Proposals to ISU Congress 2018-2019 Season

Honestly - the ticket costs are the less important factor for me. I have considered the costs of all of Nathan’s (likely) competitions this season and if I could possibly attend.

Skate America - I think the best all-event tickets are $250. There are also silver level tickets which seem pretty good for $175. These prices do not seem unreasonable to me. But I would have to fly to Seattle, and pay for hotel for like 3 nights. The travel expenses are considerably more than the tickets.

4CC - I would like to attend this competition - though I am not sure if Nathan will be competing here. Travel expenses would be fairly low for me to attend - and a difference of +/- $50 or $100 for a ticket wouldn’t change whether I would attend.

So the main factor for me are travel expenses and also whether I am able to travel at that time. Even if ticket prices were lowered by $100 - it wouldn’t really change whether or not I would attend.

I just think the fact GOE scale value is increasing by 67% is deeply ironic and hilarious. It is like funny Maths with dirty footprints everywhere.

After Vancouver, for some explicable reason, they relaxed the GOE bullet criteria as well as reduced the GOE value by 30%, so that

+ 3 (reduced 30% Post Vancouver) = 2.1

And make it it is easier to get higher GOEs than before. Now these new rule changes after Sochi is over, and Yuna Kim is retired (who generally get good GOEs), they decide to change the maximum back with a vengence to

+ 5 = 3.5

3.5 is an increase of 67% from 2.1!!! And even bigger increase from Vancouver.

This actually indicates it was quite wrong with the post-Vancouver changes to have happen in the first place. Instead of curbing GOEs by as much as 30%, they should have increased it!! lol... I guess they really want to push for Sochi ladies result, to make it about quantity over quality.

In any real world, it would be far simpler if +3 = 3

As if COP Is not already complicated enough for the average viewer. This is what happens when you have a mathematician/statistician in charge of the sport pushing for certain outcomes and can tweak the scale value at any time.


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Look forward to the endless debates to the even puzzling scores designed to penalise the Quadsters vs the so-called artists, or powerful big jumpers vs the transitionful but average jumpers. It is one way to distract from PCS inflation complaints that made the sport uncompetitive for many, now they have to distract us with more GOEs funny maths.

On ticket costs...

1. I would say, tickets are not an issue, but the competitions spread around the world are an issue to attend. Also, it bothers me that some of the major FS competitions are held in small towns. For example, see Russia - whenever there is a GP/GPF/Euros/Worlds, those are held in Moscow. Yes, this is unfair for smaller towns, but Moscow has a population of 12 millions, which provides enough FS fans to buy most tickets. But this does not matter, really.

2. Because the future of FS is internet. FS is not football where you have 100500 cool competition in every tiny town. Why isn't it possible to have a quality broadcast of FS competitions online? And i mean QUALITY. If ISU has troubles with it, they can hire one of the russian dudes who do the youtube streams, because those dudes manage to have better streams than icenetwork had, apparently.
Learn from the youtube dudes - one of the attractions of the youtube streams is the chat, so you can not only watch, but also share your impressions while watching the skates.
I would pay for a stable stream with good quality and a chat (while I wouldnt travel to watch a FS competition, because there are none of those in South America), and very likely many people would pay.

3. Quality commentary and quality TES box. You know, if the element is clearly shown on screen, the casual viewers will have no trouble in figuring out if this is a triple or a quad (new version of the TES box is a major improvement in that regard). Random though, during replays, it would be interesting to show a full table with all the elements performed and the scores the skater got.
Random thought - it would be useful to simplify the element names when they are displayed on screen. While the jump names are easy to learn, a casual viewer will hardly ever figure what CCoSp4 is.

3. Also, @YoenNL's post seem to reveal a major strategic issue that ISU has with all those changes. See the latest one: "well i talked with some commentators, they cant see the difference between a quad or a triple, but loved Kostner, so that means that people don't want to see quads but want to see artistry". So what, I talked to a bunch of people, and they are more impressed by Trusova than by Kostner, cancel PCs now? For some reason, all people in the discussion seem to hate any real data, and avoid getting any at all costs.
I really wish ISU would actually do a proper research to figure out who are the people who pay for the tickets and go to shows, who are the people who watch it over the internet, what exactly all those people want to see in FS, what would make people who don't watch figure skating start watching it and so on. Hire a STATISTICIAN, for god's sake.

About the fans wanting idols and heroes stuff and how it relates to age minimums:

I feel like most of us are looking at the situation from a figure skating fan perspective. People who follow sports with very young athletes become accustomed to seeing 14 - 16 year olds winning on a consistent basis. Young teens are not as common in the senior ranks of most (not all) mainstream sports. They're usually an anomaly, an unusually talented kid or someone pushed up into the senior ranks early based on future potential. Often, fans aren't all too happy to see them there either.

What also seems to happening here is two camps looking at how skating should develop. On one side, there's the fans and participants who are happy with skating as a somewhat niche sport. Olympic Sport is a term often used when sorting these competitions for sporting news websites and channels. It includes the likes of luge, bobsled, fencing and others that, in some case, have regional popularity but little wide following outside the every four years audience. These sports are often locked behind paywall subscription services aimed at fans willing to pay for extended coverage. Well, no one's going to pay for something they've not gotten into the habit of watching so skating ends up with a shrinking loyal audience and little else.

The other side is the one that wants to popularize figure skating, getting it back into the everyday sport conversation in places where it simply isn't anymore or perhaps never was. Skating, in its North American and wider European popularity heyday, garnered attention by being entertaining. This is not to downgrade past athletic achievements, just being realistic about how skating was watched by pre-IJS casuals. I've met skating fans who say they hate sports - that's telling about a segment of the audience.

I loath terms like 'idol' and 'hero'. Sorry, no, I don't have sporting idols and heroes and, if I did, they wouldn't be teenage athletes. I dislike how often those marketing sports haul out both words but the conventional wisdom is that fans grow attached to specific athletes and want to follow them, often more so than the sport itself. These folks will disappear if a new face doesn't grab their attention when their previous favourite retires. Others only watch if they recognize some names when they see a competition beginning. A sport where young teens show up, win and then often disappear immediately, or a year later, doesn't retain either of those sorts of fans easily.

I'm not in the camp that wants to grow figure skating popularity. It really doesn't matter to me and I'm also not one who watches to follow a favourite skater for years. My favourites change easily. That said, I am among those who haven't warmed to watching very young athletes; I find most of them juniorish in various, individual ways including the, perhaps, trivial fact of sometimes looking like a child at a adult competition. Yes, many of them can jump and a few have artistry or great skating skills but most have only of those at an exceptional high level. If that one happens to be a big point getting skill, and under IJS that would be the jumps, they end up winning as still not-quite-fully-cooked skaters. Even the young skaters that many rave about as being "the complete package" seem undercooked to me. Now I like some of them very much -- Alina is my favourite of this year's crop and she's one of those 15 year old Olympic champs -- but I'm well aware she was still a young girl skating like a young girl this past season. I admired her bravery and stamina with backloading; as I've said before, I like the big jumpers and risk takers. Oh, and I thought the right people of those who attended were on the podium at both Olympics and Worlds. That said, overall, I prefer my senior sports to have adult participants.

Fans don't want idols and heroes anyway. They want cults of personality.

I could write a long, logical post about the various “problems” with the fact that young girls can usually outjump young women in this sport and the fact that some of those perceived problems might demand opposite solutions.
But to avoid boring everyone with laying out all the arguments in detail, let me just ask:

If we’re looking at this mainly from the public perception standpoint, and also from the point of view of young adult (18+) skaters who would like to maintain longer careers, to avoid young jumpers always winning against mature young women with stronger skating and presentation but easier or less consistent jumps, would it make sense to have an elite-level competition for the best teen girls that would allow them to shine at their jumping peak while also allowing older skaters (perhaps the same individuals a few years later) to shine in a more mature event?

I can think of several ways to do this.

1. Someone suggested separate junior championships (and other events?) for ages 13-15 and 16-17, with seniors starting at 18. That would divide all the juniors by chronological age regardless of how far along each individual is technically or in terms of body changes. Early or late developers (technically or physically) might still look out of place among their agemates, but there would be a clear enforceable age rule with more similar developmental stages within each group on average. The most talented individuals would often continue to dominate at each age group.

2. Maybe set the senior age limit at 17 or 18 and then have two separate junior events for all younger teens divided by skill rather than birthdate. E.g., an “elite junior” event with the same jump requirements as the senior ladies’ short program, and a “developmental junior” that doesn’t allow 3-3 combinations or triple axels in the short program, nor either of the above or any quads in the freeskate.

The elite junior ladies’ eventcould be held at the same time and place as senior Worlds rather than juniors, and attract some media attention for these promising up-and-comers while the media are focused on senior championship skating, but not award these girls the very top prize and the pressure that goes with it. It would also be an opportunity for sports fans to witness cutting edge jump content by female athletes, without jump content overriding the well-rounded skills needed to win senior championships.

JGP could stay as is with its current rules. Then the Developmental Junior World Championship could have a maximum technical scores as well as jump limits, and the Elite Junior World Championship would take all (or up to 3 per country?) junior ladies who have exceeded that total during the past year (including that year’s or the previous year’s DJWC?), up to a maximum of 12 skaters total?

Say the minimum technical scores for (developmental) junior ladies remain 20 SP/35 FS, and 27/47 for seniors. Maybe junior ladies who have met the senior minimums not necessarily at the same event and achieved a combined SP+FS TES equal to or above ~95 at the same event, would become ineligible for DevelopmentalJWC and receive automatic invites to the Elite WJC.

These would be young girls who can more than keep up with the strong seniors in TES, although they would usually not be as strong in Program Components.

3. Keep the current senior age minimum at 15, or maybe increase it by one year only to 16, but offer two separate senior ladies’ championships with different rules and different emphases: one where technical content is the primary driver of results, and another where GOEs and PCS take precedence. Skaters would be allowed to enter one or the other track, or maybe both if they can qualify for both. The rules should be different enough that skaters would need to design different programs for the different events. The age of the field would probably skew younger in the former event and older in the latter, but skaters could choose which path to take based on their own individual strengths.

I can think of several different ways to structure the events themselves differently than the current short program/freeskate breakdown, or restructure the scoring to keep the emphasis either on content or on quality. Specifics to be discussed/determined if the general concept is of interest.
For both 2) and 3), it would be nice if the elite junior ladies’ event, or both the top-difficulty and the top-quality senior events, could be included in the Olympics.
Yes, I understand that adding more championships adds to the expense. I do think that there are probably audience for both well-rounded young women’s skating and ambitious girls’ jumping. Some fans would avoid one and focus on the others; other fans would embrace the opportunity to watch more skating and get to enjoy more stars, including following the young jumpers into the well-rounded event as they age up.

In the men’s event, skaters peaking in jumping ability before physical or emotional/artistic maturity is not so much a problem, and also the men’s fields are smaller in most federations. For that reason, would there be less of a need to split the junior men’s events? I can see that there might be value in a quad-focused vs. a skating skill/performance-focused event at the senior level.

DaNiCG said:

15 yo with no hips are going to skate better than 20 yo with hips

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They're going to jump better than older skaters with hips, etc., assuming the technique is comparable.

But older, curvier, more experienced skaters are more likely to skate better (and also present better).

So which should the sport of figure skating reward more -- skating or jumping?

gkelly said:

So which should the sport of figure skating reward more -- skating or jumping?

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Succinct summary. The answer should be both.

gkelly said:

They're going to jump better than older skaters with hips, etc., assuming the technique is comparable.

But older, curvier, more experienced skaters are more likely to skate better (and also present better).

So which should the sport of figure skating reward more -- skating or jumping?

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curvier skaters are more likely to skate better (and also present better)? may i ask why?
and why not a create a separate figure skating discipline, where people will be judged based on age, body curves, so called artististry and whatever majority of people wants to see (according to some experts). move this discipline as far from olympic sport as you want, and see the ratings then. i'm sure that it's gonna be just as popular as ice dance.
why there is a need to ruin a singles discipline

Because last time I checked: That was incredibly racist, sexist and misogynist.

YoenNL said:

Well you can make fun of it, name it "idols", name it "heroes" but here's a thing. On Twitter and in forums like this one, we are pretty knowledgeable about the sport, but there is also the "outside perspective". As a Eurosport commentator I often talk to my colleagues about figure skating and how they see the sport. Even they are not average viewers, as they have a sports background and more or less a trained eye to watch sports in general (albeit not ours but their own sport). So they asked me many times "how can you see this is a quad or a triple?", "why is it so interesting?", "I see this guy fall two times, how can the scores be so high?". Then this winter I saw even 'macho' type commentators with tears in their eyes when they watched Carolina, or Aliona and Bruno - no quads needed.

Is sport entertainment? Yes, to some extent. For sure we have to embrace 'citius, altius, fortius' too. I have nothing against quads. I love skating. I have huge respect for the coaching structure in the top-countries and for all athletes pushing the boundaries. But we have to think about the outside perspective, about increasing the fan base, getting stadiums full, being back as the sport that everyone talks about, and in a positive way. If we continue like this we will have a continuous sweep of 15-16yo on the Senior podiums because I can not realistically see 20+ yo women doing quads and no one apart from the die-hard fan and incrowd will be interested in our sport much longer.

So in the end it will be a philosophical discussion on 'how we see our sport" when it comes to discussing the age limit. Regardless of the outcome, it is good that this discussion is taking place NOW. As we are seeing a technical development like never before and we have to seriously think of how we define the sport. And that is why I pushed for so many proposals that have merit in their own right, but can be seen as a package showing a vision, combined with some proposals of others too.

Sorry, there are so many messages everywhere that I can pick up only on few of them. At the same time I am working on the scenarios. It is quite interesting!

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Do you have stats on average retirement age of men and ladies single skaters? From observation its around 19-20. Did you run scenarios on how many total entries you will have beginning 2021 if 15 and 16 year olds will remain in juniors and number of senior ladies will retire or or skip a season. It would be interesting to see if there will be less entries in ladies and men then in past season.

Tahuu said:

I am at lost or naive. But why most think ISU (and the delegates) should change rules based on if a rule change will benefit or not benefit certain current skaters? The skaters will not be here in 4 years. The ISU (and delegates) should consider only (or mainly) how a rule change will impact the future of the sports. They should be mindful to any rule change (or no change) that will result in the sport never sees all 4A, 4Lz, 4F, 4Lo, 4S and 4T in one program in the future!

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Maybe they can just come clean and give us the names of skaters who they want to protect from competing against 15-16 year old. I heard the names Costner and Medvedeva that are being viewed as idols and need to stay undefeated. So first ISU is taking out rivals by implementing new law. But what are they going to do if 17 year olds will start defeating idols? Tonya Harding was afraid of competion, and wanted to be a 3A idol. Being afraid of competition and desire to be an idol are two qualities that ISU is promoting in this proposal.

chopinskate said:

I'm going to focus on this. As a sport that is increasing it's younger audience day by day (and a LOT of the male skaters have fans who are teenagers and young adults), why isn't the FIRST step trying to decrease ticket costs? Surely it will attract more audience then. The rate of audience growth will probably counter initial deficits very quickly. Has there been any marketing research done here at all? Why is what you propose the first thing that comes to mind?

Young adults watch YouTube and use streaming websites. They won't go to competitions that they can't afford to go to and they won't pay for television when YouTube is free. The ISU can keep blocking them, and keep driving the audience farther away. I will always question why the tickets are so costly.

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Young adults are not the ones likely to be buy tickets (singles or event types) to the FS events or follows their faves around the world to watch them.. You need some good $$ for that - which means appeal to the somewhat older generation (like myself). I know from my own perspective, I would rather watch older mature skaters - to me FS is the most watchable when there is a good balance of artistry and technical skills. I sure am not going to shell out good money to watch a bunch of 15 year olds out jump each other (male or female)

If age limit make coaches change training methods where the focus is on proper technique vs. relying on tiny bodies rotating super fast then I'm all for it. Just my two cents...

LucyH said:

You need some good $$ for that - which means appeal to the somewhat older generation (like myself). I know from my own perspective, I would rather watch older mature skaters - to me FS is the most watchable when there is a good balance of artistry and technical skills. I sure am not going to shell out good money to watch a bunch of 15 year olds out jump each other (male or female)

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But the skating will still be broadcast to everyone, regardless of age and financial stability. Why care only about the ones ready to shell out the money? Is the ISU willing and ready to isolate the part of the audience that can't afford the tickets?

Is this really the way to grow the audience?

Very interesting though. Maybe this is the ISU's reasoning too. Older audiences pay, and they like more mature skaters, so keep them. Got it. Don't know how it's supposed to grow the audience, however.

I’m not sure lowering ticket prices to ISU events (so more younger people can attend) would make a great difference in growing the sport’s audience. Most fans worldwide don’t watch the major skating competitions live. Having young people attend one isolated competition may result in a few additional fans to the sport - but I’m not sure it would have a significant impact.
Those who have the resources and ability to travel around the world to attend figure skating competitions are not the young fans. Nathan does have some very dedicated fans that travel around the world to see him at competitions and shows -Olympics, Worlds, Nationals, Rostelecom Cup, Skate America, Grand Prix Final, Sun Valley Ice in Idaho, US Stars on Ice (some attending as many as 6 shows). These fans are Japanese (they also attend all his shows in Japan) - and as far as I know - they are older - age 40+

This conversation has nothing to do with the tickets anymore. The conversation took a turn to who pays for the tickets, and what those audiences prefer.

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tjb said:

curvier skaters are more likely to skate better (and also present better)? may i ask why?

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Older, more experienced skaters are more likely to skate better.

Young women in their late teens and 20s tend, on average, to be curvier than early teenagers.

Curviness doesn't help or hinder the skating itself, but it does hinder the ability to rotate difficult jumps.

chopinskate said:

But the skating will still be broadcast to everyone, regardless of age and financial stability. Why care only about the ones ready to shell out the money? Is the ISU willing and ready to isolate the part of the audience that can't afford the tickets?

Is this really the way to grow the audience?

Very interesting though. Maybe this is the ISU's reasoning too. Older audiences pay, and they like more mature skaters, so keep them. Got it. Don't know how it's supposed to grow the audience, however.

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Yeah - especially when YoenNL's post said they wanted the audience to grow and not just the diehards.

Also what's with the "bunch of 15 year olds" - there has never been a "bunch" of non-senior aged skaters (for lack of a better term) at the senior level.

If there are one or two and you don't want to watch them - take a "refrigerator break".

I remember 24 years ago when Michelle Kwan at age 13 was going to Worlds (no Nancy or Tonya) and a co-worker said to me "I don't want to watch a stupid little girl" - and yes I still remember that nasty comment after all these years. Nothing new to these arguments as far as I am concerned. Same old same old.

Older skaters alone being more mature and artistic isn't always true anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1imuQWeIi4Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh-850kqJoE