Why Aren’t Elite Level Swim Meets More Heavily Attended?

Outside of the Olympics and the Olympic Trials, and any meet in SEC country, it can be a big challenge to fill up a swim meet.

Time-after-time, swim fans, swim administrators, lament why National Championship and NCAA Championship meets wind up with half-full venues, and why the events are so hard to get on TV, despite how impressive the athletic feats are.

The answer is pretty simple. The sport isn’t marketed to the right audience to fill up venues. The sport, by-and-large, is marketed to 12-year olds, the athletes market themselves to 12 year olds, nobody wants to be the bad-guy, and everyone is thinking about the children.

Now, I don’t want to seem heartless. It’s always great to see athletes giving back to the kids, but until we can find a better balance between marketing toward children and marketing toward and developing events for the masses this issue will persist.

Case in point: toward the end of the USA Swimming World Championship Trials, I walked by a semi-impromptu Ryan Lochte autograph session in the concourse at the IUPUI Natatorium. Lochte was mostly mobbed by children as the parents stood back and watched. There was one adult in the crowd, however, who appeared to be trying to sneak in for a quick photo with the second most popular swimmer on the planet, but he couldn’t get through the wranglers to access the star and Olympic champion.

When a sporting event organizer tells you that the music playing during a swim meet doesn’t matter, despite it being the most heavily discussed topic of the entire meet, because it’s just ‘background noise,’ you know there’s a problem. That happened at this year’s World Championship Trials.

The sport may say they are trying to reach out to all audiences, but that’s just not obvious when you walk into the venues and follow the marketing campaigns, it’s geared toward children.

And why wouldn’t it be? The kids are where the market is. The kids are the ones who buy the most swimsuits, who attend the swim clinics, and most importantly: the kids are the ones who get hooked and continue to pay their dues to USA Swimming.

The adults, however, having suffered through so many hours-long swim meets, can find plenty of incidental ‘conflicts’ that would make it impossible to go to these events.

So how do we market more to the adult market? Bravado, which we in American swimming hate, will attract more adult fans. Somebody in swimming needs to let himself or herself be the bad guy and be the villain, and specifically it needs to be someone in the United States for the United States market to grow. The team element needs to be emphasized. The meet formats need to be changed (head-to-head races, make relays matter at the big meets).

If the post-Phelps era has proven anything, it’s that barring a second coming, swimming has tapped out its market size when only going after kids who swim and their families. Yes, more kids can be brought into the sport, but without another Phelpsian-type coming along (and, again, he had a bit of that ‘bad boy’ element from his out-of-the-pool incidents), current audiences will be limited by those boundaries.

Swimming needs to continue to find out how to bring new fans into the sport. Fans, perhaps, that swam briefly as a kid or never swam at all. Fans who aren’t really interested in cries about how many millions of meters the athletes swam to get to the national championships, but instead just want to come to a swim meet and be entertained.

There’s a lot of people who won’t like that answer. I’m sure at least half of you reading this post are sitting in your chairs and fuming at the insinuation that ‘hard work’ isn’t enough for athletes to earn millions of dollars a year. The reality of the marketplace, though, is that it isn’t. It just isn’t.

How do we get there? Maybe the next executive at USA Swimming will be from outside the sport, maybe they’ll bring a fresh twist to things. I, personally, would love to see an NBA executive in USA Swimming’s front office.

For now, though, why change? The people who make the decisions in swimming are all earning comfortable livings, and they’re not having to work too hard against the boundaries to make that money. There’s no real incentive to try and push the sport out to a broader audience, because they, in fact, benefit from the “underdog” nature of the sport.

We need more Mike Bottoms in the sport, we need more David Marshes in the sport, we need more Emily Whites in the sport, and we need more Gary Hall Jr’s in the sport. These are the people who push the envelope and try and find new ways to draw people into the sport, the innovators, the people who have done and seen enough of the other-side-of-the-coin to understand something bigger than the sport.

Swimming needs a change. 2014 would be a great time to experiment with those changes. Let’s hope that happens.

SIDE NOTE FROM GOLD MEDAL MEL: Even as the USA Swimming machine markets aggressively to 12 year olds, they charge them to attend US National Championships. Charging 12 year old swimmers and the parents of 12 year old swimmers to attend US Nationals makes no sense whatsoever. At the US World Trials the top swimwear brands sponsoring USA Swimming had large venues setup, entertaining stores and interactive social hangouts. Foot traffic through these venues was less than desirable. All of the USA Swimming Club Teams within a 100 mile radius could have been marketed to aggressively, invited to come to at “no fee,” incentivized to attend. USA Swimming could’ve distributed goodie bags to each and every Club Team swimmer. Their swimwear brand partners could’ve and (dare I say) would’ve paid for it.  Three hours before each session, there should have been a swim clinic sponsored by Arena, Speedo, TYR, BREAKout Swim Clinic and the Fitter and Faster Swim Tour, servicing 800-1000 swimmers. Bottom-line: If you want to service the sport at these events (to 12 year olds), then service the sport. Block every spare minute with entertainment. 300,000 plus swimmers pay $125 per year to be a USA Swimming athlete.  The revenue to accomplish a packed house at US Nationals is there. The good news is that the model for pulling in an audience and servicing an audience has already been created by USA Swimming. US Olympic Trials is exceptional. Clearly USA Swimming is following that model. While it’s challenging in a post Olympic year, it can be done, and, I hope, it will be a top priority in the coming years. 

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Bob
4 years ago

They are also doing a really bad job to build up enthusiasm for live viewing in the streaming age. You have all kinds of video on USA Swimming’s web site, most of which is totally lacking in production value… pretty rough cuts from race end to post-race interviews. They just don’t have commentary of the calibre that they do for televised events and it is a pretty accurate representation of what it’s like to go to a meet live. This is like other sports. If you want to get a good look at an NBA game, you don’t do that by bringing your field glasses so you can see the ball from up in the upper deck. You go for… Read more »

cynthia curran
10 years ago

The 25-year-old Olympic swimming sensation is famous for his incredible focus in the pool, so it’s hard to believe he has struggled with ADHD since childhood. His teachers complained about his inability to sit still until, in fifth grade, the Phelps’ family physician formally diagnosed him with ADHD. At age 9, Phelps went on Ritalin; his mother, Debbie, later recalled in the New York Times that it seemed to help his hyperactivity. After two years on medication, however, Phelps said he felt stigmatized (each day at lunchtime he had to visit the school nurse to get his medicine) and asked to be taken off the drug. After consulting with his doctor, Debbie agreed to let him be med free.

Instead,… Read more »

PAC12BACKER
10 years ago

Agree with ZuluZulu. Swimming doesn’t translate well in it’s current form. Many are content with that on this forum, but the question still remains, how do you leverage the HUGE draw of Olympic swimming, which captures a broad based audience, outside of an Olympic year? I can’t think of any other sport with such an enormous drop-off in attention. Gymnastics and track have a drop but not as much as swimming.

Again, in non-Olympic years & events ONLY parents & family members of swimmers, ex-swimmers, and age group swimmers are attending any meets or watching these things on web streaming, USN, etc.

I agree with Braden’s points. Swimming should market to adults (and older teens), get some real rivalries… Read more »

DL
Reply to  PAC12BACKER
10 years ago

PAC12 – I agree with most of your points, but not about the sprint races. I think the sprints might be exciting for someone that knows swimming, but it’s not clear to me that this applies to the general viewer. A marathon (running) can attract thousands of participants and viewers. And there’s even open water events that attract thousands of viewers without a huge pr campaign. People love a great race, period.

PAC12BACKER
Reply to  DL
10 years ago

True, sometimes you get incredible match races between 2 or 3 swimmers in a 800/1000 or 1500/1650 that can be quite exciting. Most of the time not so much and half the audience is in the bathroom or at the snack stand.

Agree, good appeal for open water swimming. Part of the attraction is getting outdoors and bringing family and friends to a beach or lake fpr a recreational afternoon. Something that pool swimming can’t replicate, although hosting more major meets at outdoor venues in nice climiates helps. The Mesa & Santa Clara Grand Prix are good examples. People would much rather be sitting outdoors at these places than sitting in the rafters at Minny. Makes for better broadcast… Read more »

zuluzulu
10 years ago

Let’s face it. Swimming just doesn’t translate well. Even at World’s swimmers were scratching finals, some were actually not in the best shape (post-Olympic letdown), etc. If they can’t take it seriously – for want of a better word – nobody else will either. Can you imagine going to the NBA finals and Lebron sits out the second half to be better rested for a future game (not talking about the last few minutes when the game is in hand). Also mid season meets without taper are terrible. The other sports typically are performing at high caliber every event while swimmers only really bring it at taper meets which are few and far between. Out of sight out of mind.

SwimFanFinland
Reply to  zuluzulu
10 years ago

There are no world records in basketball. Lebron can just bounce around the field and still he will live up to spectators’ expectations. In other words, the expectations of perfection that the likes of Bryant or Lebron face are far cry from the expectations of elite swimmers when they dive in the action. And basketball is better off due to that fact.

Mcgillrocks
10 years ago

I think we can all agree on one thing: we want more tournament/racing oriented meets.

The problem is you can bring some money to a swim meet but you can’t get swimmers to swim in it. Nothing against the Texas Shootout, but it’s not like Vlad, Cielo and Adrian are going to show up there and swim shaved and tapered.

The thing is you could name a series “The Grand Prix Olympic Series Super Championships” and give out a few millions of dollars in prize money but mostly the best swimmers will not prioritize those meets. They prioritize worlds, Olympics and regional championships and there’s nothing we can do about that.

Which leads to my idea: eliminate… Read more »

PAC12BACKER
Reply to  Mcgillrocks
10 years ago

Even the moderate amounts of money you describe are too rich for USA Swimming and FINA unless they can market outside the usual suspects of swim suit manufacturers. Golf and tennis are able to produce very large purses due to the mass appeal of their products to the casual user.

Alot of people play golf and need clubs. Alot of people play tennis and require a racket & balls. Alot of people run and need running shoes. Alot of recreational swimmers need suits BUT they do not need speedo briefs and jammers! They wear board shorts and other brands that are not sponsers of USA Swimming. Somehow competitive swimming needs to tap into revenue sources outside of the usual swim… Read more »

SwimFanFinland
Reply to  PAC12BACKER
10 years ago

FINA has seven official partners at the moment, i.e. Midea, Myrtha Pools, Nikon, Omega, Speedo, Yakult and the city of Kazan (Russia).

Speedo, Myrtha Pools and Kazan, and probably even Omega, can be seen as coming from the world of swimming in one way or another, whereas, in my opinion, the others are clearly partners outside of the realms of swimming. A situation is not that bad as it may look like at first glance.

Of course when it comes to the World Cup the host communities and national federations contribute enormously to the prize purse so that money is coming from the swimming communities itself.

I keep repeating how prestigious sponsorship deals certain international federations for different… Read more »

mcgillrocks
Reply to  PAC12BACKER
10 years ago

the prize money i described is exactly $1,600,000 which is less than the world cup prize money

Since these meets, well, mean something, I would hope they would have higher ticket sales and sponsorship interest, which would pay for some of the money

SwimFanFinland
Reply to  Mcgillrocks
10 years ago

I appreciate your thinking and the way you put forward new suggestions. Molding a circuit kind of swimming series into an actual qualification for the World Championships will surely draw media attention to it along with all top-notch swimmers and potential drama in sight.

I throw in an obstacle that probably needs to be addressed. The suggestion is radically new as it invades the qualification procedures of national federations, a move prone to cause resistance from those federations. How about splitting a quota of eliminating swimmers for World Championships between national federations and the circuit led by FINA? An universality principle must be involved in the system too.

SwimFanFinland
10 years ago

I can’t help quoting Ian Thorpe about the topic at hand as he describes in his book how he ended in competing in swimming:

“…being a spectator in the stands really sucked. The only way out was to be in.”

Hahaha. 🙂

Wondering
10 years ago

Perhaps I missed my concern above but I felt that the time standards were too high at the recent nationals/WCT held at IUPUI. 2008 nationals had twice as many swimmers entered as the 2013. More swimmers = more fans in my opinion. Lower standards may mean more local swimmers. Granted, those who enter under the lower times don’t have a chance of advancing but they and their clubs and families may come back for finals.

Donsterr
10 years ago

I feel like Mike Bottom had the right idea when he made the swim carnival. He got the Michigan band to play, the diving team had their own circus, and there were races that involved fins, it was was fun for everyone and made the sport interesting to watch (cause come on, the sport does become a drag sometimes.

Another great idea would be to make elite “squads” around the country. kinda like what the Brazilians did last September. A meet where a each team has four swimmers: a backstroker, breaststroker, butterflyer, and freestylist. i feel like this would give the sport more character. to give everyone an idea of what i’m talking about here’s the link about the… Read more »

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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