Spokane, Wash. – Boisterous fans shattered the attendance record and made skaters feel as welcome as the town’s beloved Spokane Chiefs hockey team. Skating led most of the nightly newscasts and the local newspaper treated it like the Final Four.
Yes, last week’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships were a big hit in Spokane. But what about the rest of the United States? Popularity is dwindling, and U.S. Figure Skating knows it.
As the USFS crowned first- time champions in men’s, women’s and pairs, with Evan Lysacek winning at the ungodly hour of 1:15 a.m. EST, skating officials schemed to jazz up the sport.
Something must be done. The USFS’ eight-year contract with ABC expires this year, and while the 15.8 rating for the ladies Olympic finals beat the Final Four title game’s 15.0, the Olympics still lost that February night ratings war to two episodes of “American Idol” and the season finale of “Dancing with the Stars.”
The U.S. nationals have dropped from reaching 11.5 percent of American households in 1998 on ABC to 4.7 last year.
The sports glut on TV has contributed, but American skating’s two biggest stars, Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen, are near retirement. The USFS must bank on world champion Kimmie Meissner, a 17-year-old from Maryland who won her first national title Saturday, and Lysacek, a two-time world bronze medalist.
Are they flamboyant and popular enough to land on Wheaties boxes, magazine covers and TV shows? Probably not. Until they start stringing titles together – and remember, the Vancouver Olympics are still three years away – figure skating must seek other ways to pull in the buying public.
“It’s important to be on broadcast network television,” USFS executive director David Raith said. “It doesn’t have to be on prime time. I believe it’s a product that should be in prime time.”
That’s the first step. It won’t be easy to land a TV contract, let alone the $12 million annual deal set to expire. The International Skating Union’s rights fees dropped from $22 million from ABC to $5 million from ESPN, and that deal ends after the 2008 season.
Ideas are flying. Todd Eldredge, the six-time American champion who competed during the sport’s heyday in the mid-1990s, suggested replacing classical music with hip-hop. Others suggest pushing Tanith Belbin, the Olympic silver medalist in ice dancing and winner of a “hottest athlete” poll.
Belbin thinks the USFS should merely allow the skaters to be more outspoken.
The USFS is mulling a national championship format in which the top men entering the long program determine their champion in the same show as the top women. They would also pair the ice dancers with the pairs. ABC is listening. USFS hopes to have an agreement with some network by its board of governors meetings in May.
The USFS also wants live coverage. While the women’s long program was shown live nationally Saturday afternoon, the men’s program that night was live only on the East Coast.
To combat the problem, the USFS developed icenetwork.com, on which all events can be seen live for a fee. Seeing figure skating on tape delay doesn’t cut it when resuscitating a sport.
“There’s always something lost,” USFS president Ron Hershberger said. “They know the results already. The results were in the newspaper two days ago. You lose some of the drama. You lose some of the involvement. You lose some of the excitement.”
A boost could come if an American can take a world title in Tokyo on March 19-25. Ben Agosto and Belbin have the best shot in ice dance. But if they do, one question lingers.
Will anyone be watching?
John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
