Are Open Water events more popular than Pool events?

It’s undeniable that the popularity of open water swimming has risen dramatically in the last few years. But when looking for a LCM meet to swim in, I saw an interesting trend on the USMS Calendar. www.usms.org/.../calendar.php Here in the Colonies Zone, there are three pool meets listed (two were last weekend and the other is in October) and TEN open water events. In the Great Lakes Zone, there are ZERO pool meets (not counting LCM Nationals in Indy) and seven open water events. These kinds of numbers are similar in virtually all the Zones. Has open water swimming officially passed pool swimming in popularity? Maybe but check back in December and I'm quite sure there will be no open water events listed for the Colonies :D

It’s undeniable that the popularity of open water swimming has risen dramatically in the last few years. But when looking for a LCM meet to swim in, I saw an interesting trend on the USMS Calendar. www.usms.org/.../calendar.php Here in the Colonies Zone, there are three pool meets listed (two were last weekend and the other is in October) and TEN open water events. In the Great Lakes Zone, there are ZERO pool meets (not counting LCM Nationals in Indy) and seven open water events. These kinds of numbers are similar in virtually all the Zones. Has open water swimming officially passed pool swimming in popularity? Maybe but check back in December and I'm quite sure there will be no open water events listed for the Colonies :D