The Southeastern Conference, and the Atlantic Coast Conference, two of the top conferences in college swimming, won’t allow spectators at their 2021 swimming & diving championships.
In addition, the SEC has announced conference will spread teams out both on the pool deck and in the spectator seating areas in an attempt to spread student-athletes out amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
For the health and safety of the student-athletes competing in this year’s championships, social distancing measures will be in place on the pool deck. Team seating will be on deck and in the spectator seating areas of both venues. With these protocols, there will be no spectator seating available inside the competition facilities for the duration of the events.
The ACC, meanwhile, will put the team areas entirely in the 2,500-seat grandstand at the Greensboro Aquatic Center, and will only allow student-athletes on deck if they are training, warming up/cooling down, or competing. Further, lanes will be limited to 4 swimmers at a time.
The ACC will also test all team members throughout the championships.
The Pac-12 is also not planning to allow spectators at its championship meet, which will be hosted at the University of Houston. The other Power 5 conferences, the Big 12, and Big Ten, have not announced their plans for spectators.
The SEC, which normally holds its men’s and women’s swimming & diving championships in a single location on the same weekend, has split the event into a three-location meet.
2021 SEC SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS SCHEDULE
- Men’s and Women’s Diving on February 17-20 at the Mizzou Aquatic Center in Columbia, Mo.
- Women’s Swimming on February 17-20 at Gabrielsen Natatorium in Athens, Ga.
- Men’s Swimming on February 23-26 at the Mizzou Aquatic Center in Columbia, Mo.
2021 ACC Swimming & Diving Championships Schedule
- Women’s Swimming & Diving, Men’s Diving on February 17-20 at the Greensboro Aquatic Center in Greensboro, North Carolina
- Men’s Swimming on February 24-27 at the Greensboro Aquatic Center in Greensboro, North Carolina
The University of Florida men won their 8th-straight SEC Championship in 2020, while the Tennessee women won the 2020 title, breaking a four-year winning streak by Texas A&M.
The NC State men won their 6th-straight ACC Championship in 2020. The Virginia women won their 11th title in 13 seasons.
Please stream this meet in HD somehow. Need to see Kate Douglass tear it up
ACC, please stream prelims and finals.
Same for Big East in April
Do the SEC athletes get tested before the meet or at the conference meet?
They haven’t said.
I would suspect there will be some form of testing.
Yes, they will be tested at Georgia on Tuesday and Friday for women’s meet. Mens info TBA
Let’s hope finals are live on the ACC Network!
ACC has kept a tight grip on live-streaming rights for meets during this pandemic. They refused to allow schools to live-stream on their own and yet they did not send an ACC crew to exercise the right to live-stream. As a result, most (all?!?) ACC duals/meets not only had no spectators but no remote viewing options either. That’s terrible for families, friends and in general fans of the sport. The least ACC can do is to provide high quality live-stream for finals AND prelims. Give us one chance this season to see them all swim. It’s really not that difficult peeps, set the tripod up and let ‘er roll.
Curious, how have other conferences handled streaming?
NC State did a fairly good job of streaming the UVA meet; UVA did OK with the VaTech meet; neither was the top notch professional level, but clearly the capability exist to do something. ESPN+ also list past showings of meets for UNC and Ga Tech, so I’d expect they will find a way to do some streaming.
Let’s hope *all* races are live , including prelims and the relays on the first day. ACC can take a leave out of SEC’s book, which have always streamed everything in the past
The live stream better be good
NCstate is in ACC not SEC