US Figure Skating Olympic Flop = Lost Revenue?

[Neverdull44]

Bloomberg News reports:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-24/figure-skating-flop-by-u-s-means-lost-riches-as-program-falters.html

Here's a few quotes from the article
-""We didn't deliver," said Rick Burton, the former chief marketing officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee. "We didn't take advantage of all the eyeballs that were there for figure skating."

-"Gold matters enormously," Burton, a sports management professor at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, said in a telephone interview. "In our culture, where winning is everything, you invoke Vince Lombardi or Adam Smith and capitalism, it's hard to build a marketing campaign around bronze or silver, because you're not really talking about the best athlete in the world. Every product wants to say it's the best in its category.""

-When an athlete becomes an endorser it helps boost the image of his or her sport as well, providing a less immediate but noteworthy value, Burton said.

"Had a female figure skater won gold and turned into a super pitch woman, we have to imagine that that would have put that figure skater on a pedestal," Burton said. "A lot of little girls would have said, 'I want to become a figure skater.'"

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OK, I think the last quote is a cop out for an advertising executive not doing his job.   His thinking is that if we win gold, advertisers will come.  Well, that's true.  That's easy.  Let them beat the path to your door.  But, that isn't how marketing works.

Isn't it also true that the marketing director has to also push the sport, at the local and national levels?  It's absolutely wrong to pin the popularity of little girls going into figure skating on whether or not our 3 US Olympic women's skaters won a gold medal!  That's a heavy burden to put on the backs of 3 young women.   Winning gold medals may be a factor, but it is not the only factor that goes into a surge of little girls wanting skating lessons.  How about the local rink's advertising campaign?   How about developing documentaries?  Reducing barriers via free skates or free skating field trips to elementary schools as part of the P.E. hour?    How about really working with the news providers to make skating more understood and provide a new aspect (like a speedometer of the athletes going into the jumps)?  How about the fact that our 3 U.S. women have been all over the media these past few weeks?  How about that all three of our women placed very high in the world?   How about a Korean-American girl wanting to skate because she saw another Korean girl skate and win Silver?   I started skating in the 2nd grade, not because of the Olympics, but because of Ice Capades.  How about all the rink interest when Nancy got wacked?  There are many reasons why there is a surge in skatings sign ups.  Media & gold medals may be one part of it, but the advertising executive needs to make sure he is doing his job too.

[jbruced]

I think the article had accurate conclusions, including the last quote that you referred to. The article was just stating the obvious results for athletes when they don't win the gold in any given competition. No gold, no big endorsement money etc. For whatever the sport association, well it means no big wave of enthusiastic newbies joining the ranks. That's all obvious business stuff.

I do also agree with the point I believe you are making, that the sports associations, USFSA in this case, shouldn't rely so heavily on the outcome of the Olympics to generate interest in the sport. The marketing needs to be more about enjoying the sport at the local level just because it is an interesting and challenging activity. Please correct me if I misunderstood your message.