Ballgame to Ballroom, Virtual Sports Are Winning
By SELENA ROBERTS
Sports of The Times
June 24, 2007
Colorado Springs
Apolo Anton Ohno is a man comfortable competing in spandex, given the second-skin uniform of a short-track speedskater, but on this occasion, he pleaded for wardrobe control.
“No sequins and rhinestones,” Ohno said.
He is an athlete conditioned to focus with enough force to levitate nickels, but at this event, as he rigorously trained from 10 a.m. to midnight each day, he also practiced emoting joy.
“That’s what people at home want to see,” Ohno said. “If it looks like you’re preparing for an Olympic sport, they might get turned off.”
Ohno is a two-time gold-medal winner of Winter Olympic fame who is instantly recognized on the campus of the United States Olympic Training Center under the chin of Pike’s Peak, but has recently ascended to a different stratosphere of celebrity.
“It’s something unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before,” Ohno said last week, adding: “It’s funny. When people come up to me now and say, ‘Hey, are you the guy from the dancing show?’ I say, ‘Well, yeah.’ ”
Ohno is the proud winner of “Dancing With the Stars,” a grueling three-month test of cha-cha supremacy that ended last month with an average audience of about 23 million. Note: Every ratings point is roughly equal to one nervous bone in a sports commissioner’s body.
This past year, the World Series, the N.B.A. finals and the Stanley Cup finals hit record lows in television audience as a nation turned to Mambo Kings and plate spinners over home run sultans and King James. Even prime-time N.F.L. ratings lost ground against clown acts.
Crowded media landscape, commissioners say.
But the rage over competitions like “Dancing With the Stars,” “American Idol” and “America’s Got Talent” isn’t a rationalized phase but a social shift that, in part, reflects a quantifiable disillusionment with mainstream sports.
For years, as image issues, unaccountable salaries, criminal mischief and steroid suspicions piled up like cultural debt, league officials found comfort by staring into a mirror for self-affirmation, repeating, “It’s only a problem when fans stop watching.”
Now they have — at least casual ones. Virtual competitions are fulfilling conventional sports cravings for winners and losers, for drama and incredible feats. Need a replay? It can be found on YouTube, the replacement for the highlight reel. Need an analyst? Think of Paula Abdul as a loopier version of the loopy John Madden.
Talent shows also possess one element the pro playing field does not: a public platform that is not tilted by typecasting. League commissioners have a history of remaining zipped in the go-go boot era of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, failing to court the sports-sophisticated woman. Their loss.
In a coed workplace, where Mars and Venus are seeking a common planet, the water-cooler gab isn’t starting with “Did you see the game,” but “Did you see ‘Idol’?”
Virtual competitions provide the disenfranchised sports fans a sense of control. They cannot stop Barry Bonds’s pursuit of Henry Aaron or eliminate the Spurs out of boredom, but viewers have a voice — or at least a text-message vote — in the outcome of “Dancing With the Stars.”
“There is a large portion of society who is into watching people succeed, into watching competition, and this is an interactive way to do that,” Ohno said, adding: “They feel a part of that by voting and calling in. And I think that’s important.”
It’s empowering. The PlayStation generation has decided, Why watch a tackle when you can make one on a video game?
•
Adults need escapes, too. From George J. Mitchell’s investigation. From Kobe Bryant’s ingratitude. And yet it would seem a contradiction when the couch crowd flips on a talent show to see athletes waltzing. But the setting for the N.F.L. legend Emmitt Smith — last year’s dancing champion — is part of the allure.
Just who is Smith on this different stage? Talent shows provide an opportunity for athletes to strip away the intense veneer of sports, to be more accessible on reality TV than they have been in action.
“It has helped me to explore a little bit about myself,” Ohno said. “I’m more out of my shell. Athletes are pretty much closed in and don’t reveal their personalities too much because they live this very different and awkward lifestyle of training. They’re almost in seclusion.”
•
Ohno gained more than a trophy and career opportunities and a layer of fame from “Dancing With the Stars.” Oddly enough, Ohno, with plans to compete in the 2010 Winter Games, probably gained a few extra viewers for the Olympics.
During the 2006 Turin Games, marked by Bode Miller’s bar-hopping, the nation channeled its attention on “Idol” to discover amateurs they could identify with. Now they know Ohno, if only for his dance moves.
“Maybe it will mean that many more people will be watching short track,” Ohno said. “That’s not just good for the sport, but for the Olympic movement. And we need that.”
Maybe this should be the strategy for pro sports: Find an athletic star who can win on the virtual field, then return to the real games with a new audience behind him. Anyone know if Tim Duncan can tango?
E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com
Sports of The Times
June 24, 2007
Colorado Springs
Apolo Anton Ohno is a man comfortable competing in spandex, given the second-skin uniform of a short-track speedskater, but on this occasion, he pleaded for wardrobe control.
“No sequins and rhinestones,” Ohno said.
He is an athlete conditioned to focus with enough force to levitate nickels, but at this event, as he rigorously trained from 10 a.m. to midnight each day, he also practiced emoting joy.
“That’s what people at home want to see,” Ohno said. “If it looks like you’re preparing for an Olympic sport, they might get turned off.”
Ohno is a two-time gold-medal winner of Winter Olympic fame who is instantly recognized on the campus of the United States Olympic Training Center under the chin of Pike’s Peak, but has recently ascended to a different stratosphere of celebrity.
“It’s something unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before,” Ohno said last week, adding: “It’s funny. When people come up to me now and say, ‘Hey, are you the guy from the dancing show?’ I say, ‘Well, yeah.’ ”
Ohno is the proud winner of “Dancing With the Stars,” a grueling three-month test of cha-cha supremacy that ended last month with an average audience of about 23 million. Note: Every ratings point is roughly equal to one nervous bone in a sports commissioner’s body.
This past year, the World Series, the N.B.A. finals and the Stanley Cup finals hit record lows in television audience as a nation turned to Mambo Kings and plate spinners over home run sultans and King James. Even prime-time N.F.L. ratings lost ground against clown acts.
Crowded media landscape, commissioners say.
But the rage over competitions like “Dancing With the Stars,” “American Idol” and “America’s Got Talent” isn’t a rationalized phase but a social shift that, in part, reflects a quantifiable disillusionment with mainstream sports.
For years, as image issues, unaccountable salaries, criminal mischief and steroid suspicions piled up like cultural debt, league officials found comfort by staring into a mirror for self-affirmation, repeating, “It’s only a problem when fans stop watching.”
Now they have — at least casual ones. Virtual competitions are fulfilling conventional sports cravings for winners and losers, for drama and incredible feats. Need a replay? It can be found on YouTube, the replacement for the highlight reel. Need an analyst? Think of Paula Abdul as a loopier version of the loopy John Madden.
Talent shows also possess one element the pro playing field does not: a public platform that is not tilted by typecasting. League commissioners have a history of remaining zipped in the go-go boot era of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, failing to court the sports-sophisticated woman. Their loss.
In a coed workplace, where Mars and Venus are seeking a common planet, the water-cooler gab isn’t starting with “Did you see the game,” but “Did you see ‘Idol’?”
Virtual competitions provide the disenfranchised sports fans a sense of control. They cannot stop Barry Bonds’s pursuit of Henry Aaron or eliminate the Spurs out of boredom, but viewers have a voice — or at least a text-message vote — in the outcome of “Dancing With the Stars.”
“There is a large portion of society who is into watching people succeed, into watching competition, and this is an interactive way to do that,” Ohno said, adding: “They feel a part of that by voting and calling in. And I think that’s important.”
It’s empowering. The PlayStation generation has decided, Why watch a tackle when you can make one on a video game?
•
Adults need escapes, too. From George J. Mitchell’s investigation. From Kobe Bryant’s ingratitude. And yet it would seem a contradiction when the couch crowd flips on a talent show to see athletes waltzing. But the setting for the N.F.L. legend Emmitt Smith — last year’s dancing champion — is part of the allure.
Just who is Smith on this different stage? Talent shows provide an opportunity for athletes to strip away the intense veneer of sports, to be more accessible on reality TV than they have been in action.
“It has helped me to explore a little bit about myself,” Ohno said. “I’m more out of my shell. Athletes are pretty much closed in and don’t reveal their personalities too much because they live this very different and awkward lifestyle of training. They’re almost in seclusion.”
•
Ohno gained more than a trophy and career opportunities and a layer of fame from “Dancing With the Stars.” Oddly enough, Ohno, with plans to compete in the 2010 Winter Games, probably gained a few extra viewers for the Olympics.
During the 2006 Turin Games, marked by Bode Miller’s bar-hopping, the nation channeled its attention on “Idol” to discover amateurs they could identify with. Now they know Ohno, if only for his dance moves.
“Maybe it will mean that many more people will be watching short track,” Ohno said. “That’s not just good for the sport, but for the Olympic movement. And we need that.”
Maybe this should be the strategy for pro sports: Find an athletic star who can win on the virtual field, then return to the real games with a new audience behind him. Anyone know if Tim Duncan can tango?
E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com
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