Aug. 15, 1999
This month, national magazines have been running a striking full-page promotional advertisement from the U.S. Olympic Committee, featuring a photo of 1998 Olympic silver medalist Michelle Kwan superimposed on a background of a waving American flag.
Even more arresting is the text of the ad. Michelle Kwan showed America how to turn silver into gold. Who's our next hero?
By Sandra Loosemore
SportsLine Sports Writer
What's so remarkable about this? Although the ad is supposed to be promoting the Olympic movement, it's actually acknowledging the devaluation of an Olympic gold medal. What the ad is really saying is that professional success and "hero" status for skaters now have little to do with whether they ever stand on the top step of the podium at the Olympic Games.
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IT DIDN'T USED TO BE like this. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a tremendous gulf between the skater on top of the podium and everyone else. The Olympics were a winner-take-all event, in terms of fame and fortune for skaters.
Especially for female singles skaters -- and especially for American female singles skaters -- the financial prizes that went with an Olympic gold medal were considerable. 1968 champion Peggy Fleming and 1976 champion Dorothy Hamill got endorsement contracts and starring roles in network TV specials as well as lucrative touring deals.
For silver medalists Linda Fratianne (1980) and Rosalynn Sumners (1984), on the other hand, the hard reality of life after the Olympics meant touring with Disney on Ice. It was a grueling existence, skating in a dozen or more shows each week for up to 10 months at a time in front of audiences who were often more interested in seeing Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. It wasn't exactly star treatment.
Toller Cranston, who won a bronze medal at the 1976 games, perceived his Olympic experience as a crushing defeat: "Although John Curry was little more than six inches higher than I on the podium, he was on Mount Everest, and I was in the gutters of Calcutta. He had won; I had lost. He had graduated; I had failed."
BECAUSE IT HAS HISTORICALLY meant so much in establishing a skater's professional career, there have been extravagant dollar values assigned to the worth of an Olympic gold medal. Even before the knee-whacking incident in 1994 that catapulted Nancy Kerrigan into the headlines, there were reports in the press that a gold medal at the Olympics would be worth as much as $10 million to her in appearance fees and endorsement contracts. By 1998, the figures mentioned were as high as $20 million.
But this has turned out to be nonsense.
Kerrigan's endorsement deals evaporated, not because she brought home a silver medal from Lillehammer instead of a gold, but because of the inept way she handled herself during public appearances after the Olympics. It wasn't just a matter of making thoughtless remarks in front of open microphones; she let her skating skills go downhill and gave the impression that she was only showing up at skating events to pick up her paycheck.
Tara Lipinski's endorsement earnings since Nagano are nowhere close to $20 million. Believe it or not, it's estimated that she earned less money from endorsements last year than 1992 Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi.
Yamaguchi is reported to have the highest "Q" rating -- a measure of celebrities' public appeal, as compiled by Marketing Evaluations/TvQ Inc. -- of any skater. According to a recent report in the Chicago Tribune, last year alone Yamaguchi made about $2 million from endorsement contracts, in addition to her skating income.
Although she is now more than seven years removed from her Olympic triumph, Yamaguchi's popularity and earnings have actually increased with time. Her gold medal seems to be far less of a factor in her continuing popularity than the exemplary manner in which she has handled her professional career in the years since the Albertville games. She is a professional in the sense of being a conscientious and businesslike worker, not just in the sense of receiving pay for her skating.
YAMAGUCHI HAS KEPT HER TECHNICAL SKILLS at a very high level; she has always shown up well-prepared and well-trained for the events she participates in; and she, as well as her family and agent, have all kept a low profile off the ice. She has also chosen her commercial projects carefully, pursuing only those that contribute to enhancing her own image and do not detract from her primary focus as a skater.
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| Like she did at the 1991 worlds, Kristi Yamaguchi still outshines Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. (Allsport) |
The major factor in the shift away from Olympic credentials as the be-all and end-all in determining a skater's professional success has been the increase in television coverage of figure skating over the years.
In the "old days," figure skating got far less public exposure on television than it does now. Coverage of events like the U.S. Nationals and the World Championships came in 20-minute taped snippets on Saturday afternoons, buried between motorcycle racing, boxing and the like. The only time large audiences got to see figure skating on TV in prime time was during the Olympics. Skaters essentially had only the one four-minute opportunity every four years to establish their reputations.
But since the late 1980s, TV coverage of figure skating has grown to the point where there are now many hours of coverage of events all season long, every season. With so many more opportunities to see skaters perform at a variety of events of a period of years, many fans now recognize that the Olympic champion isn't necessarily the greatest skater of the time -- just the one who skated the best at one particular competition. Fans are more likely to judge skaters by their accomplishments over the long term than by one four-minute performance.
AS A RESULT, THE TOP OF THE PODIUM at the Olympics is no longer the Mt. Everest it once seemed to be. This is the new world of figure skating that has embraced not only Michelle Kwan but any number of other skaters who don't have an Olympic gold medal to their name.
Kurt Browning, who never won an Olympic medal of any color in three attempts despite winning four world titles, has reached the pinnacle of success as a professional skater. Elvis Stojko and Philippe Candeloro, who took silver and bronze, respectively, in Nagano, both have huge international fan followings and are much in demand on the tour circuit. Rudy Galindo, who never competed at the Olympic games at all, found his moment of success at the U.S. championships instead, and used it to launch a quite respectable professional career.
Kwan herself was already a commercial and popular success as a skater long before Nagano. She had a book deal, an endorsement deal, and contracts to tour and appear in made-for-TV competitions. She was so heavily promoted by the Fox television network, in particular, that fans sarcastically began to refer to their coverage of the Champions Series competitions as The Michelle Kwan Show. Since Nagano, she has done two TV specials, landed more endorsements and another book deal, as well as continuing to be in high demand for made-for-TV skating events.
A dozen or more years ago, this kind of commercial success from a silver medalist would have been unthinkable. Now, it's the norm. There are so many more opportunities available to the skaters, and the Olympics are no longer the driving force. On the contrary, the Olympics are becoming almost irrelevant compared to the commercial interests in skating: the promoters, agents and television networks.
So let's stop fooling ourselves. An Olympic gold medal isn't worth anything in terms of money. It's a nice bauble, no doubt, and a symbol of personal achievement and pride to the person who wears it. But it's not a guarantee of instant riches or long-term professional success.