF.

One thing I would add to your list is: Listen to your customers. That applies to all the US networks. They could also benchmark the Canadian TV since their quality seems to be better.

Vash

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Pay per View is the way to go. I don't believe there is enough public interest in figure skating. We don't know how the sponsors (Campbells, Marshalls, Red Box diet food, etc.) want to pay. I suspect they are paying less than before and so the whole thing went over to ESPN

All the media is a business and must make money. Increasing interest in figure skating has to come from the fans. When fans stop debasing individual skaters and stop praising only those that come from an ethnic or national species, then maybe some new fans will develop on the merits of fine skating.

So I would suggest from what fans are left they should show others how good figure skating is. Pay per View is one way of showing your interest in figure skating.

Joe

 

[clairecloutier]

Great thread. I agree with most of the 10-point ESPN plan. Wish they would follow it!!

My general impression is that the Salt Lake City scandal hurt skating much more than anyone realized at the time. No one has really talked about it much publicly, but the steady decline in TV ratings and skating show attendance, to me, tells the tale. My guess is that the general public already suspected that figure skating judging was corrupt and that the sport was not be a "real," legitimate sport. There were tons of people out there--mostly men, I think--who were pushing that view to their families before Salt Lake. Then the Salt Lake scandal came along and essentiallly confirmed that view for a lot of people, who have now just written off skating as "not a real sport."

The oversaturation of pro skating in the late 90s also contributed to this, I think, and further encouraged the casual viewer in thinking that skating wasn't a "real" sport.

The result is that many average families who were once casual skating fans have now tuned out. My in-laws, for example, who used to be casual fans, now actually prefer to watch NASCAR racing to skating. This is unbelievable to me personally, but that's the way they feel.

I think the most important thing the ISU needs to do is restore credibility to figure skating as a SPORT. It needs to be firmly established again in the public's mind that skating is a legitimate, serious, athletic event. How to do this? I would take the following measures:

1. Continue to use COP, but make judges use it more rigorously. Put more emphasis on points given for GOE (grade of execution). Tell judges to stop using the PCS scores to hold skaters up. Encourage more variation amongst PCS scores for individual performances.

2. Stop anonymity in judging.

3. Separate judges from their federations. Start administering the entire judging system through the ISU, rather than through individual federations.

4. Fire Ottavio Cinquanta. Any head of a business or government institution needs to tolerate, accept, and respond to the voices of dissent and argument. The fact that Cinquanta feels the need to silence and eject any voice of criticism within the ISU is a very serious problem and speaks volumes about this man's character and leadership abilities. He is running the ISU as a dictatorship, not as a governing body composed of participating members.

5. Stop sanctioning all pro-ams and cheesefests. These events confuse the public as to what is a real competition and what is not. The money they bring in in the short term does not outweigh the larger damage they do in contributing to the impression that skating is not a "real" sport and that skating competitions are not "real" competitions.

6. In future TV contracts, insist that skating events be shown in as timely a manner as possible. As an earlier poster said, brief tape delays due to time zone differences are acceptable; showing events weeks after they occur is not. Once again, this just contributes to the perception that skating competitions are not "real" competitions.

7. Keep skating on major networks, even if it means making less money from a major network than they would from ESPN. Skating, at this point, needs the wider exposure and advertising afforded by major networks.

 

[soogar]

You know, I don't get how everyone is on the fire Cinquanto bandwagon. He runs the ISU the way a CEO runs a company. If you work in big corporate culture, you just can't openly criticize the system to the press and everyone else to hear. There are ways to enact change and b!tching to the press isn't the way to do it. I don't know Speedy but he has a high approval rating and he's in charge of two sports. Looking at his actions in figure skating in terms of events and prize money, I believe he has the best intentions for figure skating. He's also done a good job in getting short track speed skating admitted to the Olympics and synchronized skating is a demonstration sport at the upcoming Olympics in Torino. I hope it gets picked up like rythmic gymnastics. To get these things accomplished, you have to be able to politick and he obviously does that well.

Besides, Cinquanta isn't the one responsible for the sh!tty ESPN converage and the declining ratings in skating. I blame the greed of the managers and TV networks for putting out tons of skating shows with no regard to the longevity of the sport. Everyone was out there to make a quick buck.

 

[attyfan]

You know, I don't get how everyone is on the fire Cinquanto bandwagon. He runs the ISU the way a CEO runs a company.

During Cinquanta's "leadership", the income from U.S. television rights alone fell from 20 million a year to 5 million a year. When a company's income falls by three quarters, it is very common for the CEO to get axed.

 

[soogar]

During Cinquanta's "leadership", the income from U.S. television rights alone fell from 20 million a year to 5 million a year. When a company's income falls by three quarters, it is very common for the CEO to get axed.

He can't pander to American television and maintain neutrality in an INTERNATIONAL organization.

 

[attyfan]

He can't pander to American television and maintain neutrality in an INTERNATIONAL organization.

You mean he wasn't doing his job of "maintain[ing] neutrality in an INTERNATIONAL organization" during the '94 to '98 post-whack frenzy? Did Rogge of the IOC, another International organization, lose three quarters of his company's contracts when he "pander[ed] to American television" over the pairs mess in SLC? I still would like to know the names of any CEO who survived when his/her company lost three quarters of its income.

 

[soogar]

You mean he wasn't doing his job of "maintain[ing] neutrality in an INTERNATIONAL organization" during the '94 to '98 post-whack frenzy? Did Rogge of the IOC, another International organization, lose three quarters of his company's contracts when he "pander[ed] to American television" over the pairs mess in SLC? I still would like to know the names of any CEO who survived when his/her company lost three quarters of its income.

Well think about it in terms of a president who presides over a declining economy and is reelected b/c he is viewed as a strong leader. Also the figure skating boom was just that, a boom. I think that if you look at the overall history of skating, the ISU isn't in a worse position than it was before the boom. At least now they award prize money. There's a lot more at stake in the ISU than just the television contract.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

I actually agree with you Soogar on some of your points but no one on this thread is blaming the fans who are not going to the venues. I think they should. The 'little girl sport' as it is known is losing fans. What we have left are 'groupie like' fans who want nothing more than to gush over their favorite(s). They can only whine: We want more skating on TV. I think it is part of the job of the CEO to stand up to the product and improve on it, if the buyers are losing interest. And they are!!! except for the families of active skaters in competitions.

Since the man has never been a figure skater, I am sure he is listening to the complaints of certain Federations and taking the wrong advice.

Joe

 

[mpal2]

I liked 1 through 8. I am not for pay per view. I pay for the cable and I don't want to have to shell out extra money to see the competitions.

One thing I would add to your list is: Listen to your customers. That applies to all the US networks. They could also benchmark the Canadian TV since their quality seems to be better.

Vash

In the long version of the letter, I specified that the PPV of the entire comp is an extra to the top 2 flights that should be shown on cable or network programming. I'm greedy. I want more of what we have and never less.

I also mentioned that alienating the core group of fans would not help their cause. There is a reason why we like and watch skating. Listen to us and the rest will follow. I felt like referring them to Field of Dreams but restrained myself.

 

[katherine2001]

I actually agree with you Soogar on some of your points but no one on this thread is blaming the fans who are not going to the venues. I think they should. The 'little girl sport' as it is known is losing fans. What we have left are 'groupie like' fans who want nothing more than to gush over their favorite(s). They can only whine: We want more skating on TV. I think it is part of the job of the CEO to stand up to the product and improve on it, if the buyers are losing interest. And they are!!! except for the families of active skaters in competitions.

Since the man has never been a figure skater, I am sure he is listening to the complaints of certain Federations and taking the wrong advice.

Joe

Have you thought of the fact that many people can't afford the price of the tickets? For some people, it may come down to a choice between food, heat, and a roof over their heads or buying tickets to a skating competition? Which do you think they are going to choose? Same for having skating on PPV. Many skating fans can't afford the kind of money that it costs to see things on PPV. That means they would have no skating at all.

 

[Mathman]

5. Stop sanctioning all pro-ams and cheesefests

I agree with this 100% The ISU should get out of the "sanctioning" business altogether. If someone wants to put on a skating show, let them put on a skating show. If a skater wants to skate, let him or her skate. That is just common sense to me.

Same for USFS. Like the big whoop-de-do about whether Todd Eldredge could skate in SOI and still skate at U.S. Nationals if he qualified. What does the one have to do with the other? What business is it of USFS what Todd does in his spare time?

Mathman

 

[Vash01]

In the long version of the letter, I specified that the PPV of the entire comp is an extra to the top 2 flights that should be shown on cable or network programming. I'm greedy. I want more of what we have and never less.

I also mentioned that alienating the core group of fans would not help their cause. There is a reason why we like and watch skating. Listen to us and the rest will follow. I felt like referring them to Field of Dreams but restrained myself.

If I had the money, I would pay to see the entire competition (in person would be my first choice obviously).

Tonight they showed the worlds again- I think this was the third time. When they don't show the competition live and keep showing it again and again to fill their time slots it loses its value completely. Figure skating is not even being treated like a 3rd rate sport. When I see Poker being televised by a 'sports' channel, that really drives my frustration through the roof.

Vash

 

[lil lion 816]

I basically agree with mpal's 10-point plan.
I also agree with the perspective on PPV that we shouldn't have less, we should always aim for more. That is, have the top flight or two on ESPN as usual but also have the option to pay extra for the *entire* competition, without commentary. That would be skating fans' heaven, I think! :yes:

I agree with this 100% The ISU should get out of the "sanctioning" business altogether. If someone wants to put on a skating show, let them put on a skating show. If a skater wants to skate, let him or her skate. That is just common sense to me.

Same for USFS. Like the big whoop-de-do about whether Todd Eldredge could skate in SOI and still skate at U.S. Nationals if he qualified. What does the one have to do with the other? What business is it of USFS what Todd does in his spare time?

Mathman

I'm in total agreement with this. As an organization which should be an "amateur" ruling body I don't think that the USFS should have any say-so over what qualifies as a sanctioned event/tour or not. Ditto for the ISU sanctioning process. If a skater can come up through the ranks and qualify for a competition like everyone else then they should be allowed to compete, even if they've been considered a "pro" for a while. Same for the tours or shows - if a skater gets an offer to tour or star in a show which doesn't interfere with the competitive schedule, I say that is the skater's business and not the ruling body's.

 

[Vash01]

You know, I don't get how everyone is on the fire Cinquanto bandwagon. He runs the ISU the way a CEO runs a company. If you work in big corporate culture, you just can't openly criticize the system to the press and everyone else to hear. There are ways to enact change and b!tching to the press isn't the way to do it. I don't know Speedy but he has a high approval rating and he's in charge of two sports. Looking at his actions in figure skating in terms of events and prize money, I believe he has the best intentions for figure skating. He's also done a good job in getting short track speed skating admitted to the Olympics and synchronized skating is a demonstration sport at the upcoming Olympics in Torino. I hope it gets picked up like rythmic gymnastics. To get these things accomplished, you have to be able to politick and he obviously does that well.

Besides, Cinquanta isn't the one responsible for the sh!tty ESPN converage and the declining ratings in skating. I blame the greed of the managers and TV networks for putting out tons of skating shows with no regard to the longevity of the sport. Everyone was out there to make a quick buck.

I have to agree with you. Firing Cinquanta is not going to change the attitudes of the US networks toward FS. They need to hire people that are passionate about this sport to promote it. I also agree with you that criticizing the CEO publicly leads to undesirable results like firing of the individual, and who can blame the CEO for it? There are other ways to turn things around within a company.

We have seen more GP coverage since Speedy took over, and there has been more skating than ever on TV. However, I doubt that anyone used any kind of long term strategy. It seems to be the case of making hay while the sun was shining and the sun may have gone down for quite sometime.

The point is- the networks can make money using the right strategy, but they don't seem to care. That surprises me because here is a potentially popular sport, but they cannot use it the right way.

Vash

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

He can't pander to American television and maintain neutrality in an INTERNATIONAL organization.

and maintain secret judging!!

Joe

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

The point is- the networks can make money using the right strategy, but they don't seem to care. That surprises me because here is a potentially popular sport, but they cannot use it the right way.Vash

There's plenty of money in Russia. Why not Russia take over the reins of TV skating. They will have the right strategy. It doesn't seem that Americans like the sport so bring it to the country that does. It's ok with me.

Joe

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Have you thought of the fact that many people can't afford the price of the tickets? For some people, it may come down to a choice between food, heat, and a roof over their heads or buying tickets to a skating competition? Which do you think they are going to choose? Same for having skating on PPV. Many skating fans can't afford the kind of money that it costs to see things on PPV. That means they would have no skating at all.

Have they stopped going to the movies with all that hardship they are facing? Are those CDs really necessary? I believe you are saying that figure skating should be a freebee. It is true in America, sponsors get the team sports and golf off the hook on the money required to show games on TV. Campbells, Marshalls and Smart Ones do contribute. (and we get freebee cheesefests).

However, the fans of figure skating who are the ones that move the ratings just don't measure up to other sports on TV. What is needed here is a suggestion to get the Americans interested in figure skating so that they will turn on the sets and move the ratings.

Do not for one minute think that the number of fans on these forums are in the millions.

Joe

 

[Linny]

Casual Viewers

Being as skating is on cable now, are there many casual viewers? By that I mean, people that happen to be flipping through channels at the time when skating is being broadcast and, when they hit ESPN, decide to stay there for a bit.

Methinks that more and more people are fine tuning their viewing. I use Tivo, but that's not the only technology out there. I choose the programs I want to watch, record them, and watch them when it is convenient to me. It is NOT convenient to finally get a few minutes to sit down and then flip through and find out that half of what is currently being broadcast is infomercials. My viewing habits are tailored to my personal interests.

So, with more and more people fine tuning their viewing, wouldn't it make most sense to cater to fans of the sport? Instead of looking for the once every 4 year casual viewer?

Linny

 

[Mathman]

The 'little girl sport' as it is known is losing fans. What we have left are 'groupie like' fans who want nothing more than to gush over their favorite(s). They can only whine: We want more skating on TV. I think it is part of the job of the CEO to stand up to the product and improve on it, if the buyers are losing interest. And they are!!! except for the families of active skaters in competitions.

Little girls have big dreams, too (buy gatoraid!), LOL.

But do they ever grow up? Michelle says, "I have the best job in the world. I get to wear Vera Wang dresses and perform in front of thousands of people!"

I believe that the question of whether figure skating is really a "sport" will never be resolved. And the reason is, the second mark. As long as you get extra points for wearing a pretty dress, for smiling, and for shimmying to lovely music, this debate will go on.

But that is precisely what distinguishes figure skating from other athletic endeavors. It is an athletic contest (the tech score) plus a beauty contest (the PCS scores).

If your interest, as a sports fan, is to watch someone make a lot of points, basketball is your game. You don't get extra points by smiling while you slam dunk. (Although I note that in the advertisements for basketball, they always have some rousing music going and they time the technical highlights to match the musical climaxes, just like figure skating choreographers do.)

If you want to see someone jump high, go to a track meet.

If you want to see someone skate really, really fast, Anton Apolo Ono is your man.

So why would anyone choose figure skating as his or her favorite sport, or bother to watch it on TV? To me, it's because of that unique blend of athleticism and art that only figure skating brings to sports banquet.

That's how I think it should be marketed, not as just another run-of-the-mill sport (like nascar, poker, golf, etc., LOL)

Mathman