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future for curling
Can Olympics' hot niche sports hold their fans?
By Carl Bialik
The winter Olympic Games come every four years, and their golden sheen rubs off on many niche sports that in the years between garner approximately zero interest from the average American viewer.
Bobsleighing, curling, Super G, luge, and short-track speed skating whir in front of the U.S.'s radar screen for 17 days.
The problem for these sports is that the rub-off effect is brief. As the winter Olympic Games fade from memory, so does interest in these sports.
"If past performance is any indication, the Olympics tend not to cause a major boost in the interest of Americans in minor sports," says Marc Ganis, president of sports consulting firm Sportscorp Ltd.
"There's always the expectation there will be a boost, but it almost never happens."
However, this year's Olympics could change all that, and analysts say a major force is the extensive exposure given to these niche sports on NBC's cable affiliates CNBC and MSNBC, which could give the sports a foothold in cable TV after the closing ceremonies.
"One of the best things that has occurred in this Olympics is that NBC is using CNBC and MSNBC to broadcast entire events that have niche followings," says Ganis.
"That has been great. I have been watching more of CNBC's coverage than I have of NBC's coverage."
The sports with the best shot at crossing over into the margins of mainstream: short-track speed skating, downhill skiing, and curling.
With short-track speed skating, two things are working in its favor: its appeal as a head-to-head, physical race--skaters jockey for position around a short rink in close quarters--and the rock-star status of U.S. teenage phenomenon Apolo Anton Ohno.
Both these elements combined synergistically in the men's 1,000 meter race, when a pileup of skaters brought Ohno down. He had been leading but finished with the silver, along with a nasty gash in his leg.
"It's helped by the fact that there are a number of people on the track, so it's a true race against other people, as opposed to against the clock," Ganis says.
"There's some strategy, some physical play there, and the potential for controversy as well, all of which lead to the kind of sport we like here in the U.S."
Shawn Bradley, vice president and chief operating officer of the Bonham Group Market Research Company, agrees.
"It's very exciting to watch skaters going that fast, in that proximity. You're on the edge of your seat," he says.
"It's the same kind of sensation as waiting for a crash in auto racing. It could command some following in future broadcasts."
Certainly, Ohno should help that process.
A recent Sports Illustrated cover boy, Ohno has long hair, a rebellious attitude, a mysterious air and aspirations for four medals.
"He's a very captivating story," Bradley says. "He's kind of the Marion Jones of the Winter Olympics. Everyone wants to see if he can fulfill his potential."
Technology, in the form of a tracking camera that moves along with the skaters, could also help short track's chances.
"It runs parallel with the skaters to give you some sense of their speed, how they skate," Bradley says. "It's an interesting dynamic."
Similarly, a stunning new technology is reviving an old winter Olympics standby: Alpine skiing. NBC's "SimulCam" shows two skiers seemingly taking on the course simultaneously, side-by-side, in real time.
In reality this would be terribly dangerous--two skiers throttling down the hill at more than 80 miles-per-hour would be hazards to each other. But in virtual reality, it is quite useful to the TV viewer, who can see where each skier lost ground to the leader, and where his or her path veered from that of the leader's.
So while the rules of the Alpine events haven't changed drastically, their presentation has, giving them the veneer of head-to-head competition that we Americans seem to prefer to the against-the-clock variety.
"That's one of the top technological innovations I've seen in sports broadcasting in a long time," says Lynn Kahle, professor of sports marketing at the University of Oregon, about SimulCam.
"It does change the whole thing into a race between athletes instead of a race against the clock. I think it's going to make more people want to watch downhill skiing."
However, others are skeptical of one innovation's ability to have a large impact on viewers' interest.
"I think it's a very neat technology," says Neal Pilson, former president of CBS Sports and currently president of Pilson Communications, a sports consulting company based in Westchester County, N.Y. "But will it revolutionize skiing on television? I don't think so."
None of the technological innovations are present in curling, basically shuffleboard on ice, but the sport has nonetheless emerged as the cult favorite of these Games.
MSNBC's Olympic coverage, starring curling, has tripled viewing levels for the channel. And the sport's popularity has crossed over into other media: According to a published report, curling moved past tennis hottie Anna Kournikova on a recent day's Yahoo's Buzz Index that lists the most-searched sports words on the web.
And a surge of hits for curling on the Games' official sites make it one of the sites' top sports.
While most analysts agreed this was a momentary blip on the sports world's screen, they conceded the low-intensity sport could see increased participation, a necessary precursor to a permanent TV presence.
"Curling is growing inside the U.S.," Bradley says. "It is a tiny sport with a tiny following, but it could appreciate some growth."
Bradley thinks curling could be broadcast occasionally after the Games close, but Ganis doubts it.
"They'd be likely to get a few thousand people to watch," he says. "It may see a surge in participation, but as far as it being a significant spectator sport? I don't think so."
Interestingly, even the skeptical analysts admit they have been fascinated by MSNBC's curling coverage.
"I've watched some of the curling," Ganis says. "It's really not much of an athletic endeavor, but the strategic plays are more interesting than I had ever thought they were."
Pilson says, "I don't think curling is going to become a major televised sport in the U.S. But frankly I'm fascinated by the coverage. I think it's very interesting."
"Curling has kind of captured the imagination of people watching," Bradley says. "For people who haven't seen it before, the tactics are pretty interesting."
Ganis attributes part of the appeal to the very aspect of curling that makes it so different from the high-speed Olympic events: its accessibility, since curling is based more on tactics than athleticism.
"You can be 60 years old and have Olympic aspirations," Ganis says. "I'm sure there is substantial skill involved, but to refer to it as a sport is almost to refer to speed chess as a sport. It's much more just simple coordination than it is any great athletic ability."
Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, thinks the appeal of the odd sport is somewhat ironic.
"Curling now is a great sport to watch with your elbow in the rib of the person next to you and your tongue in your cheek," he says. "It isn't a great television sport."
Thompson, though skeptical, adds that "there is so much cable time now, you can have a curling channel, and it wouldn't surprise me." Indeed, MSNBC's reliance on curling has often made the erstwhile news channel seem like a curling channel during the Olympics.
Still, if curling, short-track speed skating, or Alpine skiing want their own cable channels, or even occasional broadcasts on ESPN2, they should act quickly and recall history.
"It happens every four years that there is a surge of interest in certain sports, but then interest drains fairly quickly," Ganis cautions.
"Everyone thinks he or she can be a bobsledder or get on one of the skeletons or decide to be a speed skater, but then interest wanes pretty quickly."
February 20, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Carl Bialik is a New York writer and a frequent contributor to Media Life.
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