How The ISU Has Modernized Figure Skating Events

A figure skating competition has plenty of personality on display as it stands. But at this year’s World Figure Skating Championship, even before performances began, the crowd at TD Garden got a peek inside the minds of competitors with messages on the video board ranging from “hometown Boston” to “We love burgers” and “Go Leafs Go” — a brave thing to say in Boston.

At the post-performance interviews in the kiss-and-cry area, Romania’s Julia Sauter joked after her free skate performance that she felt “dead” while a few days earlier, the Australian pair of Anastasia Golubeva and Hektor Giotopolous Moore led the crowd in a chant of “Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!”

This year’s championships in Boston started with a memorial and celebration of life to honor members of the figure skating community that lost their lives in a recent plane crash and ended with a series of U.S. figure skating successes. It was a spotlight moment for the International Skating Union to showcase the technological and branding improvements it has made as part of its Vision 2030 in revolutionizing how its events are presented around the world.

“Our team has been spending a lot of effort and energy on promoting this, marketing it, educating fans of the whole journey of ISU,” Jiao Li, chief of commercial and marketing officer. “We heard very good feedback from our member federations and we saw very positive comments and the interactions from the fans on social. More important, our skaters are very happy. They enjoyed being branded and marketed as a star and putting them under the spotlight with the whole digital immersive experience around them.”

Modernizing the Presentation

At the organization’s most recent Congress, ISU Director General Colin Smith showed a picture of the 1972 figure skating championships and then a picture of the 2002 event.

“The pictures were almost identical in the look and feel of the ice rink and the sponsors and the way we were doing things,” Smith said. “But things have moved forward a lot since then.”

This gave the ISU the chance to unveil one of its main plans to modernize figure skating events with LED rink boards along the ice surface. With the LED colors showcasing sponsors and other ISU-related branding during events, plus a full digital presentation for the walkout area for skaters, it gave the ISU the chance to do more for its athletes and sponsors.

“For figure skating, obviously it works,” Smith said, noting the technology will be rolled out at select venues in the future. “For short track it doesn’t because we have the padding system and there’s not a way yet technologically. Speed skating, there’s zones of the track where it’s not possible, there’s other areas where it could be possible or secondary. Figure skating is very possible and feasible.”

Not that sourcing and setting up the video boards was a breeze, however.

The video boards needed to be seamlessly curved given the dimensions of a rink, meaning the ISU worked with a supplier in Europe, then shipped the boards to the United States. The video boards were hung over the hockey boards with a kick plate for enough give should a skater inadvertently fall and slide into the board. Custom pieces were made not only for the curves of the rink but for the spot where the Zamboni would enter for resurfacing.

“We’re smaller as a hockey rink,” said Clancy Wolf, TD Garden event manager. “It’s pretty precise here. So we had a couple companies come in and measure our rink boards and then we’ve had various meetings trying to figure out how this can work. To my knowledge, I haven’t seen another arena be able to do this so it was very cool. It’s been incredible to be a part of that to learn and see what we can do for the future of arenas, really. I think it looks great out there.”

Along with the technological look of the event was the ISU branding, which is one of Li’s main initiatives for Vision 2030. Each of the ISU’s disciplines has a new sport icon and color palette that is part of the event look around the world, whether it’s figure skating’s blue and gold or short-track speedskating’s red and black.

ISU President Jae Youl Kim in June 2024 unveiled a revamped ISU Short Track World Tour with six events packaged as one series. As part of that revamp, participating countries will also have icons for each of their teams (the United States has an American Eagle, as one example).

“This rebranding gives a lot of entertainment to that element for both fans and also the skaters,” Li said. “And they also enable us in the future to open revenue opportunities on merchandising licenses.”

From the standpoint of other ways to promote the skaters, with the ISU portfolio of events including figure skating, short-track speedskating and speedskating, there obviously are breaks for the ice to be resurfaced. During those 15-minute spots, the ISU has set up behind-the-scenes content for fans at the venue including pre-packaged videos of standups by the arena hosts.

The ISU also works before events for skaters to head to a host city ahead of time to set up promotional events at iconic locations for advance media coverage as well as content that can be sent on social platforms leading to the event.

“There is a very organized and consistent look of the skaters presentations and that’s also what we have captured in this season across all the disciplines of our sports,” Li said, noting the ISU’s content engagement is higher than ever before.

The ISU also has a large Asian following for each of its disciplines so along with English language social media channels, the international federation has a Chinese and Korean social media account with a Japanese account to come online next season.

“We want to find a better way to promote our skaters across a different countries, especially our key markets and also to engage with our key fans,” Li said.

Big Plans Ahead

Engagement within ISU events will only figure to grow in the next year-plus with the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Italy on the horizon.

“Next year is a very important year for our sport and also our sport under the context of Olympic movement,” Li said. “One thing we are very proud of is this season we’ve raised awareness and also attention from different stakeholders.”

The ISU and IOC will work and share content ahead of Milan, said Li. “We support each other and more importantly, we hope that our skaters will have a successful season.”

Beyond 2026 and the 2030 Games in France, the 2034 Games in Salt Lake City will mark a return to the United States for the first time in two-plus decades.

“The U.S. market in general is a very important market for sport,” Smith said. “Figure skating, we have three world champions from the U.S., which is boosting the sport into the public mind. Short track is for me a sport that is almost meant for the U.S. market — it’s fast, dynamic, a stadium sport. That’s definitely something we want to further develop in the U.S.”