The Most-Read SwimSwam Articles of 2023

2023 was a watershed year for sports. Not for swimming, but for sports. It marked a substantial turning point for Name, Image, and Likeness rights for NCAA athletes, and explosion of interest in women’s sport (especially women’s collegiate sport), and a huge lurch forward in influencer culture’s impact on the economic landscape of athletics.

Maybe that’s why in 2023, SwimSwam’s most-read article doesn’t mention a swimmer, by name, in its headline, but rather a gymnast. Not a gymnast who will ever win Olympic gold or even an individual NCAA title, but instead one who has 5 million followers on Instagram and another 3.1 million followers on TikTok.

That’s LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne.

Of course the person actually being discussed in the headline is San Jose State University swimmer Andreea Dragoi, who like Dunne is probably never going to win an Olympic medal, but who has amassed an impressive following over own with 81,000 Instagram followers.

Nicknamed the “Olivia Dunne of the Pool,” Dragoi can’t fully cash in on her Name, Image, and Likeness in the US because of work restrictions that apply to individuals in the US on student visas.

Riley Overend dove into the complicated nature of NIL for international student-athletes, and the combination of the starpower of Dunne and Dragoi, along with growing interest in the financial terms of being a student-athlete, led to the most-read article of the year in 2023.

Similar themes showed up several times in the top 150 rankings this year, with athletes catching attention for their starpower outside of the pool as much as in it. Another of the most-read articles of the year in 2023 on SwimSwam was one about a Mexican Diver who used an OnlyFans account to fund his Olympic dreams and another about Deaf World Record holding swimmer Matthew Klotz making the final four of the television show Big Brother.

This is a crucial reminder of the fact that for many Olympic sports like swimming, what top athletes do outside of the pool can bring as much attention as what they do inside the pool.

As is the norm, controversy also drove a lot of interest to the sport. Suspensions of athletes from Boston College and Texas A&M both cracked the top 100 most-read posts on SwimSwam this year. Eastern Illinois’ suspension for similar hazing accusations was just outside of the top 150.

Cate Campbell’s public barbs at the American team after Australia’s historic performance at the World Championships also got a lot of attention – but surprisingly less views than Emma McKeon’s ‘Cate doesn’t speak for the whole team’ response.

Among other highlights:

• Michael Phelps’ impressive golf shot early in the year gave him a slot in the top 100, keeping his streak alive even more than seven years after his retirement.
• Taylor Ruck was the biggest ‘player personnel’ news of the year, when she decided that she was done racing in the NCAA. At the time she was unsure of whether she would stay at Stanford, but she has since moved on to train at Arizona State near where she grew up.
• The most-read article about a specific result was the 4:03.05 done in the 400 yard IM by American high school swimmer Leah Hayes, which at the time would have ranked her atop the NCAA. That was just ahead of an Australian DQ. Summer McIntosh’s World Record in the 400 IM before Worlds was the most-read World Record post of the year.
• The biggest suit-signing of the year was Lydia Jacoby’s new signature line with arena. That’s probably not surprising – besides being an Olympic gold medalist, she’s also a fashion and textiles major at the University of Texas.

Top 150 Articles on SwimSwam in 2023

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The List With Only Live Recaps