The future of figure skating - your vision

[gkelly]

If I'm going to fantasize, the first thing I would want would be for skatable ice (or a fully practical alternative) to be inexpensive and easily available worldwide. That way skating could become a regular part of local recreational culture as much as swimming pools or other facilities to allow mass participation.

That way more fans would have grown up doing some figure skating themselves, or might choose to start lessons after becoming fans, or they may have friends or family members they have watched training or competing in local events. So there would be a higher baseline of understanding about skating technique and why it matters.

It could also be easier for local venues to host high-level competitions, so it would be easier for fans to get to see live competition or other live skating within relatively easy travel distance.

Of course that all depends on where you live -- if you're on a remote island with a low population, it might not be feasible bring in competitors and officials, or touring shows, from elsewhere, or even to maintain a local rink -- but the idea would be that a much larger percentage of the world would have access.

Then we can talk about how competitions might be better structured to appeal to both fans of athleticism and fans of technique and fans of artistry, to the extent that their interests are opposed, as well as to fans of the combination of all of the above.

In my fantasy world, the expense of ice time would not be a determining factor.

 

[Diana Delafield]

imo the emphasis should be on frequent events and each season to increase the ability to invest into it. That's why team sports and pro leagues thrive.

But each game played by a team -- hockey, basketball, whatever -- is different and unpredictable. Skaters usually perform basically the same routine at each competition, unless a decision was made to scrap an earlier one that wasn't working, in the same costume unless they have the financial resources to have new ones made. The only differences are whether someone is on fire or are having an off-day. The same-old same-old factor would make me watch less often, not more, but fans can't expect skaters and their coaches to spend even more money and time coming up with new programs throughout the season.

You could compare skating more to the individual sports like skiing or golf, but there it's the location that makes for variety. Factors like the terrain or the weather make a difference with each athlete's performance in a race/match. In skating, the buildings may differ for the fans in the seats, but one arena looks pretty much like any other on the screen once someone is out on that big sheet of plain ice. I suppose in that way it's more like, for instance, a sport like swimming -- but I don't watch swimming unless there's something special about a race. Someone going for a record time or whatever.

I know a few people, at least, who became converts to skating by binge-watching the Olympics and catching part of a skating event among many others. Maybe it happens rarely, like in the Torvill and Dean years, but it does happen. There are probably a lot of things that could be tried to increase interest, but personally I wouldn't agree that dropping out of the Olympics should be one.

 

[lariko]

But each game played by a team -- hockey, basketball, whatever -- is different and unpredictable. Skaters usually perform basically the same routine at each competition, unless a decision was made to scrap an earlier one that wasn't working, in the same costume unless they have the financial resources to have new ones made. The only differences are whether someone is on fire or are having an off-day. The same-old same-old factor would make me watch less often, not more, but fans can't expect skaters and their coaches to spend even more money and time coming up with new programs throughout the season.

You could compare skating more to the individual sports like skiing or golf, but there it's the location that makes for variety. Factors like the terrain or the weather make a difference with each athlete's performance in a race/match. In skating, the buildings may differ for the fans in the seats, but one arena looks pretty much like any other on the screen once someone is out on that big sheet of plain ice. I suppose in that way it's more like, for instance, a sport like swimming -- but I don't watch swimming unless there's something special about a race. Someone going for a record time or whatever.

I know a few people, at least, who became converts to skating by binge-watching the Olympics and catching part of a skating event among many others. Maybe it happens rarely, like in the Torvill and Dean years, but it does happen. There are probably a lot of things that could be tried to increase interest, but personally I wouldn't agree that dropping out of the Olympics should be one.

More like tennis and, again, add variety of events like Russians did last year. Jumping, show programs, team tournaments, school vs school challenge... it was those matches and rematches that made it interesting. Team events will have a great future so long as they are not tied to countries.

Anyway, that's what I think and I am not here to convince you or anyone else that Oly is on its way out and should, because the world had changed and the sports that would adjust to it fastest will win and survive, whole those that place their bets on Oly funding will not prosper. But, in modern world with increasing niche-catering, continuous, growing engagement is what counts. Oly doesn't fit that model. It is a fixture from the times we were used to waiting for Christmas not one-click shop and things came up on 2 channels on TV at specified times instead of streaming services.

 

[Bluediamonds09]

No more cheating judges. The level of cheating is too insane right now. In the future, I want fairness across the scores no matter a skater's country. And a for-life ban on any judge caught for accepting bribes or blatantly lowering or overscoring.

 

[lariko]

"openness to replacements" implies a team sport, where several different players can fulfill the same function for the team. I know you discussed teams elsewhere in your post.

But Singles skating is an individual sport. (And pairs and ice dance are team sports in which one partner cannot be easily replaced by another.)
Skaters skate for themselves before they skate for their country or their team.

As long as an individual skater is aiming for their own results, whether to be named World Champion or for the pride of e.g., a top-10 finish, or to qualify themselves for a more important competition, they're not going to voluntarily withdraw and be replaced if they believe they are capable of competing. As long as skaters work individually with their coaches, the coach may advocate for the skater's health but not for opportunities for a different skater they are not coaching.

Are you thinking that individual results will no longer be built into the structure of the sport?
ALL skaters should ALWAYS represent a team and care more about the good of the team than about their own personal results (as can be the case for athletes in sports where one team faces off against another team as the basic structure of all competitions)? Those sports also have team coaches who determine which athletes to start or substitute in which positions.

Are you thinking to totally restructure the sport in that direction? How would it work?

What kinds of teams would these be, if not national federations?

How would individual skaters qualify to join/be hired for a team?

How would the teams be structured? How many competitors in each discipline? How would competitions be structured?

Would the idea of singles, pairs, and ice dance disciplines be totally thrown out the window and competitions would consist of multiple skaters of the same team, or of different teams, on the ice at the same time?

My feeling is that if there are more emphasis on Challenger and GP, so lots of events and independent of countries min-maxing, missing an individual event will no longer be a matter of screwing up the entire season for each athlete. And, if someone is out for a competition, it's easy to replace if one doesn't have to worry about countries. Just the next ranking skater who can be there. If you look at Russians last season, they literally needed everyone in their top 20 or so, instead of trying to pressure squeeze into 3 for the entire second half of the season. It made things far more fun to watch.

As for teams, I liked how they did it in youth Olympics, mixing and matching participants into teams.

For disciplines, I envision singles and duos like in tennis.

 

[4everchan]

@lariko : if the sport were no longer part of the Olympics, it would require an insane level of sponsors and revenues to compensate for the National federations' funding. Just talking about Canada, Olympic sports get funded proportionally on the potential for Olympic medals. For instance, at some point, downhill ski lost their funding. It's one of the most popular sport in the winter games, yet Canadian athletes were not funded due to poor results. So, I can imagine that it may be really tough in some nations, and may damage the sport altogether.

Of course, it's your fantasy and you posted so many good ideas, so don't think I am nitpicking

 

[lariko]

I also wanted to clarify that my pipedream vision includes rebalancing of the scoring in order to permit everyone to compete in singles events together, also making them gender and sex agnostic. This will help create leagues/tiers that are unrestricted by country and gender bias, but only depend on ability to move and jump to music. So, basically you will have:

Singles
Duos
Teams
Jumping

Vs men, women, pairs, dance, teams

 

[lariko]

@lariko : if the sport were no longer part of the Olympics, it would require an insane level of sponsors and revenues to compensate for the National federations' funding. Just talking about Canada, Olympic sports get funded proportionally on the potential for Olympic medals. For instance, at some point, downhill ski lost their funding. It's one of the most popular sport in the winter games, yet Canadian athletes were not funded due to poor results. So, I can imagine that it may be really tough in some nations, and may damage the sport altogether.

Of course, it's your fantasy and you posted so many good ideas, so don't think I am nitpicking

And that's intentional. The leap I dream about is from politicking to secure the funding to entertainment to secure the funding. Figure skating has everything built in to be a sport/show kinda thing that earns versus loses money from tournaments

 

[gkelly]

And that's intentional. The leap I dream about is from politicking to secure the funding to entertainment to secure the funding. Figure skating has everything built in to be a sport/show kinda thing that earns versus loses money from tournaments

How would this work at developmental levels -- juniors and below (the future stars will come from these ranks, but the majority of those who compete at these levels will not make it to elite senior level); seniors whose skill level is not world class but who have aged out of juniors?

The general public is not going to pay to watch these skaters. Diehard fans will, but there aren't enough of us, and many of us can't afford to commit lots of money just to watch streaming feeds, let alone to travel to competitions in which case most of the costs to fans who travel go to the travel/hospitality industries and not to the skating establishment.

How much would advertisers/sponsors be willing to contribute to these events that don't attract big audiences?

Assuming that national federations are out of the picture (completely? or just at the international/elite competition level?):

From the skaters' point of view, where would funding come from for the first 5-10 years of their training before they're good enough to be fun for audiences to watch?

And how do skaters qualify to enter/get invited/get hired to participate in the elite events that attract audiences and income into the sport from outside?

 

[Minz]

Assuming that national federations are out of the picture (completely? or just at the international/elite competition level?)

And adding on to your point, some countries have government funding and rewards that athletes get, sometimes regardless of their personal financial status. And that happens across multiple sports, not just skating.

 

[icewhite]

How would this work at developmental levels -- juniors and below (the future stars will come from these ranks, but the majority of those who compete at these levels will not make it to elite senior level); seniors whose skill level is not world class but who have aged out of juniors?

The general public is not going to pay to watch these skaters. Diehard fans will, but there aren't enough of us, and many of us can't afford to commit lots of money just to watch streaming feeds, let alone to travel to competitions in which case most of the costs to fans who travel go to the travel/hospitality industries and not to the skating establishment.

How much would advertisers/sponsors be willing to contribute to these events that don't attract big audiences?

Assuming that national federations are out of the picture (completely? or just at the international/elite competition level?):

From the skaters' point of view, where would funding come from for the first 5-10 years of their training before they're good enough to be fun for audiences to watch?

And how do skaters qualify to enter/get invited/get hired to participate in the elite events that attract audiences and income into the sport from outside?

Well, the idea of the thread were wishes that were not necessarily very realistic...

Personally I am still, despite everything, a fan of the Olympics and I prefer the sport to be a sport in that sense, and I think any way away from the Olympics towards a more pro competition style would become more show than sport.
But I admit that there are some aspects of that idea which I like, especially getting away from the nationalism.

 

[NaVi]

I have a long messy post that is now saved to a text file that I wanted to make a couple months ago but never finished and I'm super busy right now. I hope to get it posted by the end of the year.

The title I have for it is: Thought experiment where figure skating becomes a year round sport with more novelty and parity.

Here's a TLDR; from that post of what I feel is the big issue when it comes to figure skating's popularity.

"It's hard to expect figure skating to have mass popularity or for skaters to have broad name recognition if fans and potential fans can only anticipate the top skaters to go against each other twice a year at the Grand Prix Final and Worlds where there is very little differentiation between those two events."

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


One thing that really needs to start happening is the creation of labeled datasets to start training AIs to judge certain aspects of figure skating. They'll suck at first but over time they'll improve.

Another thing I'd like to see is meetups of academics who write about figure skating every 1-2 years or so. And it would be nice to keep it mostly technical rather than socio-political.

 

[moonvine]

Some great ideas in here but.....

"Pull out of Olympics and focus on popularizing competitive season as a whole that culminates in Worlds?"

Yeah no.

 

[moonvine]

I also wanted to clarify that my pipedream vision includes rebalancing of the scoring in order to permit everyone to compete in singles events together, also making them gender and sex agnostic. This will help create leagues/tiers that are unrestricted by country and gender bias, but only depend on ability to move and jump to music. So, basically you will have:

Singles
Duos
Teams
Jumping

Vs men, women, pairs, dance, teams

I don’t get this. How can women and men skaters compete against each other when many (most?) male skaters can do at least one quad? I’m not sure it’s a gender bias. The best women can do a couple of quads. The best men (other than Jason) are doing 5, 6, 7 quads and almost every (not every!) senior male skater has a 3A.
There’s only one sport that I know of where mixed gender competitors compete against each other and that’s Equestrian. I guess car racing, though the women are much fewer, but that’s not an Olympic sport.

 

[moonvine]

And adding on to your point, some countries have government funding and rewards that athletes get, sometimes regardless of their personal financial status. And that happens across multiple sports, not just skating.

I’m told Thailand is fully funding all their skaters. Ice time, coaching, costumes, travel, everything.
If it wasn’t so crazy expensive, perhaps it would be more popular. But it has to get more popular for US Fed to have money.

 

[gkelly]

I'm looking forward to solo dance becoming an elite international discipline.

More of my fantasies, which also would require more money to be feasible in the first place.

Option 1, sport centered:
Singles competitions have 4 phases (maybe something similar for pairs, TBD; for ice dance, bring back 1 pattern dance separate from the RD)

1) Jump Competition:
No music, no PCS. Each skater gets 3 minutes to execute 3 or 4 different kinds of jump elements scored on base value and GOE only. Transitions in and out of jumps can count for GOEs, but it's not necessary to skate a continuous program -- skaters are welcome to rest, etc., between elements, as long as they finish within 3 minutes. This is the place for people to try their hardest jump skills that they might not want to risk in a program.

2) Spin Competition:
Similar to the jumps. Half ice only, so men and women can compete at the same time on opposite ends. Find ways to reward additional difficulty compared to what is currently allowed in programs. E.g., add more features, including perhaps some really difficult ones that count double; or allow up to 5 or 6 features per spin with repeat features allowed in different spins.

3) Skating/Interpretation Competition:
Program to music, 2-3 minutes. Required leveled step sequence, choreo sequence, maybe a leveled spiral/field moves sequence, for base value and GOE. Program components factored to be worth more than the TES, maybe Skating Skills as much as CO and PE combined.

4) Well-Balanced Free Skate:
Similar to what it is now, but maybe some additional options of elements or number of each kind of elements to give skaters who excel at other skills to compete on an even playing field with the multi-quad jumpers who won the Jumps phase.

Each of the above would have its own medals, and skaters would not be required to enter all phases.

At large championships, cuts might be made after the elements competition/before the WBFS. Or, alternatively, everyone could skate the WBFS and then those who scored highest in jumps, spins, and PCS respectively in the program could qualify for smaller versions of the elements competitions.

Option 2, separate emphasis for sport and art programs:
Two kinds of singles programs, which can be competed separately with separate entries and separate medals, or can be combined with the same skaters entered in both and earning medals based on total scores across 2 programs.

1) Well-Balanced Technical Program:
Very similar to the current free skate. Emphasis on technical difficulty and quality. Component scores, especially CO and PE, might have lower factors relative to the TES.

2) Artistic Free Skate:
3:30 duration
Jump content is limited but does contribute to the TES, so skaters who can do well in all areas, including the most difficult and/or most excellent, while also skating artistically will be the likely winners.
Three jump elements (two solo and one combination/sequence) scored on base value and GOE; two choreographic spins of any kind, no levels, scored on GOE only; two different kinds of sequences scored on GOE only.

These could be skated in either order in the combined event. For separate events, the order of scheduling doesn't matter anyway.

The IOC might want to include only the former in the Olympics and exclude the latter on the grounds that the scoring is too subjective, but many fans would enjoy it.

 

[moonvine]

I like that one . I know you mean big-time competitively, but I'm still doing a hybrid of dance and basic pairs with a partner who's a former pairs competitor like me, and I haven't seen 30 in a very long time. Although I admit we still marry young in my family, I have an oldest grandkid who just turned 29 (and she and her husband skate together in adult competitions; we've been known to lend each other skating dresses when needed.) My partner and I don't draw crowds of amazed spectators at the rink we use. Not because of our ages, anyway . If I have any idols in skating these days, it's Anita Hartshorn and Frank Sweiding.

That is so cool. I want to skate soo badly. Sometimes I dream about it. No one will take me into their LTS programs. Ashley Wagner (I saw her at Nationals- it’s not like I have her number or anything) told me to just go to a public skate and start skating. Like I did when I taught myself to roller skate, but I was much lighter and lower to the ground then.

 

[gkelly]

I don’t get this. How can women and men skaters compete against each other when many (most?) male skaters can do at least one quad?

Back in 2010, I thought the women's short program rules at the time would be equitable for mixed-gender events:

Solo double axel
Solo triple jump out of steps
Triple-double or triple-triple combination
(Triple axel would be allowed in either of the latter elements; no quads)

Layback
Flying spin in one position
Combination spin with one change of foot and all three basic positions

Leveled step sequence
Leveled spiral sequence


I'm not sure that a free skate that allows quads or allows skaters to avoid flexibility moves would work for mixed genders.

Maybe if the rules were revised to allow more options and flexibility of how to design a free skate: different kinds of jump difficulty that reward other skills beyond number of rotations in the air, and different kinds of elements (including leveled spiral sequences with base values for the highest level at least equal to triple loop or lutz) that skaters could choose to include instead of a lower value jump. Or limit the total number of jump elements to 5 or 6 (still keeping 3 combos/sequences), so that everyone has to include more on-ice skills while also having opportunities to showcase top-level jump skills if they've got them.

 

[Diana Delafield]

That is so cool. I want to skate soo badly. Sometimes I dream about it. No one will take me into their LTS programs. Ashley Wagner (I saw her at Nationals- it’s not like I have her number or anything) told me to just go to a public skate and start skating. Like I did when I taught myself to roller skate, but I was much lighter and lower to the ground then.

I do hope you can find a public session at a time when it's not crowded, borrow or rent some good skates, and give it a try (says she, an addict who loves to lure others into the same addiction ). Whenever I've tried teaching adult friends, I've blessed my parents, who had both learned to skate as children themselves and who encouraged my request for lessons when I was a small-for-my-age 5-year-old. They'd taken me to see Ice Capades and I was enthralled. Then a kindergarten friend had a skating party for her 6th birthday, since this was Canada where there were arenas everywhere, and we borrowed good skates my size from my Highland dancing teacher's daughter. I jumped out onto the ice and started to skate, remembering what I'd seen at the show. Wheeeee! I was puzzled as to why so many people seemed to suddenly sit down on the ice. Nobody sat down on the ice in Ice Capades? How silly -- it was cold! So I didn't. Just twirled around like I'd seen, and hopped a bit, as I'd seen. My mother was watching, marvelling and laughing at the same time. On the way home from the party, she said, "Your grandma has a cousin who teaches skating. Would you like to take skating lessons with her, like your dancing and tumbling lessons?" So I got to start out with private lessons, and I've been so very very thankful ever since! I think it's even more admirable to learn as an adult !

 

[gsk8]

Some great ideas in here but.....

"Pull out of Olympics and focus on popularizing competitive season as a whole that culminates in Worlds?"

Yeah no.

Right, but not my quote