2020-21 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

YuliaLipnitskayaFan1 · Jul 6, 2020

Jontor said:
I think that figure skating and its rules is too complicated nowadays for a casual viewer to understand. And it's a pity. This sport needs its fans to stay strong and to develop new great athletes.

But it doesn't have to be that way. As someone said, even in football (soccer) there are some strange rules that people don't fully understand, but the sport is popular anyway. Why is that?

I think it has to do with how everything is presented. Nowadays when you can follow the technical score live in figure skating is a HUGE improvement when it comes to accessibility and understanding of the sport. But it isn't enough. It can be presented even better.

We all know that the technical panel might intervene and call edges and underrotations etc. And it is very irritating when the tech score suddenly drops 5-10 points, I can understand that viewers that don't know figure skating get very confused. So why not display a range of scores. If the Tech panel flags one of the elements and want to look at it more closely, then display the possible deduction, like now is the tech score 52-55 points. After another questionable element it rises to 54-60 points. And so on. And if you fall, why not make that deduction immediately.

The PCS score is another problem. It also creates confusion for a non figure skating fan. When you see the tech score and it is in the lead, you might think that this person won, but that is not always the case. Doesn't make any sense for a casual viewer. So why not display a preliminary PCS score, based on this skaters previous records. Perhaps SB?

Then there is the Short Program. People who see a Free Skate doesn't necessarily know that there has been a segment before and that scores are already in place. That needs to be clarified as well.

What I'm saying is that if you present the scores in an understandable way, people might not mind not knowing all the rules.

All it takes is a little programming and smart displaying. ISU can fix that.

I get what you are saying about displaying the PCS score as well. I assume the reason they don’t is because they don’t want to take up too much of the screen. There have been many times when I was watching that I wished they simply wouldn’t display the scores at all during the program. That way I could just enjoy watching the program without constantly checking the tech score to try and calculate how one of my favorites will place based on the current scoring

.

Mathman · Jul 6, 2020

YuliaLipnitskayaFan1 said:
...I could just enjoy watching the program without constantly checking the tech score to try and calculate how one of my favorites will place based on the current scoring .

But that can be fun, too. The leader got 88.37 in tech. My guy is at 79 with one more jump and one spin to go. Come on, come on! :laugh:

The only bad part is to see that total drop lower and lower as the tech panel makes its reviews.

dunffvanstorn · Jul 6, 2020

Mathman said:
There was a time, in the middle 1990s, when figure skating was (relatively speaking) flush with cash. The ISU's biggest source of revenue was their contract with ABC television in the United States. In exchange for broadcast right to U.S. Nationals, Skate America, and three "cheesefests" per year (friendly made for TV competitions with invited U.S. and International stars), the television network paid millions US$ per year to the ISU (I think think it was something liike twelve million dollars) and to the United States Figure Skating Association.

Michelle Kwan at her peak years received up to $900,000 a year for participating in these events, aside from whatever prize money she won. There were also private sponsors. Kwan had a million dollar per year contract with Disney to promote Disneyland and appear in Disney skating shows on TV, etc. She also has a million dollar contract (total for three years) with Chevrolet to sell cars. And many other commercial deals. She won many "most popular female athlete" awards against women in all sports. (Kwan was a special case, but still ...)

For many years the 1994 Olympic ladies free skate remained the number 1 watched TV show of all time in the U.S., getting a bigger audience share than the Super Bowl (U.S. football championship). Ottavio Cinquanta, former president of the ISU was lauded as a marketing and financial genius for securing these contracts.

Pro skating was also riding high. The two major U.S. touring shows played to strong audiences all over the country, with as many as 90 stops in an Olympic year. Some sort of made-for-TV skating special was on TV almost ever week. The top stars earned maybe as much as $5000 for each performance on the tour. The Champions on Ice tour featured not only the most popular Olympians, but also variety acts and fun show stuff, like ice acrobats and the "hula hoop girl" (Irina Grigorian ), which were very well received. On the rival Stars on Ice tour, Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi and their supporting cast were semi-household names -- everyone at least had heard of them and knew who they were.

By the late 1990s, Cinquanta is blamed for killing the goose that laid the golden egg. He was not content to administer amateur skating, but tried to intrude into pro skating and take control of the whole skating world. Rules were put in place that greatly restricted shows that featured both popular pros and equally popular amateurs, keeping the skaters under his control on short leashes. They lost the ABC TV contract some time around 2000, and the new contract with rival network NBC was not nearly so lucrative. The cheesefests were discontinued. The pro tours contracted and mostly went out of business. There were no TV skating specials on TV any more.

It wasn't just the lack of U.S. stars. Kwan was still in her prime and winning world championships, Sasha Cohen was popular and there were many promising youngsters in the pipeline.

In Cinquanta's defence, his motive in imposing stiffer rules was that many pro "competitions" were not really competitions at all, just shows. Cinquanta wanted to bolster the image that figure skating is a real sport and not some kind of silly "clowns on ice" entertainment. (Before the tours of the 1990's the professional Ice Shows were more along the lines of Las Vegas Chorus Girls on Ice.)

Anyway, for whatever reason, the bottom dropped out of the U.S. figure skating market. Personally, I don't think there is any particular reason. I just think that the American public's taste in entertainment changed and went in a different direction.

As far as the ISU's current budget, I think that nowadays their biggest source of revenue is dues paid by national federations.

Thank you, it was so informative and full of things I had never heard of. [emoji3526]

Enviado do meu iPhone usando Tapatalk

dunffvanstorn · Jul 6, 2020

Jontor said:
I think that figure skating and its rules is too complicated nowadays for a casual viewer to understand. And it's a pity. This sport needs its fans to stay strong and to develop new great athletes.

But it doesn't have to be that way. As someone said, even in football (soccer) there are some strange rules that people don't fully understand, but the sport is popular anyway. Why is that?

I think it has to do with how everything is presented. Nowadays when you can follow the technical score live in figure skating is a HUGE improvement when it comes to accessibility and understanding of the sport. But it isn't enough. It can be presented even better.

We all know that the technical panel might intervene and call edges and underrotations etc. And it is very irritating when the tech score suddenly drops 5-10 points, I can understand that viewers that don't know figure skating get very confused. So why not display a range of scores. If the Tech panel flags one of the elements and want to look at it more closely, then display the possible deduction, like now is the tech score 52-55 points. After another questionable element it rises to 54-60 points. And so on. And if you fall, why not make that deduction immediately.

The PCS score is another problem. It also creates confusion for a non figure skating fan. When you see the tech score and it is in the lead, you might think that this person won, but that is not always the case. Doesn't make any sense for a casual viewer. So why not display a preliminary PCS score, based on this skaters previous records. Perhaps SB?

Then there is the Short Program. People who see a Free Skate doesn't necessarily know that there has been a segment before and that scores are already in place. That needs to be clarified as well.

What I'm saying is that if you present the scores in an understandable way, people might not mind not knowing all the rules.

All it takes is a little programming and smart displaying. ISU can fix that.

That’s why I love the Italians. Have you ever watched them? They explain everything, the technique, the scoring system, they show the jumps in slow motion and explain why it was good or bad. They are very accessible and easy to understand. I think more countries should use their system. And maybe comment on the slow-motion during the kiss and cry. I know many broadcasts already have the slow-motion during kiss and cry, but they comment so little or almost nothing.

flanker · Jul 7, 2020

Happy 13th birthday to Sofia Akatieva :thank:

I also ask mods to unlock her FF :agree:

flanker · Jul 7, 2020

dunffvanstorn said:
I agree with you on most parts, except for the part where rules are necessarily easier to understand.

How many rules does American football have? No matter how much I watch it, I won’t understand it or like it, violence is not how my dopamine system works.

American football is not worldwide popular sport

After all, there is only one football, the one Americans call soccer. The other one is just "prisoners' yard time"

flanker · Jul 7, 2020

Mathman said:
For many years the 1994 Olympic ladies free skate remained the number 1 watched TV show of all time in the U.S., getting a bigger audience share than the Super Bowl (U.S. football championship).

Because people in the US expected the rink will turn into a gladiator arena where Tonya and Nancy would fight with their blades till the death. :biggrin:

flanker · Jul 7, 2020

Jontor said:
I think that figure skating and its rules is too complicated nowadays for a casual viewer to understand. And it's a pity. This sport needs its fans to stay strong and to develop new great athletes.

But it doesn't have to be that way. As someone said, even in football (soccer) there are some strange rules that people don't fully understand, but the sport is popular anyway. Why is that?

I think it has to do with how everything is presented. Nowadays when you can follow the technical score live in figure skating is a HUGE improvement when it comes to accessibility and understanding of the sport. But it isn't enough. It can be presented even better.

We all know that the technical panel might intervene and call edges and underrotations etc. And it is very irritating when the tech score suddenly drops 5-10 points, I can understand that viewers that don't know figure skating get very confused. So why not display a range of scores. If the Tech panel flags one of the elements and want to look at it more closely, then display the possible deduction, like now is the tech score 52-55 points. After another questionable element it rises to 54-60 points. And so on. And if you fall, why not make that deduction immediately.

The PCS score is another problem. It also creates confusion for a non figure skating fan. When you see the tech score and it is in the lead, you might think that this person won, but that is not always the case. Doesn't make any sense for a casual viewer. So why not display a preliminary PCS score, based on this skaters previous records. Perhaps SB?

Then there is the Short Program. People who see a Free Skate doesn't necessarily know that there has been a segment before and that scores are already in place. That needs to be clarified as well.

What I'm saying is that if you present the scores in an understandable way, people might not mind not knowing all the rules.

All it takes is a little programming and smart displaying. ISU can fix that.

In Japan and at some other events they provide score box with the red/green/yellow boxes for the elements. I would like it become a standard part of the score box. Also it would be nice to show the full protocol on the screen together with revealing final score of the skater so the audience would see why the TES has dropped for 5 points etc.

TallyT · Jul 7, 2020

dunffvanstorn said:
Unfortunately, the career of an athlete is very limited financially, unless we are talking about soccer players, NFL, NBA and so on. Do you think Yuzuru Hanyu earns more money than Cristiano Ronaldo?

No. The ESPN World Fame 100 in 2019 (they don't appear to have done 2020 probably because of the covid crisis) guesstimated Yuzu's endorsements at about $13.4 million US, which placed him in the lower 30s (he dropped down on the final fame list because of his total lack of social media); the year before, they couldn't even guesstimate, so it's likely that figure is conservative, but the top players in soccer, NBA, gold and tennis (and yes, a few cricketers

made seriously bigger money, even taking into account his choosiness in how many he picks up.

Of the ladies currently competing, I believe Alina and Evgenia were the biggest earners at that time, and I'd be very surprised if, with her undeniable beauty and clever marketing, Alina isn't still in that position.

JazzUp · Jul 7, 2020

TallyT said:
and I'd be very surprised if, with her undeniable beauty and clever marketing, Alina isn't still in that position.

She is (for a second year in a row) - Forbes has just published an article about that: Outwardly she is an elf, and inside is an unbending warrior"

TallyT · Jul 7, 2020

JazzUp said:
She is (for a second year in a row) - Forbes has just published an article about that: Outwardly she is an elf, and inside is an unbending warrior"

I hunted down a bit further and although Evgenia is not in the 100, she also was said to have endorsements of $1 million, so she did fine.

Azikin · Jul 7, 2020

flanker said:
Happy 13th birthday to Sofia Akatieva

I also ask mods to unlock her FF :agree:

Happy birthday to my favourite cat girl.. :cheer:

please stay with Eteri..

nussnacker · Jul 7, 2020

flanker said:
American football is not worldwide popular sport

After all, there is only one football, the one Americans call soccer. The other one is just "prisoners' yard time"

Preach!!!

dunffvanstorn · Jul 7, 2020

flanker said:
American football is not worldwide popular sport

After all, there is only one football, the one Americans call soccer. The other one is just "prisoners' yard time"

You might be a little wrong about that.

American football is a billionaire industry. Do you know how many people worldwide watch the Superbowl? And how many people worldwide watch all the NFL games?

I can’t stand American football, but I also can’t deny how big and powerful it is. The amount of money they make is something figure skating can only dream of.

About Yuzu making 13.4 million a year, do you even know how much Cristiano Ronaldo makes a year, or better, a month? Just from his soccer club? 65 million a year, 105 million a year considering endorsements.

How much does Tom Brady make a year, just from his salary? 15 million, and he’s not even the highest paid NFL player, he’s the 18th highest paid. And that money disconsidering endorsements.

We take 1 example of figure skating of a highly paid skater (which is an anomaly) and try to compare with most soccer/NFL players... not the most fair comparison.

Even if Evgenia might make 1 million a year according to a poster here, that’s not her salary as a figure skater, it comes mainly from advertising contracts and ice shows. There’s no such thing as a stable contract/salary in figure skating for regular athletes.

flanker · Jul 7, 2020

dunffvanstorn said:
You might be a little wrong about that.

American football is a billionaire industry. Do you know how many people worldwide watch the Superbowl? And how many people worldwide watch all the NFL games?

I can’t stand American football, but I also can’t deny how big and powerful it is. The amount of money they make is something figure skating can only dream of.

About Yuzu making 13.4 million a year, do you even know how much Cristiano Ronaldo makes a year, or better, a month? Just from his soccer club? 65 million a year, 105 million a year considering endorsements.

How much does Tom Brady make a year, just from his salary? 15 million, and he’s not even the highest paid NFL player, he’s the 18th highest paid. And that money disconsidering endorsements.

We take 1 example of figure skating of a highly paid skater (which is an anomaly) and try to compare with most soccer/NFL players... not the most fair comparison.

Even if Evgenia might make 1 million a year according to a poster here, that’s not her salary as a figure skater, it comes mainly from advertising contracts and ice shows. There’s no such thing as a stable contract/salary in figure skating for regular athletes.

No, I am not :biggrin:

Scott512 · Jul 7, 2020

Jontor said:
I think that figure skating and its rules is too complicated nowadays for a casual viewer to understand. And it's a pity. This sport needs its fans to stay strong and to develop new great athletes.

But it doesn't have to be that way. As someone said, even in football (soccer) there are some strange rules that people don't fully understand, but the sport is popular anyway. Why is that?

I think it has to do with how everything is presented. Nowadays when you can follow the technical score live in figure skating is a HUGE improvement when it comes to accessibility and understanding of the sport. But it isn't enough. It can be presented even better.

We all know that the technical panel might intervene and call edges and underrotations etc. And it is very irritating when the tech score suddenly drops 5-10 points, I can understand that viewers that don't know figure skating get very confused. So why not display a range of scores. If the Tech panel flags one of the elements and want to look at it more closely, then display the possible deduction, like now is the tech score 52-55 points. After another questionable element it rises to 54-60 points. And so on. And if you fall, why not make that deduction immediately.

The PCS score is another problem. It also creates confusion for a non figure skating fan. When you see the tech score and it is in the lead, you might think that this person won, but that is not always the case. Doesn't make any sense for a casual viewer. So why not display a preliminary PCS score, based on this skaters previous records. Perhaps SB?

Then there is the Short Program. People who see a Free Skate doesn't necessarily know that there has been a segment before and that scores are already in place. That needs to be clarified as well.

What I'm saying is that if you present the scores in an understandable way, people might not mind not knowing all the rules.

All it takes is a little programming and smart displaying. ISU can fix that.

Well said you made very salient points. You should be running the international skating union not those ancient out of touch hacks they.

flanker said:
American football is not worldwide popular sport

After all, there is only one football, the one Americans call soccer. The other one is just "prisoners' yard time"

Maybe I will bring you to the Super Bowl in Tampa Bay next year.

and you could work on your tan at the same time.

Azikin said:
Happy birthday to my favourite cat girl.. please stay with Eteri..

Sofia will stay with EG. Well that is until the promises of riches and rewards come in from you-know-who.

lesnar001 · Jul 7, 2020

dunffvanstorn said:
You might be a little wrong about that.

About Yuzu making 13.4 million a year, do you even know how much Cristiano Ronaldo makes a year, or better, a month? Just from his soccer club? 65 million a year, 105 million a year considering endorsements.

65 million a year ---- is that US $$$$? Wow.

NFL QB Patrick Mahomes just signed a 10 year $500 million deal. But even that pales in comparison to Cristiano Ronaldo's annual salary.

flanker · Jul 7, 2020

Scott512 said:
Maybe I will bring you to the Super Bowl in Tampa Bay next year. and you could work on your tan at the same time.

Sorry, but people here are more interested in local 3rd league of petanque than Super Bowl :biggrin:

Of course that is a hyperbole, but truly the impact of american football outside american bordes is minimal. Even in countries more close to US rugby is much more important, not to mention the other truly worldwide sports. To be honest of the holy trinity of the most popular US sports - american football, baseball and basketball - only the third one is significant internationally with fans, clubs and large field of players, the other two are done only by not numerous groups of fans (e.g. when I was a boy back in the 90s I was one of the only about 100 people who understood the rules of baseball in my country because we were playing it at summer camp :laugh:

).

Jontor · Jul 7, 2020

flanker said:
American football is not worldwide popular sport

After all, there is only one football, the one Americans call soccer. The other one is just "prisoners' yard time"

You're right. It doesn't matter if American Football is a $Billion sport in the US. It is still pretty much a one nation's sport and it looks like meaningless cheated rugby to me.

I would rather watch the Finnish sport called Wife Carrying (aka Hag Carrying) which is much more exciting than American Rugby...erhm...Football.

I'm a sports fan and follow almost every Olympic sport. American Football is not an Olympic sport and there is a reason for that...

Sorry for the :eek:

topic:

zounger · Jul 7, 2020

The truth is there are a lot of money in Super bowl and American football but that's mainly because US is a big financial power and independently from other countries can support it. It's internal market is enough to distribute this amount of money from athlete contracts to TV, commercials etc. The truth is also that American football is not popular outside of US. No one actually watch it in Europe, Latin America, Asia etc. But there are some attempts lately to popularize it, that's true as well, but in very artificial way.

The king of (team) sports is football (normal one) and I see it to remain like this for the next decades.

2020-21 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

YuliaLipnitskayaFan1

Mathman

dunffvanstorn

dunffvanstorn

flanker

flanker

flanker

flanker

TallyT

JazzUp

#янехомяк!

TallyT

Azikin

nussnacker

one and only

dunffvanstorn

flanker

Scott512

lesnar001

flanker

Jontor

zounger

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