Factual error: The "Incident" took place at Cobo Arena in Detroit, MI. Not only are the seats the wrong color (blue, instead of red), Cobo Arena was located directly on the bank of the Detroit River, not in a pleasantly wooded suburban location.
Factual error: In the 1991 US championships, when Harding lands the first triple axel by an American, in reality she got a 6.0 from Judge Roger Glenn, but in the movie, the scores are all 5.9.
Factual error: The electric meter outside of the restaurant she is working at is not of that era.
Factual error: During her performance in Albertville Olympics, when her skates are shown closely, it's clear that she is skating on Edea Ice Fly with simply coloured brown, distinctive to the model, silver heel. The rest of the model is impossible to mix with other skates. The model was not yet invented in 1992. (00:43:20)
Factual error: When Tonya is walking through the kitchen at her job at Spud City, she complains that someone took her smokes and walks by an appliance to her left. The design style of the appliance did not exist in the early 1990s.
Answer: It used to be a lot more popular. The Harding/Kerrigan Winter Olympic figure skating competition was the 6th highest rated program in TV history as of 1994, with 48.5 million viewers, no doubt helped by the controversy. It's slowly declined over time - from 1998 to 2018 viewing figures for the US championships declined by 1/3. Opinions about its loss of appeal range from a change in the scoring (used to be judges rating out of 6.0, now it's a more complicated points system), to a lack of "star power", with recognisable names grabbing people's attention. In the UK at least, skater team Torville and Dean were household names for a long time, but I'd imagine a lot of people would struggle to think of skaters with that level of popular recognition nowadays. That said, viewing figures for the 2018 US championships were 60% up on 2017, and membership of the US figure skating organization has risen for the last four years - these things wax and wane like any other.
Jon Sandys ★