I just heard that two more universities, Rutgers and James Madison, are ditching men's swimming while spending zillions on football and golf. My own alma mater almost cut women's swimming several years ago. They were saved by alumni fundraising, but not until the swim team put itself up for sale on ebay. Endurance sports get no respect. It makes no sense. I thought open water swimming and triathlons and road racing were on the rise even among young kids. If so, why cut all those sports in college? I guess it's still just a miniscule percentage that participate compared to other sports, like my least favorite youth sport -- travel soccer.
Parents
Former Member
Why do people watch swimmming during the Olympics, but not the other three years? Because it is well produced.
First, swimming is part of the Olympic package of nation versus nation, and counting the medals, that we all find so compelling. If there was a tiddlewinks competition with an American having a chance to medal, we'd all care about tiddlewinks. In contrast, some of us wouldn't give a rat's rear-end about basketball, except in the Olympics.
Second, the coverage is way more interesting than the meet because it is edited to show only the dramatic parts. Forget about slogging through all those prelim heats, or seeing uninterrupted coverage of the 1500 final. Moreover, we don't get 2 mind-numbing hours of swimming. Instead we get 5-10 minutes of the 100 fly, then an hour of the other sports, then 5-10 more minutes of the 200 back, etc. (In fact, it's a dirty little network trick to NOT tell you exactly when each sport will be up, so we have to sit still for the tiddlewinks competition if we don't want to miss our favorite sport.)
The first step of building interest and popularity in swimming as a spectator sport would start with how to make coverage of it more compelling and watchable.
Matt
Why do people watch swimmming during the Olympics, but not the other three years? Because it is well produced.
First, swimming is part of the Olympic package of nation versus nation, and counting the medals, that we all find so compelling. If there was a tiddlewinks competition with an American having a chance to medal, we'd all care about tiddlewinks. In contrast, some of us wouldn't give a rat's rear-end about basketball, except in the Olympics.
Second, the coverage is way more interesting than the meet because it is edited to show only the dramatic parts. Forget about slogging through all those prelim heats, or seeing uninterrupted coverage of the 1500 final. Moreover, we don't get 2 mind-numbing hours of swimming. Instead we get 5-10 minutes of the 100 fly, then an hour of the other sports, then 5-10 more minutes of the 200 back, etc. (In fact, it's a dirty little network trick to NOT tell you exactly when each sport will be up, so we have to sit still for the tiddlewinks competition if we don't want to miss our favorite sport.)
The first step of building interest and popularity in swimming as a spectator sport would start with how to make coverage of it more compelling and watchable.
Matt
