Welcome back to the college swimming season! With many teams taking a break from competition after their midseason invitationals, this is our first big week back in full racing form.
There are a number of big meets happening this weekend, and some of them are available to be streamed live via various networks
The #4/#13 Michigan Wolverines and the #5/#3 Indiana Hoosiers will be racing on Friday, January 9th. They are two of the top teams in the NCAA on both the men’s and women’s sides and this meet will be a sort of preview for one of the battles at the 2026 Big Ten Championships.
The meet will be available to stream on the Big Ten+ Network at 12 pm Eastern Time. On the same network, you can watch the #12/#17 USC Trojans take on UNLV, and UCSD at 4 pm EST.
Note: This list is likely not comprehensive, and some networks might add events later in the week. Many conferences will also stream meets on their individual sites.
We will try to add live events as we find them. If you know of another meet being streamed, please comment below so we can add it.
All Times Presented in Eastern Standard Time
- SEC+
- Thursday, January 8th
- 4 pm- Tennessee Diving Invitational
- Friday, January 9th
- 11 am- Tennessee Diving Invitational
- 1 pm- Notre Dame vs Kentucky
- Saturday, January 10th
- 11 am- Missouri vs Kentucky
- 11 am- Florida State vs Arkansas, Georgia
- 3 pm- Georgia Tech vs Alabama
- Thursday, January 8th
- ESPN+
- Saturday, January 10th
- 11 am — Brown vs Harvard
- 11 am- Yale vs Dartmouth vs Pennsylvania
- Saturday, January 10th
- ACCNX
- Friday, January 9th
- 1 pm- Boston College vs UNCW vs North Carolina
- Friday, January 9th
- B1G+
- Friday,January 9th
- 12 pm- Indiana vs Michigan
- 4 pm- UNLV vs UCSD vs USC
- Friday,January 9th
Braden, who do we hold accountable for the UVA meet not streaming this weekend? ACCN I’m guessing? So much consternation and concern about college swimming viewership, and we can’t even watch the swimming program with the most national attention? UVA is obviously doing everything they can – even Kyle Sockwell will be there in person.
12:00 on a Friday for a co-ed dual featuring four top 15 programs? We need to start holding coaches accountable for these incompetent business decisions or college swimming will be gone in a few years. Do literally ANYTHING to show you are trying! I don’t care if you schedule the meet at 10:00 PM and call it a “Late-Night Swim on BTN+” if that’s what it takes to generate views. The Indiana and Michigan coaches may be earning $300k per year this year, but our sport is GONE and so is their big paycheck if they don’t quickly figure out how to become financially relevant.
Gotta squeeze it in between morning and afternoon workouts!
But to be more serious. It has to be midday because they have to go back and forth to Ann Arbor in the same day. Part of the problem with the model is that it would take a decade of focused, collective, near-universal work from (very expensive) people before you could even in your wildest dreams expect a dual meet to cover the cost of housing 50 people for a night.
Friday vs. Saturday? I don’t know why it’s a Friday vs a Saturday. I’ve texted a few college coaches to walk me through the logic. I’m sure there’s a reason. IDK if it’s a good one, but I’m sure there’s a reason based on rules or countable hours or… Read more »
College football first then basketball are typically on Saturday. Random thought – schedule swim meets in the hours before football/basketball and give a little incentive for people going to the game to show up for the meet. At UF both basketball and swimming are literally in the same building and the football stadium is just across the street. Not sure about other colleges, how close the facilities are to each other but if the school could invest just a little – think shuttles between facilities. You might even be able to sell a little extra merchandise and food to go along with it and get some views from the non-swimming public. But you also have to give them something worth… Read more »
I love this idea.
Though based on conversations in the last 12 hours, I think Florida is kind of famous for the “noon Friday meet so we can train big on Saturday” mindset so that’s maybe not the best example.
I know when I was at A&M they did this regularly with volleyball/football, for example. Worked especially well when volleyball played at the old G Rollie White Coliseum in the middle of campus (since torn down), right next to the football stadium.
Some schools have (maybe unwritten?) rules about not having home competitions in other sports when there’s a home football game due to the amount of resources (people, parking, etc) being used up.
With that said, there’s no home football games anymore until late-August, so…
At UF, until they get a standalone natatorium (hopefully sooner rather than later), basketball, swimming, and gymnastics are in the same building. It’s a really cool facility, but the pool is over 40 years old and has limited seating only on one side, and with wooden bleachers. That said, I think the better move is to match swimming with gymnastics meets than with basketball games.
They did this last year and got a lot more butts in seats for that swim meet, but it went waaay too long. I think if you want people to show up for a swim meet, it needs to be over and done in 90 minutes max including breaks and diving. It’s also a… Read more »
Michigan has a home Hockey game on Friday and Saturday evening against Notre Dame. The pool and Hockey arena are adjacent facilities. I think Indiana traveled to the meet on Thursday afternoon/evening and will depart for home after the meet. They will spend one night in a motel. I think both schools are still on Winter Break and this meet has been a Friday noon meet the last couple of years near the end of break. The meet can be viewed on B1G+ and I intend to be viewing.
I thought I was kidding about the “back to training” thing, but the responses I’ve gotten have all been that it’s usually when one coach or the other wants to get back home for their usual Saturday training schedule.
There aren’t any rules being affected by a Friday vs Saturday meet, unless the team is doing something like traditionally training Sun-Fri with Sat off (which for all I know, one or both of these teams might be doing?)
Can you please offer viable methods to ensure the sport of college swimming is financially relevant?
A simple outline will suffice.
(There are outside the box options which have been rebuffed by the general mainstream of college swimming.)