Well for me personally, I don't often watch the men (though I do like Nathan Chen) since all the falls are excruciating. For the women though, triple/triples are very consistent. The hit ratio on 3-3s for Ladies is actually quite remarkable compared to how many more skaters attempt them today compared to 10 years ago. The consistency in ladies skating combined with increased difficulty is part of the reason I've grown to enjoy ladies skating again in the last couple years.
So to your point, if Pairs manage to find that consistency now that the tech bar has risen, then I think that would do a lot to help its marketability.
One of the reasons that the women tend to bore me is that technically,they may be more consistent, but women were doing triple/triple combos upteen years ago. Nothing really all THAT new there. And they're the one discipline which really hasn't had the bar raised to the same degree.
Marketability is also a tricky thing (my sister works in advertising, so I hear a lot about this!). If you're talking about the US, Pairs has always been a poor relation. You really have to go back to the days of Tai and Randy and maybe the Caruthers to find teams that really had any true marketability...in the US market. "The Truck Driver and The Waitress" made for a fine Olympics puff piece, but just how marketable were they really?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I can't keep track of all the names. I'm also still a newbie, so I don't understand all the skating elements yet just in singles. Pairs is that much more complicated.
I am now following the Aussie pair Harley Windsor and Katya Alexandrovska , because he's our first Indigenous Olympic skater, and it's nice that she became an aussie citizen to skate the Olympics with him. It's a good story, and they're just out of juniors so I can follow their senior careers from the beginning.
But the rest of the field...too many people, too many relationships to keep track of. I also find it difficult to follow more than one person on the ice, and what they're actually doing.
Probably the same reason why singles tennis is more popular than doubles tennis.
Well, from my standpoint, it has become difficult to get attached to a US pair because they never seem to last more than a couple of seasons. I finally gave up hope when Caitlin and John broke up after winning Nationals in 2011. Most of you know that that was the last time I went to Nationals.....I was so excited for the future......Then, they broke up. After that, I stopped putting my heart into pairs. It's the volatility that keeps me from becoming invested in pairs and unfortunately, I don't see things improving in the US.
It's strange for me to see that pairs don't get much attention because it was the discipline that first drew me to ice skating (thank you, Volosozhar/Trankov!) - I find it really exciting, hopefully the love for it will grow!
Yes, I am almost sure that the lack of popularity are the countries at the top. And though D/R and T/M are from Canda and Russia (both with a lot of figure skating fans), those pairs are not so charismatic. I wonder how popular are S/H in China? , probably they have a lot of fans in China but not many of them come to this forum, unfortunately.
That's exactly when I lost interest in the U.S.. I was so excited for that pairing then John broke it off. I was mad...yeah I admit and also done. However I have only 3 pairs that I watch.
One of the reasons that the women tend to bore me is that technically,they may be more consistent, but women were doing triple/triple combos upteen years ago. Nothing really all THAT new there. And they're the one discipline which really hasn't had the bar raised to the same degree.
Marketability is also a tricky thing (my sister works in advertising, so I hear a lot about this!). If you're talking about the US, Pairs has always been a poor relation. You really have to go back to the days of Tai and Randy and maybe the Caruthers to find teams that really had any true marketability...in the US market. "The Truck Driver and The Waitress" made for a fine Olympics puff piece, but just how marketable were they really?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.