As American frustrations grow over the lack of available options to watch the upcoming World Championships, that will be broadcast only on Universal Sports, which is unavailable in many cable companies, the Australians have received an even bigger bombshell:
The meet will not be broadcast in any form into their country.
Swimming Australia posted the following notice on their website Thursday morning.
TV Broadcast – The event will not be broadcast into Australia, however FINA tv will stream online highlights daily – for details follow the links at www.fina.org.
For a country where a large portion of the population follows swimming, perhaps more than anywhere in the world, but where confidence in the sport is falling, this is a huge blow to the system for Australian swim fans. Their best options will be highlight packages from FINA or scratching around for bootlegged feeds of fuzzy legality out of Europe.
As Australia tries to recover from the Stilnox scandal, followed by the very short term of president Barclay Nettlefold, who had become very popular very quickly within the ranks, and the departure of EnergyAustralia as a primary sponsor, the surest remedy seemed to be perched on the cliffs of Barcelona. As in all sports, swimming victories can heal many wounds. With James Magnussen, Cate Campbell, Alicia Coutts, and the rest of the team swimming very well, the victories may come, but shy of exposure they may not sufficiently heal.
Very interesting developments down under.
This is sad that no channel is broadcasting one of the big global swimming events in Australia.
However, being a swimming fan, I found this great guide http://bit.ly/swcd14
Now you guys dont miss the FINA Swimming World Championships 2014.
Hang your head in SHAME FINA! I hope you choke on all the money the broadcasters have given you for exclusive rights, you have sold your sole. The millions who will miss out on this great sporting event will not help the struggeling spots in The countries with a blackout of telecast. No other sport that I know of would not want world coverage to premote themselfs and their great sports, I fo rone will be boycotting FINA sponsors. Not happy.
Really annoying that we have to wait for NBC for almost a week to re-broadcast the results. Wont be easy to not read spoiler headlines in the news! doh . Cable subscribers are not happy! we used to have the Universal channel.
USA schedule here: http://www.usaswimming.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabId=2022&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en
Still looking for a viable live solution. Eurosport isn’t available here either.
So…. Anyone find out a way to watch it (in the US) next week?
John26,
See my reply above (posted July 22).
Should work.
British Eurosport has the best commentary & coverage. All the swimming sessions live, both heats & finals.
BBC will be your 2nd option. Finals only, and missing Sunday & Wednesday sessions.
Will we be able to know whether this method works before the actual championships?
I’ve just noticed that it doesn’t appear as if Eurosport will be carrying the finals for the 28th, 3rd & the 4th at all (unless the 7:45 am program on the 29th, and 9:30 am on the 5th, are those?)
Strangely enough, the prelims for all 8 days of the pool competition will be shown live! Hmmm…
I stand corrected!
Appreciate knowledgeable Swimswam readers from all round the world who pointed us to these updated Eurosport schedules in the “All The Links and Info You Need for the 2013 FINA World Swimming Championships” comments:
http://tv.eurosport.co.uk/tvschedule.shtm
http://tv.eurosport.fr/tvschedule.shtml
I’m bloody annoyed by this. I was prepared to get up and watch the OneHD broadcast at 3am each morning. If there is live streaming on the net, please post a link. A very shattered Aussie fan.
I’m really annoyed too. I was really looking forward to it. We’ve had tennis, cycling, footy, soccer, cricket on TV over the last few weeks (sports where we haven’t done too well internationally, and which are predominately male dominated). Now swimming, which is probably our most successful sport, isn’t televised. It’s barely even mentioned in the news. Why not??
I wonder what Australian networks deemed more important to show in it’s place?
How fast the fall for swimming from Olympic highs. Most people don’t even know there is a World Championship in swimming; howver, they know about track and field world championships.
This 2013 version is a big ole’ dud wrt public recognition.
USA Swimming and FINA need to do a better job advertising & marketing this sport. They need many more sponsers outside the usual suit manufacturers!
I agree. I posted some time ago that NBC will be covering the T&F World Championships EVERY DAY FULL COVERAGE once they begin. But all swimming gets is two days of highlights with probably nothing more than USA races. And the fact that UniversalSports is punishing those of us who don’t get Universal (through NO fault of our own) by not offering a paid service!!! What happened????/ Does someone in a high position hate swimming???? What happened???? WE have fallen hard and fast!
lane 4, the track and field championships have the same set up: weekends on NBC and weekdays on USN. the fina worlds are getting 70 hrs and track and field close to 50 hrs. my cable carrier (time warner) agreed to add USN back to their channel lineup, but unfortunately they have not as yet. i am pestering them everyday, i heard it could be august 1st. btw there are plently of live streams links of eurosport on the internet if one has time to look for them.
TM, the 70 hours being touted by NBC is more than a bit misleading.
NBC will only be broadcasting 3 sessions of BCN2013 (28th, 3rd & 4th, i.e. weekends). This free programming will be on a time delay, not live (just like what happened for London). For example, the show starts @ 4 pm on the 4th, a full 4 hours after the event!
To be able to watch USN’s live coverage on weekdays, you’ll basically have to be one of the lucky few who currently are satellite subscribers (DIRECTV or DISH). Some apartment buildings in metropolitan areas of the US won’t permit the installation of satellite dishes in the building.
On top of that, you must upgrade… Read more »
$51 to hear Rowdy nattering on about side breathing and proper form, little mention of non American swimmers, and seeing 20% or less of the womens 800 free? (they will come back just in the nick of time from commercials to declare, “oh look, there’s Katie cruising in to the finish for a new world record!”)
No thanks.
Does this American TV channel, NBC, cover every parts of the US so that it’s possible to see for every American household?
SwimFanFinland – yes NBC is one of the major TV networks in the US, so anyone in the country should be able to watch it for free.
Unfortunately, as I keep complaining about, their coverage of BCN 2013 is limited to just 3 sessions (weekend), and it’s not a live broadcast.
There was a time…maybe TWENTY YEARS AGO when we would be grateful for the weekend shows on the Worlds, but that was then and this is NOW. NOW we should not be forced to endure having no live streaming or being punished for not have Universal when it isn’t our fault that the cable company, for God knows what reason, will not offer it. I appreciated the suggestions of Unblock-Us or Eurosport. The problem is that I tried to get Eurosport but it was not available for the USA. And as far as Unblock-Us is concerned, I wasn’t going to take a chance messing with the computer. So….now what? I am hoping that someone finds a live stream from anywhere… Read more »
Lane Four,
I hear your pain, and those of your countrymen and women!
Chances are, someone will post a live stream link when we get much closer to the event, just like it was done for Shanghai and London. You may have to scour twitter, forums etc. though for this info, since this site could get into trouble for posting such links directly.
To be safe, I’d pony up for the £5 to legitimately subscribe to Eurosport for 1 month.
It’s true that they won’t allow you to sign up for their Eurosport Player or watch their streams if they detect your IP address as being outside Europe.
However, Eurosport will gladly take your money for a subscription… Read more »
Thank you, READY4WORLDCHAMPS. I am going to try and get the Eurosport feed. It is certainly worth the try. :o)
> USA Swimming and FINA need to do a better job advertising & marketing this sport. They need many more sponsers outside the usual suit manufacturers!
Yes, you’re right. Even one prestigious sponsor outside of the realms of swimming would be helpful in promoting swimming. For example the alliance between Alpine skiing and Audi appears to be beneficial for both sides.
FINA must do better!
Wow…. I thought the BBC were bad for missing 2 nights of finals live. :/