After 12 years, with the perfect play of Chinese double skater Sui Wenjing / Han Cong, China’s figure skating won the gold medal again.
At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Shen Xue / Zhao Hongbo won the first gold medal of China’s flower skating Winter Olympics. Chinese players boarded the highest podium ruled by Europeans and Americans for the first time, which also made the “minority sport” known to more Chinese people.
In the same year, the “shenzhao” group announced its retirement and held a ticket selling ice wedding on September 4. International well-known flower skaters such as Plushenko, yakutin and Asada Zhenyang attended and participated in the performance. The Ice Wedding kicked off the commercial performance of Chinese figure skating and gave birth to the first localized commercial performance brand of figure skating.
However, with the “shenzhao” group announced the “closure” in 2012, there has been no national influential players in China’s figure skating project. In addition, due to the impact of the epidemic in recent two years, China’s figure skating commercial performance has basically stalled.
Can the combination of “scallion barrel”, a gold medal after 12 years, still ignite the “flower skating fever” of Chinese people
short ten years
What is the most “beautiful” event of the Winter Olympics? The answer must be figure skating.
Since the opening of the Winter Olympics on February 4, figure skating has firmly occupied the attention of the audience and netizens with the appearance of athletes, elegant movements and beautiful “kosten” (competition clothes). It has become a rising star to challenge 4a. Topics such as “three sets of dolls” in Russia have exploded on the Internet. There are hundreds of hot searches related to figure skating on the microblog platform alone.
Different from other competitive or antagonistic sports, the artistic elements in figure skating competition endow this project with unique appreciation.
In 2002, Zhao Yue, a junior high school student, saw Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo who participated in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics on TV for the first time. Although “Shen Zhao” made mistakes and regretted picking copper, Zhao Yue was deeply moved by their performance. Since then, she has become an “ice fan” for 20 years.
In 2006, the China Cup World Figure Skating Grand Prix left Beijing for the first time and settled in Nanjing. This is also the first time Zhao Yue, who lives in Jiangsu, saw flower skating competition and performance skating on the spot. In 2009, entering the Winter Olympic season, in order to witness the Olympic program of “Shen Zhao”, Zhao Yue, who had attended university in Beijing, took a hard seat on the train for nearly a day and arrived in Guangzhou, where the China Cup was held that year.
Before 2010, there were few opportunities for Chinese flower skating fans to see their idols on the spot. In addition to the national championships and China Cup held regularly every year, China’s flower skating commercial performance market was still in a desolate state. After Vancouver won the gold medal, “shenzhao” took advantage of the trend to announce the ice wedding. At the same time, the event sponsored by the makeup brand amriyazi and hosted by Shengli family, a sports industry company, also became China’s first flower skating commercial performance, and the localized commercial performance brand “ice Yazi” was born.
According to media reports, there were about 13000 tickets available for the Ice Wedding at that time, ranging from the lowest 100 yuan to the highest 1080 yuan, which had been sold out the day before the performance.
In foreign countries, figure skating commercial performance began to get on track in the 1980s. Japan’s first figure skating commercial performance brand “Prince ice world” appeared in 1978, and American img company founded “stars on ice” in 1986. Since then, flower skating commercial performance brands in various regions have blossomed and continued to this day
img’s flower skating commercial performance brand will tour in 2022. (tuyuan brand official website)
Therefore, the commercialization history of Chinese figure skating is very short. The successful holding of the first commercial show in 2010 also allows foreign brands to see the existence of the Chinese market. In 2011, the famous Swiss brand “art on ice” named “Ice Dance Shanghai” entered China and performed in Shanghai for two consecutive years.
However, the Chinese figure skater’s “debut is the peak” and “Ice Dance Shanghai” have only existed for two years; In 2016, “ice artistry” parted ways with its sponsors and turned into “Ice Festival”. However, it only held the only performance in the same year. The famous Japanese brand “fantasy on ice” announced in 2019 that it would land in Shanghai in 2020, but it failed due to the epidemic.
In 2017, China Hongyue sports spent “hundreds of millions of Yuan” to introduce img’s flower skating commercial performance brand “stars on ice” into China and named it “star on ice”. The two sides reached an exclusive strategic cooperation agreement for ten years. However, after only two or three games, the “Ice Star” also fell into a state of suspension
difficult to attract “gold”
In 2017, Li Meng and three classmates who went to school in Beijing bought the lowest 80 yuan seat ticket of “Ice Star” and watched the commercial show attended by flower skaters such as Pang Qing / Tong Jian and Plushenko.
Li Meng and her classmates are not “senior ice fans” and do not recognize all the athletes. However, out of their interest in figure skating, they are still willing to feel the charm of figure skating performance on site. However, Li Meng recalled that the attendance rate of the performance was not high, and there were still many scalpers “selling” tickets outside the hall before admission. “I feel that the venue is quite empty, and the attendance rate is about half. It is obvious that most of the audience don’t know much except Pang Qing / Tong Jian, so they often stay in the cold.”
Although there is a mass movement in China, it is not very good on the basis of mass movement. According to the survey data of Ipsos from 28 countries around the world, China was the most concerned about figure skating in the Winter Olympics before the start of the competition. Baidu Index also shows that flower skating ranks third in the popularity of all winter Olympic events.
But there is no doubt that there is still a certain distance from heat to “realization”, and star athletes are the best and fastest “catalyst”.
Although Japanese men’s singles players failed to achieve three consecutive championships in the Beijing Winter Olympics, they are still “top traffic”. At the 2018 Pingchang Winter Olympic Games, he successfully defended his title, and then held a celebration parade in his hometown Sendai. According to Japanese media reports, the economic benefits of this activity alone reached about 1.8 billion yen (about 113 million yuan). The commercial performances participated by Yu shengjiexian were full. In the commercial performance season from April to July 2018, Yu shengjiexian was said to bring 10 billion yen (about 600 million yuan) to Japan’s sliding Federation.
With the emergence of fledgling and other competitive players, the central market of flower skating commercial performance has also shifted from Europe and the United States to Japan. More than 10 commercial performance brands hold activities in Japan in a year, including commercial performances supported by pure local players.
Since the retirement of “Shen Zhao”, China’s flower skating team has not lacked players with international medal competitiveness, such as Yan Han and Jin Boyang in men’s singles, Pang Qing / Tong Jian, Zhang Dan / Zhang Hao, Sui Wenjing / Han Cong in pairs, and Li Zijun in women’s singles, who is slightly weak but has a certain influence. However, their influence has failed to “break the circle” to a greater extent, and there are time and energy constraints for active players to participate in commercial performances.
As the iron powder of “Shen Zhao”, Zhao Yue continued to watch the flower skating competition, and there were other favorite players, but he never saw the commercial show again. “There are few ice shows. In addition, the local players are not so attractive. Let me mobilize the public.” Zhao Yue believes that the “starlight” of Chinese figure skaters has decreased significantly over the years.
The revenue of a commercial show is roughly divided into three parts: brand sponsorship, box office and surrounding commodity sales. As early as the first year of “ice artistry”, the organizers once told the media: “the investment of a flower skating commercial performance is more than holding a large concert. At present, it is certainly not profitable to rely on the box office alone.”
When “Ice Star” held its first performance in Beijing, it attracted amoro jewelry to become the chief sponsor. Its strategic partners include sina sports and Beijing Hyundai. In addition, its official partners also include Harvest Fund, Zhangzhong wealth, 8848 titanium mobile phone, 5100 Tibet Bingchuan mineral water and other brands. But now the project has been stagnant for three years, and it is still unknown whether it can be reopened smoothly under the influence of the epidemic
from “out of circle” to “broken circle”
However, the popularity of figure skating and athletes during the Winter Olympics can be regarded as a positive signal.
Russian women’s singles players “Sasha” trusova and “Qianjin” sherbakova sucked countless fans in a short time. During the Winter Olympics, Qianjin’s microblog rose by more than one million, and the number of fans reached 850000 within 16 days after entering station B. Chinese players also gained a large number of fans, including Sui Wenjing / Han Cong, whose microblog rose by 1.22 million during the Winter Olympics
sherbakova, nicknamed “daughter”, has attracted countless fans during the Winter Olympics. (tuyuan station B)
Whether it is the “4A obsession” or the gold medal moment of Sui Wenjing / Han Cong, this winter Olympic Games not only has legends, but also moving stories. As a performance sport, figure skating once again shows its strong charm and appeal. While making good use of the “star effect”, China Flower skating commercial show should also explore more possibilities in content and form.
Generally speaking, the most common flower skating commercial performance is the “platter” performance. The invited athletes usually perform 1 ~ 2 programs alone or in cooperation with other athletes in a commercial performance. For most viewers, such presentation would be a little boring if they were not familiar with each player. Europe has a commercial performance brand focusing on “Opera + figure skating” and “fashion + figure skating”. Japan has also tried to make an ice musical, moving the story of the tale of Genji to the ice rink.
In recent years, there is no lack of successful examples of “breaking the circle” in the niche culture market. The variety “sound into the hearts of the people” has driven the popularity of musical dramas. The variety “dance storm” and Henan satellite TV Spring Festival Gala also enable “laymen” to enjoy dance dramas. As a flower skating with artistic elements, it may also have the same possibility.
China has also made attempts in variety shows such as “cross border ice and Snow King”, but the effect is more entertaining and lacks the design to systematically show the players’ professional ability. In the big country of Russian figure skating, ice age, which is participated by professional players, has lasted for many years, and launched the children’s version of ice age kids in 2018. Similar to the competition system of “talent show”, professional coaches act as mentors and choose their favorite little players to ensure the professionalism of the program.
Of course, the success of the commercialization of a sport is also closely related to the talent reserve of the sport. Wanyu Fangfei, an ice aesthetic education institution, announced that it had completed ten million a-round financing, and the ice and snow training industry was favored by capital again. However, many ice fans are worried that if there are no more internationally competitive young skaters in China in the short term, the influence of this project in China will be weakened.
Whether the fire of the Winter Olympics can “burn” the ice field remains to be seen.
