How Has the Swimming World Cup Prize Money Changed Over Time?

The World Aquatics Swimming World Cup was, in many ways, a fundamental professionalization of swimming when it launched in the 1980s. A series that could carry athletes throughout the year with prize money was novel at the time.

With the conclusion of the 2024 edition, I became curious about how the series’ prize money has evolved over time, and was reminded, once again, that swimming – a sport where the history is remarkably wrapped up in numbers versus highlight reels – has not traditionally been very good at record-keeping. Part of that is owed to the sport’s famous lack of transparency – if the information is never made public, the odds of it surviving are significantly lower.

I was able to reliably trace the prize money history back to 2007, when the series began to resemble what it is now: a single-season, fall circuit. Prior to that, the last big change came in the 2001-2002 season, when overall winners (versus just winners in an ‘event’) were first declared, with Ed Moses and Martina Moravcova taking the honors.

I was really hopeful to find prize money in some of those very early years (if someone has a paper copy of these details buried in a desk drawer somewhere, please send it over).

The 2024 series awarded $1,196,000 in prize money across three meets: the same reward as the last three years.

It’s worth noting that World Aquatics had planned “around $2.5 million” in prize money planned for a six meet series in 2020, the first season after the conclusion of the first season of the International Swimming League. This was part of a wave of increases in prize money by the world governing body to combat greater interest in the pro league (which folded after the 2021 season, blaming challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine).

The World Record bonus has fluctuated at other meets (as evidence of the above phenomenon, it is have at the 2024 Short Course Worlds of what it was at the 2021 Short Course Worlds: $50,000 to $25,000), but has remained remarkably stable at the World Cup.

Note that some of the numbers in the table below are approximate estimates or calculation. They are on the right scale, but might not be exact, because the information is not always available in a precise form.

Also note the 2020 season numbers are based on the original plan. The series only wound up pulling off four of the six meets, and we’re not really sure how the prize money was adjusted to account for that.

The most interesting bit here is that the overall series prize money rose in 2017, with FINA crediting new sponsorship dollars. While that pool has dropped in the current format, it is a much shorter series. For example, at her peak in 2016, Katinka Hosszu earned $386,000, but it took her 9 meets (and a ton of individual swims) to do that.

American Kate Douglass made about half that – $184,000 – in 2024, but it only took her 3 meets to get there.

While the prize money is sourced from different places, in most cases where SwimSwam was able to find documentation, the organizing committee/host federation (and/or their governments) was responsible for contributing most, or all, of the prize money.

The World Cup has now settled into this rotating three meet series that seems to be working well for them. There are pros and cons to the series – a pro is that it’s much easier to get athletes to commit to the entire series and create better continuity, leaderboards, and feeling of “a series”. A con is that it doesn’t give swimmers the chance to drop in and out as their schedules allow – someone who was unavailable in October, for example, couldn’t participate at all.

Ultimately, with almost $200 million in assets in their piggy bank, World Aquatics has some flexibility to use their war chest to motivate athletes to participate where they think it will work. One unexplored idea would be to reward the coaches of winning athletes. While many athletes, especially pros, have input on their own schedule, rewarding coaches might suddenly mover the World Cups from a “distraction” to a “requisite part of ideal training for success at major meets.”

Stops and Prize Money Over Time, FINA/World Aquatics Swimming World Cup