A Viewer’s Guide To the 2019 International Swimming League Finale

2019 INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING LEAGUE – Finale

  • Friday, December 20 – Saturday, December 21, 2019
  • 1:00 – 3:00 PM Local Time (U.S. Pacific Time)
  • Madalay Bay Resort and Casino – Las Vegas, NV
  • Short Course Meters (SCM) format
  • Top 4 qualifying franchises: Energy Standard, London Roar, LA Current, Cali Condors
  • Live Stream (ESPN3)

It’s time for the ISL finale – we break down rosters, streaming options, event schedule and scoring details here. The meet will be held at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada – a facility which has a total capacity of 12,000 seats, but that the ISL will reduce to 3,800 seats for the purposes of this championship meet.

LINKS

WHERE TO WATCH BY REGION

  • United States: ESPN3
  • Europe and Asia-Pacific: Eurosport
  • Australia: 7plus
  • New Zealand: Spark
  • Canada: CBC
  • Latin America: Claro Sport
  • Brazil: TV Globo
  • Caribbean: FlowSports
  • Israel: Sports 1
  • Middle East/North Africa: Bein Sport

TEAMS COMPETING

This weekend will feature the four qualifying teams: the top two European franchises and top two American franchises:

EVENT LINEUP

Here’s a look at this weekend’s event schedule. Each session is broken into three blocks, each of which ends in a relay event, which is then followed by a break, though the exact length of the breaks has not been specified.

WOMEN’S EVENT # DAY 1 MEN’S EVENT #
1 100 Fly 2
3 50 Breast 4
5 400 IM 6
7
4×100 Free Relay
—Break—
9 200 Back 8
11 50 Free 10
4×100 Medley Relay 12
—Break—
13 200 Free 14
15 50 Back 16
17 200 Breast 18
4×100 Free Relay 19

 

WOMEN’S EVENT # DAY 2 MEN’S EVENT #
20 100 Free 21
22 100 Breast 23
24 400 Free 25
26
4×100 Medley Relay
—Break—
28 200 IM 27
30 50 Fly 29
32 100 Back 31
33 4×100 Mixed Free Relay 33
—Break—
34 200 Fly 35
36 50 Free Skins 37
38 4×50 Mixed Medley (if tiebreak needed) 38

SCORING & POINTS BREAKDOWN

Scoring for each event will be as follows:

INDIVIDUAL EVENT RELAY EVENT SKINS RACE
1st 9 18 27
2nd 7 14 21
3rd 6 12 12
4th 5 10 10
5th 4 8 4
6th 3 6 3
7th 2 4 2
8th 1 2 1

Relays count for double, and skins races effectively triple if you make it to the third round; if eliminated in the second round, an athlete earns double points, but if knocked out in the first round, the point totals are the same as a normal race.

PRIZE MONEY FORMAT

Athletes and relays earn money for top-4 finishes under the following system, which we’ve simplified based on the ISL ‘money point’ system. Prize money for the finale is more than tripled, with $1,000 given per ‘prize point’.

Season Finale:

INDIVIDUAL EVENT RELAY SKINS
1st $6000 $3000 $18000
2nd $4000 $2000 $12000
3rd $2000 $1000 $6000
4th $1000 $500 $3000

Current prize money lists

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Joe
4 years ago

Does anyone know where/how we can bet on ISL? Much thank.

Admin
Reply to  Joe
4 years ago

Haven’t seen anywhere yet.

It would be highly improbable for Vegas to accept wagers on a first year competition like this. The systems and structures and levels of trust aren’t in place to ensure that the rules are followed (we’ve already identified places where the public-facing rules book haven’t been exactly followed) or that the meets aren’t corrupted by betting interests. For example, there’s a chance that Sarah Sjostrom could pull out of the meet at the last minute (lots of swimmers have done so this season) and that nobody would find out about that until after the meet starts – except friends and family of swimmers on the team, for example.

Mike Z
4 years ago

They should move this to the wave pool:)

OAC
4 years ago

Anyone know how ticket sales have been?

Polar
Reply to  OAC
4 years ago

Terrible time to hold the meet. Who has time to take off to Vegas on the week before Christmas? Plenty of seats available…

Troyy
Reply to  Polar
4 years ago

Not just for the spectators but I’d imagine some of the swimmers would prefer to be back home in the days before Christmas too.

Bianca
Reply to  Troyy
4 years ago

Sure — everyone would like a few more days before Christmas at home but these are professional swimmers — it’s their job. A lot of people don’t have the benefit of being able to take time off around the holidays.

Skins swimmers aside, folks like Lilly/Beryl/Kathleen/Ryan/Olivia/Melanie could go home with $20K of prize money! I think it’s great that they are given this opportunity and hopefully, a lot of swimmers will get enough money to keep them focused on training through trials w/o worrying about how to pay rent, etc.

A lot of these swimmers went through the NCAA system and are used to a busy end of year schedule which is school finals + a few days… Read more »

Josh
Reply to  Polar
4 years ago

Is there a better time? (Not sarcasm; let’s float around ideas because it seems that ISL listens to it’s audiences)
Maybe the rationale is that most working professionals have Christmas week off, US universities are done with finals by now and kids are off on break from school?
I’d argue that it might be better to hold the finale during NCAA week. ISL and NCAA swimmers are pretty much mutually exclusive at this point

Joe
Reply to  Josh
4 years ago

I think this time is pretty good. There’s no other swimming to compete against it.

TX swimfan
Reply to  OAC
4 years ago

The nba development is hosting an event dec. 19-22nd at Mandalay bay as well. Saw a bunch of swimmers around the casino last night. Kind of funny seeing very tall people at the craps and blackjack table.
It was to bad no isl gear being presold anywhere.

PSB
Reply to  OAC
4 years ago

I’m going on Saturday and it looks like there’s maybe 300ish tickets available. I think the biggest problem is that tickets went on sale November 8th. That isn’t enough time for most people to plan a trip to Vegas from across the country let alone from another part of the world.

TX swimfan
Reply to  PSB
4 years ago

Knew about this last year. I think this time of year is the slowest for vegas so cost of hosting the event works better for them. I think having the event in a FAMILY friendly city is more important.

VegasFan
Reply to  TX swimfan
4 years ago

Vegas is extremely family friendly! It is more well known for the clubs and crazyness that accompanies that lifestyle, but it appears on a lot of “Top Family Friendly destinations” lists for the entertainment for kids, great food, and family friendly activities. If you’re able to drive, there’s also a lot of fairly close outdoors activities (like Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire State Park) that are awesome family activities!

Troy
4 years ago

That time is actually watchable on the east coast of Australia. 😍

Pombear
Reply to  Troy
4 years ago

Is that 8am?

Troy
Reply to  Pombear
4 years ago

7am in Queensland (where I am) and 8am in other east coast states. It’s not ideal but the other meets have been 5am or earlier.

Gheko
Reply to  Troy
4 years ago

Cairns here mate, I hear ya!

Pombear
Reply to  Troy
4 years ago

Thank you! Much better start than the others

Samesame
Reply to  Troy
4 years ago

Yeah ! I just worked that out too 😁

Oceanian
Reply to  Troy
4 years ago

I couldn’t find anything listed in the TV Guide – is it only live on 7plus?

Troyy
Reply to  Oceanian
4 years ago

Yep.

Swammer
4 years ago

When do we get entries?

Admin
Reply to  Swammer
4 years ago

About an hour before the meet begins. And, remember, that coaches can change entries prior to each session – so those initial entries are only guaranteed for the first 1/3rd of the first day of racing.

Jeff
Reply to  Braden Keith
4 years ago

Do these changes allow for those originally chosen as relay only swimmers to compete in individual events in later sessions?

Superfan
Reply to  Jeff
4 years ago

I doubt it

Snarky
4 years ago

Anyone know the seating capacity of the facility?

Admin
Reply to  Snarky
4 years ago

The full Mandalay Bay capacity is 12,000 seats, but it’s being reduced to 3,800 for this event.

Ol' Longhorn
4 years ago

Geez, first event both days gonna be lit.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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