Today on the GMM Podcast, we have Samantha Barany, Executive Director of the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA). For the uniformed, CSCAA is a nonprofit member-based organization made up of college coaches dedicated to serving and providing leadership for the advancement of the sport of swimming and diving at the collegiate level.
Sam breaks down one of the biggest shake-ups to our sport in decades: the coming changes to the NCAA Division I Championships.
In this episode, we dig into why college swimming and diving is at risk and just how big that threat really is. Sam breaks down the CSCAA’s role in the process, how we got here, and the goals driving these sweeping NCAA DI Championships changes.
- The B-finals are gone. Swimmers placing 9th–16th will no longer return at night; they’ll be scored off their morning prelim times.
- The event order’s been reshuffled, front-loading prelims and pushing “high-profile” races later in the meet to make the broadcast flow smoother. Diving finals will now be split across sessions for the same reason.
- A new “Win-and-In” rule means any conference champion who hits the national cut earns an automatic spot at NCAAs.
- The old A and B standards are gone too — now there’s a single qualifying time per event.
- The field size stays the same, but automatic qualifiers will displace at-large swimmers.
These changes have left college coaches split. Some see innovation. Others see chaos. There’s already pushback from the Power Four conferences, who argue that slower conference winners will replace faster swimmers from stronger leagues.
Sam shared a lot data behind the behind theses changes and how much influence came from ESPN and broadcast partners. Sam will return to the podcast to discuss specific topics in detail. Moreover, Sam will debrief after the NCAA DI Championships, sharing the data to determine if the mission goals were met.
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Did they talk to the coaches and athletes if B finalists? NO!
They worked with experts in the field of viewership? Really? Why is everyone who watches swimming pissed?
because they are fans not experts of the data behind the viewership
We can comment on here until the cows come home, but is anyone letting the decision-makers know how upset the swimming community is about this? I doubt they are coming to swim swam to read about how horrible their decision is. Any thoughts on how we can get this message across to those who voted?
The decision makers are now mostly swimming people, so I’d bet they are coming here and reading.
Also yes, lots of folks have forwarded me emails they’ve sent to the decision makers about the decision.
I think they are reading the comments as well. And, I think changes can be made if the DI Champs don’t meet the desired goals. CSCAA/Sam said this, and Sam said CSCAA would share the results after DI Champs.
Braden,
Could yall put together how last years NCAAs would have looked with these new rules?
In what sense? The mid-majors don’t really change the outcome at all. I guess just scoring 9-16 from prelims?
Yes please
An average of 4.6 female swimmers were faster in the b finals compared to prelims.. Am average of 3.75 male swimmers were faster in b finals from last year. I’ve done the math.
I think this will be a good thing. Have to get swimmers to go fast in the mornings, just like the Olympics.
every swimmer except maybe the top 3 or 4 in each event is going as fast as they can go in
morning prelims if they have a shot at A finals or B finals!!!
But…. Ncaa swimmers are students. They are in class in the morning. I bet those Olympians know exactly when to train so their body knows what it feels like to race FAST in the morning. It matters when you train. apples to oranges.
They have classes in the evening too….
There was a whole article published recently on swimswam about that. They scored the last 4 years using the new format and showed the results. There were a few surprises. I’m not sure how to find that article back.
Volleyball revamped the entire way they score and the rules to make the game easier to understand and more TV friendly. The matches take 90 minutes or less and if it goes longer it’s because the match is tight and extra sets are needed.
Men’s wrestling is figuring out how to be a quality product for TV.
F1 races are 90 minutes.
I enjoy reading the narrow-minded individuals on these posts. If you do not see that the sport of swimming is dying, then you are naïve. No grass roots support is going to save a sport. You need money. You need eyes. Without money colleges will not be sponsoring teams moving into the future. Thanks to… Read more »
Niche sports that succeed lean into that fact and provide coverage that is great for fans of the sport. The problem is that swimming fans aren’t watching the broadcast, not that Joe Schmo who tunes in once every 4 years for the Olympics isn’t watching it.
If this decision was solely about TV you would cut diving from the broadcast completely before taking out any swimming.
Diving is the most time consuming part with the least amount of action and the least amount of title implications.
According to diving coaches, they could tighten up their schedule, but they don’t – because ESPN wants it to be dragged out.
Now that is a very interesting bit of information.
Shows how out of touch ESPN is with the actual people watching the NCAA championships – which by and large are people that occupy the comment section of this website and parents of athletes.
The World Cup coverage has been great. Why can’t the NCAA just mirror that? And the sad reality is diving is just awful for keeping anyone with a remote interest in NCAA tuned to the TV. It’s slow, it’s not objective, and way too time-consuming for the actual affect it has on the title.
It’s interesting that they want to stretch the program out, but they cut the B-finals which would have done that as well.
I agree.
They should run original repairs again, B finals first then for TV just run wall to wall races. They could make it very exciting if you had a true finals relay (not this time finals BS), then run finals if each individual, a10 min break then the last relay.
Combining guys and girls would give more breaks and I bet you could still hit 90 min. For the mile start the telecast for the last 200yds and run from there.
We got rid of prelim relays, expanded the meet to 4 days, and I haven’t heard anyone say the meet is more exciting than it was before. Yes times are faster (especially the 800 relay)… Read more »
Great but if you don’t have someone you know swimming you won’t watch swimming.
So a slower conference winner will push out a faster swimmer because the faster swimmer placed lower at his/her faster conference? Sounds perfectly normal. Or more like putative.
It’s a system used in nearly every other NCAA sport.
IMO, I think that this hurts a little more because the number of individuals taken for NCAAs as not increased to account for this. Adding something like 10 more spots would make it a little less painful.
The system that is use for other sports, has been expanding allow more and also increasing the size of participants.
If you want more spots, gotta find more revenue. Each spot costs, maybe, $2000, so 10 more spots per meet is another $40,000. Doesn’t seem like a lot, but the NCAA is already looking at ways to reduce costs.
People who have been around this for a long time have told me that, in essence, based on the NCAA’s formula, we already have too many athletes at the championship. The only reason it hasn’t changed is because the NCAA hasn’t recalculated the field size since a bunch of teams have been cut. They’re all afraid that if they ask for more, that the NCAA’s response will be to take spots away.
My advice to people who want to help: pay… Read more »
Math issue: each spot $2,000; 10 spots is $20,000, not $40,000, unless you are doubling the number for men/women combined, which I didn’t read from your statement.
On the expenses issue, has there been much discussion about running one NCAA meet, men and women together, like some of the conferences are doing, And World Cup has successfully been doing. One meet would have to create multiple niche savings.
You literally did read that from my statement lmao.
world cup has one final. how do you respond to that?
Swimming is inherently different from other NCAA sports. In other sports (volleyball, football, basketball, etc.), much of the competition is about “match-ups” (for example, how can our athletes stop the other team’s athletes from scoring). Swimming is one person racing the clock. The ability to objectively rank swimmers makes swimming different from every other sport.
Although swimming is a team sport, it’s also very much an individual sport. If you swim for a team that has no chance at winning NCAA, you swim for your team in dual meets and invitationals and conference champs BUT you are also absolutely swimming for yourself to try to qualify for NCAAs. When you think of swimming as also an individual sport, it… Read more »
Including track and field?
Track & Field uses a whole different system that includes regionals. I’ve advocated for regionals before, and would LOVE to use a similar system. Would kind of solve the problem on its own. I even thought a mid-major qualifying meet, specifically for mid-major programs, would be electric.
I think they should make them do trials and finals for the mile now. Top 8 swim at night anyway, make them earn the spot in the AM like everyone else.
So given the rushed manner in which these decisions were pushed out and how poorly they are being received by the swimming community, is it possible things will just be reversed back to original meet format?
Or is it a BS thing we’re stuck with now, like in politics when a bill/policy is enacted even though ~90% of the public disapproves?
IDK, anything is possible, but I don’t foresee any avenue by which it’s reversed this season. If we get through the meet and confirm that everyone hates it still, I guess it could go back.
I think if they just stuck the B-Finals back in, it would be a palatable experiment.
I agree. Adding back the B-finals would at least give a nod to popular opinion (and there are so many ways to add B-finals back in that wouldn’t compromise the length of the televised event). I am totally against these changes because I feel like 1) they are unfair to fast P4 swimmers who won’t win their conference but will easily hit the qualifying time and 2) I don’t think that they will work. I do hope that someone collects actual data examining the extent to which the public becomes more engaged in swimming (and not simply data from D1 coaches regarding “what they thought” about it). I feel like the P4 coaches have real reason to be pissed about… Read more »
Sam is married to a non power 4 coach who now has a good chance of getting athletes to NCAA… Hmmm
Even thought this interview is reporting on how the CSCAA made its proposal, the competition this year is now fully in the hands of the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Oversight Committee. Their report is here: https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/swimdive/d1/Sep2025D1XSW_Report.pdf
It sounds like they may reconsider the reordering of the schedule of events, as mentioned in 4(b)(iv). It is unclear whether that would also include reconsideration of the removal of consolation finals, but based on that being done in a different section of their report, I think that is unlikely. I think they are solely allowing for the reconsideration of the order of events listed in Appendix A.