by Cichorei Kano Tue Feb 04, 2014 2:34 am
jkw wrote:
Thanks for your reply. I understand that one of the reasons for tweaking the IJF rule-set is to attract a broader audience, specifically a televised one. Therefore I wondered if a benchmark or analysis of current viewership patterns had been undertaken in order to determine the the effectiveness of rule changes to this end.
I think that is justified question. I honestly do not know the hard numbers, and one should not expect reliable information on this from the IJF itself. Subjectively I see the opposite effect in a sense that less and less people unless they have a personal interest (favorite athlete, clubmember) still attend competitions. I used to travel the world to do so and have committed much of my life to judo, but I no longer visit most large competitions because I find them boring, which does not necessary mean that nothing happens, but they are removed so much from what I understand as competitive judo. They are no longer events I even want to see. I would imagine though that are many ways the IJF coud 'massage' data to make it look as the effects is opposite to what I suggest it is. For example, in the past world championships were only every two years, but the IJF has created many additional tournaments, has pulled apart open category and weight-category championships, etc, so it may well be that because athletes need IJF points and thus have to participate in as many tournaments as possible and the federation's elite ahtlete support staff that each time accompanies them, that in this way one can fabricate an outcome that at first sight would suggest that "more people now watch judo". It's at technique similar to how the IJF each time presents its rule changes as "improvements" even though they may be the opposite of what they were 20 years ago. Clearly, when both "A" and "not-A" are improvements one is dealing with a logical fallacy, but this is how they work and many people who are involved at that level benefit from going with that flow.