Once the premier event on the skating calendar, the Nationals remain the one path to future Olympic glory. But they are being obscured by a host of big-money, showbizzy, made-for-TV competitions, which feature figure skating’s most famous names cashing in on past Olympic glory. It’s a case of deja vu all over again and again and again, as some combination of the same international cast – Kristi Yamaguchi, Katarina Witt, Nancy Kerrigan, Oksana Baiul, Brian Boitano, Scott Hamilton, Viktor Petrenko, Paul Wylie and Kurt Browning – compete in a variety of formats. “Right now it’s somewhere between wrestling and American Gladiators,” concedes Evy Scotvold, coach of Kerrigan and Wylie, who nevertheless applauds the new opportunities for elite skaters. “It’s given the skating audience what they wanted – more!”
CBS led the charge. Having lost the National Football League to Fox, the network hoped to reinvigorate its sports programming by attracting female viewers. But CBS hasn’t had the ice to itself. Virtually every network and cable outlet has featured skating shows weekend afternoons and even in prime time. “I’m proud of our events, but now there’s skating on every weekend, every hour,” says CBS sports president David Kenin, adding jokingly: “You think those other copycat bastards saw our ratings from Lillehammer?” (The Olympic ladies’ competition produced the sixth-highest rating in history.) International Management Group’s TV division has produced twice as many skating shows as in years past. “The ratings are consistently good and the sponsors remain interested,” says IMG’s Scan McManus. “But we’re close to the saturation point.”
The U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA) thinks it’s gone beyond the saturation point, to where the ice is flooded. “The boom has been great for absolutely everybody – the skaters, skating fans, coaches, TV and advertisers – except the skating federations,” says Michael Rosenberg, a longtime skaters’ agent, “because they haven’t been able to control it.” But USFSA officials insist that these new events will damage the sport. They fear that made-up rules (such as eliminating the required jumps of Olympic-style competition) and celebrity judges will ultimately hurt the sport. They see skaters racing from event to event, putting forth half-hearted efforts in technically undemanding routines – and being judged like contestants in a beauty-pageant talent competition. “They are destroying their credibility and putting skating in jeopardy,” says USFSA president Claire Ferguson.
The skaters are also putting their Olympic chances in jeopardy. While the USFSA now offers its own money events, it has refused to approve the rival competitions. Skaters who perform in nonapproved events are currently ineligible for the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. According to the USFSA, that is no big loss. “They may have the names, but they’re no longer the best skaters,” says executive director Jerry Lace. “Our skaters don’t yet have the big names, but they are the best skaters.” That may have been true once, when champion skaters had no choice but to become show skaters, figure skating’s equivalent of a Vegas lounge act. But no longer. With lucrative new options – even those that prize fun over axels – former Olympians are maintaining their skills. Certainly there will be no one performing in Providence who combines the technical skill and artistry of a former gold medalist like Yamaguchi.
The lack of big names won’t keep TV from giving the Nationals star treatment. ABC will televise both the men’s and ladies’ finals live, and ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 will produce other programming from the competition. The post-Olympic year is always for rebuilding. TV will likely focus on America’s most promising skater, Michelle Kwan, 14, a former world junior champion, and the duel between a pair of 23-year-old, two-time national champions, Scott Davis and Todd Eldredge. After all, today’s up-and-comers are tomorrow’s Olympic heroes – and, if they’re really lucky, future Ice Wars combatants.
