USA Swimming announced a bold
new initiative recently, with its main focus to get more participation in the
pool. Similar to initiatives launched by USA Hockey, USA Tennis, and the
PGA – USA Swimming is realizing that other sports are taking their future into
their own hands and recreating their sport to different age, gender, and
socioeconomic groups. Swimming has been a good sport at retaining its
“clients”, but not great compared to other sports for participation, and that
competition is growing. So USA Swimming has a problem…..
I believe that adapting to a
model serving more dual meets, shorter, faster and fun events is going to do a
lot more to get people involved than by trying to recruit athletes in parts of
the country that don’t have pools.
Question – What should the sport
of swimming do to increase participation?
