Based on a document from the Southern California Swimming House of Delegates Meeting, membership appears to be decreasing within Southern California Swimming.
In 2015 there were a reported 25,075 athletes registered within the organization. That number dropped by almost 1000 to 24,182 during the 2016 calendar year.
The Orange committee saw the largest decrease, going from 7.309 in 2015 to 7,056. They’re also the largest committee within the organization.
Although the Orange committee did see the biggest drop, every single committee did see a drop in membership, demonstrating a six-committee wide decrease in registered athletes.
| Committee | 2015 | 2016 | Decrease | % decrease |
| Coastal | 3,747 | 3,674 | -73 | 1.94% |
| Pacific | 4,111 | 3,993 | -118 | 2.87% |
| Eastern | 4,308 | 4,112 | -196 | 4.54% |
| Orange | 7,309 | 7,056 | -253 | 3.46% |
| Metro | 3,880 | 3,773 | -107 | 2.76% |
| Desert | 1,720 | 1,574 | -146 | 8.49% |
Percentage wise, the Desert committee is decreasing more so than the other committees. Already the smallest, it dropped a significant 8.49 percent from 2015 to 2016, almost double that of any other committee.
The second largest decrease came from the Eastern committee, the second largest in Southern California Swimming, with 4.54%. The Orange committee, which saw the largest total number of members dropped and hosts the most members within the organization dropped by 3.46 percent.
Southern California Swimming has long been one of the top producing members of USA Swimming, where plenty of top athletes who’ve performed at both the Olympic Games and World Championships have hailed from.
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If you look at the actual teams in the Orange there were some coaching changes that happened before this time info. Its the crazy swim parents that run the good coaches out of town and want it the way they want it.
Possibly better way to track membership would be by actually splashes or Meet entries. Teams may have not registered with USA swim and keeping there novice level non competitive kids insured separately to save money, or not registering at all. USA swim would have a better picture by team. I feel registration is down only because swimmers that don’t compete didn’t get register.
Yes, Orange lost the most members, but when you look at percentage decrease, Desert’s is 8.4% to Orange’s 4.54, which to me, shows a bigger loss. You have to look at data and analyze accordingly.
Granted, SCS is still one of the largest LSCs in the country. When I originally moved from rural Nevada to Southern California I did notice the dramatic difference in money. In Nevada I paid about 150$ a month, while when I lived in SoCal I paid about 350$ a month. Swimming in Southern California is dramatically more expensive. Though, the cost of travel makes it worth it in some cases. While living in SoCal I paid so little to travel to meets. Swimming with a very large team, you could always travel with the team if the meet was far, and usually you didn’t need to leave the area to get good competition. While in Nevada, I remember frequently flying… Read more »
Many organizations have registered their learn to swim participants through USA swimming in the past. I know in our state most have gone to a much cheaper insurance for those folks which lowered our overall LSC numbers by over 1000 swimmers.
Club volleyball and gymnastics I think are at least as expensive. I thinks its a combination of lack of available nice facilities and quality coaches combine that with inflationary pressures and costs associated with running any business in the state of California. Related to this it also could be “white flight” out of OC as in many jobs (and the employees family) of the upper middle class are leaving the area. Would be interesting to see some real demographics to analyze this.
I just saw a headline ‘ Californians still biggest migrators to Texas ‘( Also to Oklahoma ). . I’ll leave it to our resident Demographics expert Cynthia Curran to extrapolate whilst I sing my Woodie Guthrie songlist .Ry Cooder did a fantastic lp in the 70s with more of these dustbowl migration songs which I recommend thorougly .- .Now its in reverse
The other factor in OC is that it went Democrat for the first time in 2016 .so there definitely is a demographic move . The numbers may be the same but other ppl are moving in & they don’t do swimming .
True, but with Trump I think there is away from LA back to OC and the Inland Empire in economic growth since Obama tend to support big metro areas like Houston Texas and Los Angeles or the Bay Area. Trump supports aerospace defense which is more suburban and helps OC, Riverside and San Diego more than high tech. Irvine is known for Chinese immigrants that price up housing. Not certain if housing wil dropped under Trump but under Bush and Obama it went up. Latinos in Anaheim and Santa Ana like Water polo more since its a game sport and Brenda Villa played it.
Oh yes . Ordinary Californians had better get over to Hollywood & tell them to zip it . From my reading the rest of America is not appreciating the Streeps & the smart**ses.& DJT has a long & caustic memory . As is normal in politics those that delivered the win will get the projects & investments & so far Michigan & Ohio are first in line . California will be way down the list as they don’t need a single vote anymore.then regional areas.Florida should do ok also .
The other interesting swim power will be DC which has exploded in all areas under 8 years of Ds . Repubs do not move to DC & there are no… Read more »
True. I think also many people are leaving Cali because of the tax climate.
Some truth to that, but there are less companies leaving to Texas than people write about. Its more the high cost of housing which is also caused by a lot of international buyers in Irvine to places even like Mission Viejo.
Swimming year around isn’t cheap; plenty of clubs out there are $150/month or more as you advance to more senior ranks. That’s before travel cost, which once again will skyrocket if you advance further up. Parents can easily be dropping thousands in travel yearly, plus gear, etc. Bottom line, year-around sports are a luxury of primarily the middle class and up…and right now that’s a tough position to be in.
The high monthly fees may have something to do with it