Olympic Gold Is the Ticket for Skaters and Rink Owners Alike

As Olympians gather for Friday night’s opening ceremonies in Nagano, Japan, the stars are aligned for the ice-skating industry to score a perfect 10 in the sports marketing game.

Figure skaters Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski hope to skate rings around the gold and silver medals, while five-time U.S. men’s champion Todd Eldredge is expected to challenge Canadian Elvis Stojko for the gold.

And, in an unusual marketing move, the National Hockey League is taking an unprecedented midseason break to allow stars like Wayne Gretzky to shine for the first time on their national teams.

“The skating gods are smiling on us,” said Michael Rosenberg, a Palm Desert agent who represents more than 40 skaters. “The picture is very, very positive.”

More than 200 new ice-skating facilities--many of them with restaurants, game rooms and gyms--have opened in recent years. Newcomers such as Stephen J. Coonan, president of the new Irvine Ice Arena near the San Diego Freeway, say demand from hockey skaters alone will keep their rinks busy.

“Our analysis shows a tremendous appetite for new rinks,” said Kris Thampi, chief operating officer of Melville, N.Y.-based Family Golf Centers Inc., which recently opened six skating rinks around the country. “Things like the Olympics and the NHL’s new marketing strength are contributing factors.”

The number of youth ice hockey leagues has soared to 27,000, from 12,000 in 1985. And a Chicago-based trade group, the Ice Skating Institute, reports that nearly 3,000 figure skaters showed up at its last team competition--up from 600 in 1978.

The skating industry traces its ongoing boom to 1988, when ABC broadcast the Calgary Games live in the U.S. Viewers continue to flock to skating because it’s a sensual sport that blends grace and athleticism with glamour and drama.

And television networks love skating because on-the-ice competitions are tailor-made for the cameras. Skating also offers attractive demographics--particularly for networks such as CBS, which turned to skating to counter NFL broadcasts on rival networks. Networks will broadcast more than 160 hours of skating this year, up from about 30 hours at the start of the decade.

Viewers are gobbling up everything the networks offer. Skating’s top-ranked show in recent months--a broadcast of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 10--drew 11.2 million viewers--far fewer than the Super Bowl’s 133.4 million, but enough to beat most Major League Baseball playoff games.

The figure skating world is still talking about Nancy Kerrigan’s run-in with Tonya Harding. In fact, the two women will appear tonight on a Fox show featuring interviews and performances by top female skaters from the 1994 Winter Olympics.

The unprecedented publicity from the strange encounter with Harding helped Kerrigan and her agent to land endorsements with Walt Disney Co., Revlon, Ray-Ban, Campbell Soup Co. and others.

Kwan and Lipinski aren’t likely to reach the Olympian heights that Kerrigan achieved when she parlayed a 1994 silver medal into endorsements reportedly worth $10 million.

“No one expects 1994 to happen again,” said Donald Bartelson, a longtime figure skating coach. “With Nancy/Tonya, skating was on the front page for something like 97 straight days. . . . No one is going to get $10 million--not even $5 million.”

But dozens of skaters can now turn national titles and strong Olympic performances into million-dollar incomes, says sports agent Rosenberg. But for most skaters, the real wealth is generated by touring with professional troupes, individual tours and winning made-for-TV competitions that offer hefty cash prizes.

Lipinski and Kwan each have garnered a handful of endorsements, ranging from apparel to consumer goods. And, observers say, the different products associated with those endorsements illustrate how skating can appeal to a variety of consumers.

Mattel Inc. is using Lipinski to sell “skating” Barbie dolls to preteens. The 15-year-old is the first athlete ever to appear in a Barbie commercial. And, although she’s older than Mattel’s target audience, the company describes her as a perfect endorser.

“She’s so talented, so driven, such an all-American girl,” said Lisa Licht, Mattel’s vice president of marketing. “And young girls today are spending so much more time on sports than they did five years ago.”

While Mattel is using Lipinski to talk to the grade-school set, Donna Karan Corp. is draping Lipinski in fashionable costumes as part of its bid to expand its appeal to upscale, sports-oriented women.

At the same time, Campbell Soup’s marketing plan calls for 140 million soup labels carrying pictures of Lipinski, Kwan and 1995 U.S. champion Nicole Bobek.

“Figure skating is enormously popular among females,” said Kevin Lowery, director of public information for Campbell Soup, which has sponsored figure skating since 1982. “This sport is the ideal vehicle for a company like ours.”

Campbell’s marketing department is drawn to skaters because its stars “are very approachable,” Lowery said. “They look and act like the people next door.”

The marketing potential for the NHL stars appearing in Nagano isn’t as clear-cut.

Because hockey games generally will be broadcast late at night, the NHL and its players won’t reap the television ratings enjoyed by the National Basketball Assn.’s prime-time Dream Teams.

Still, league officials are optimistic. “It’s another exposure vehicle for us,” said NHL Chief Operating Officer Steve Benson. “Closing down the season for a few weeks isn’t without some major risks, but the marketing opportunities will more than balance them out.”

The league is counting on televised interviews and feature stories about its players to “give fans more appreciation of our players,” Benson said. “That will help spread awareness and help break down some stereotypes at the same time.”

Meanwhile, the skating rink business is readying to turn fans of the Olympic telecast into customers. Construction crews have been scrambling in recent weeks to finish the Irvine Ice Arena in time for the anticipated Olympic swell.

Co-owner Coonan recognizes the benefit of having the new ice rink open for the Olympic Games: “It’s like free advertising. All kinds of people will be watching the Games, and will want to go and skate.”

In addition to worrying that viewers will overdose on skating programs, some rink operators wonder how many aging television viewers are likely to strap on skates and head to the rink. And the rush to build rinks is forcing some rinks to cut prices to draw customers--as well as raise the issue of an industry consolidation.

The rink industry has long been dominated by municipalities and mom-and-pop operators who are wary of big companies like Family Golf Centers and developer Trizec-Hahn.

Family Golf’s six rinks are part of an ambitious plan to add rinks in many major metropolitan areas, and Trizec-Hahn has added arenas at some of its shopping centers.

“The question is how many sheets of ice a geographic area can absorb--whether the development rate exceeds the absorption rate,” said Peter Martell, executive director of the Ice Skating Institute.

Bartelson, who recalls a similar expansion in the 1970s that was halted by the energy crisis, believes that “there’s some building going on that’s driven more by passion than the pocketbook.”

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Skates Rate

Television networks now broadcast more than 160 hours a year of ice-skating competition, and that figure will soar this year because of the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Ice skating’s top-rated program drew an estimated 11.2 million viewers recently. In comparison, Super Bowl 1998 drew 133.4 million viewers.

Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 1. U.S. Figure Skating Championships (ABC, Jan. 10)

No. of viewers, in millions: 11.2

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 2. Scott Hamilton: Back on the Ice (CBS, Nov. 5)

No. of viewers, in millions: 10.9

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 3. Ice Wars: USA vs. the World (CBS, Nov. 28)

No. of viewers, in millions: 9.1

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 4. Snowden on Ice (CBS, Nov. 28)

No. of viewers, in millions: 8.8

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 5. U.S. Figure Skating Championships (ABC, Jan. 8)

No. of viewers, in millions: 8.0

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 6. Battle of the Sexes on Ice (Fox, Jan. 2)

No. of viewers, in millions: 6.5

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 7. World Team Figure Skating Championships (CBS, Dec. 27)

No. of viewers, in millions: 6.3

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 8. U.S. Figure Skating Championships (ABC, Nov. 1)

No. of viewers, in millions: 6.3

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 9. U.S. Figure Skating Championships (ABC, Jan. 10)

No. of viewers, in millions: 5.3

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Top broadcast skating events in recent months: 10. Skate International, France (Fox, Nov. 29)

No. of viewers, in millions: 4.3

Source: Nielsen Media Research