Without Nancy-Tonya sizzle, interest fizzles
ATLANTA -- It's been 10 years this week since Wounded Knee, when Tonya Harding's hired goons whacked Nancy Kerrigan and Americans became enthralled with figure skating -- or assault and battery with sequins. Kerrigan is going into the US Figure Skating Hall of Fame tomorrow night. Harding, banned from the ice for life, is doing her bashing in a boxing ring these days. And their sport, with attendance dwindling and TV ratings shrinking, has been spinning in circles for the last couple of years.
Reasons abound. The Olympic pairs scandal. The lousy economy. The abundance of cable options. The same people in the same costumes doing the same routines. What's clear, though, is that the public isn't showing up or tuning in for a sport that once produced Super Bowl numbers.
None of the sessions for this week's US championships here are sold out, most of them nowhere close. The Champions on Ice tour makes only 18 stops this year and lasts just a month. TV ratings for major events are half of what they were a decade ago. Will it take another knee-capping to grab people's attention again?
Some of skating's problems -- most notably the slippage in attendance and ratings -- are showing up in most sports. Diversions (who knew about the Internet in 1994?) are simply too abundant, the market too splintered. When there were only three networks, it was easy for skating to grab a 34 share for a national championships. Last year, the Saturday prime-time share was 10.
But most of what ails the sport these days is self-inflicted. Too many events with too little at stake, with too many of the same skaters performing. If the spectator thinks she's seen it all before (that's another problem -- where are the men?), she's right.
The Nancy-Tonya soap opera -- and that's what it was, after all -- created a demand that skating simply couldn't satisfy and it wasn't all TV-driven.
The International Skating Union created a Grand Prix circuit to cash in on the soaring interest, pro-ams and opens and Ice Wars began popping up, tours were created and expanded. All with the same pool of a few dozen skaters, who could do last year's program in last year's outfit and still have a handsome payday.
What's been missing is the novelty, the fresh faces, the young kids stepping up and into the spotlight. Back before there was money in the sport, skating refreshed itself every quadrennium. Now, it simply recycles.
Michelle Kwan stood next to Harding on the awards podium in 1994 and she's still here, going for a seventh straight title. Michael Weiss, bidding for his fourth, is skating in his 11th nationals. Both are talking about continuing for two more years, through the next Winter Games in Turin.
Why not? Who's going to beat them? There's no limit to how long you can compete if you stay healthy and don't go to Yale. That's been Kwan's secret. The women who've beaten her move on -- Tara Lipinski to the pros, Sarah Hughes to New Haven. Those who could either get hurt (Naomi Nari Nam) or can't get it together (Sasha Cohen, Angela Nikodinov).
Kwan, meanwhile, just keeps chooglin'. She's still only 23, is of sound mind and body and still has world-class programs. There's no reason to quit, so she won't. "The possibility of me being at the Olympics in Italy is quite high," she declared here this week.
Same for the 27-year-old Weiss, who'd proclaimed two years ago that the 2002 Games would be his last. "I didn't want to have the mind-set that I would have another chance," he said yesterday. "I didn't want to give myself that out."
Even now, nobody's pushing him toward the exit. The state of US men's skating is as sorry as it's ever been. Last year's final in Dallas -- "absolute Abbott and Costello," said coach Frank Carroll -- was a Stooges film. Weiss messed up three jumps, ran into the flower girl and still won.
Tim Goebel, bogged down with injuries and boot problems, hasn't been himself since Olympus. Matt Savoie, Ryan Jahnke, and Johnny Weir still aren't ready for prime time. If he can stand up for seven minutes, the Skating Club of Boston's Scott Smith could end up champ. Will anybody be watching, in between NFL kickoffs?
Ten years ago because of a mugging in Detroit, we had skating and mayhem and blockbuster numbers. What we have now is skating. For a viewing public hooked on survivor series and reality shows, it's like Brady Bunch reruns.
