Is Passion Missing From Year-Round Swimming?

Column by Jason Marsteller

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 26. PASSION. That's exactly what the world saw from Michael Phelps when Jason Lezak tracked down Alain Bernard for the men's 400 freestyle relay.

Passion. That's also what the world witnessed from Michael Phelps after he matched Mark Spitz' seventh gold with a win in the men's 100 fly.

Passion. That's what the world saw from Eli Manning when the New York Giants pulled an incredible upset in last year's Super Bowl.

Passion. That's what the world sees when athletes from the world's most popular sports take the field of play for any given event.

Passion. That's what the world sees when it tunes in to most sporting events that have seasons that matter.

Passion. That's what really gets to the common sports fan. That's the reaction sports fans must have to keep coming back time and again to a sport. How many people in this world alter their entire lives to witness the passion of the Olympics? How many people wake up at 4 a.m. just to watch the World Cup when they wouldn't be caught dead watching soccer otherwise.

Passion is that ingredient that is missing from sports that just don't do well in a sustained fashion on television. Sports fans are not stupid. They know when the participants don't really care much about the outcome of a particular contest. If the athletes don't care, why should they?

With all the recent talk about taking swimming to another level based on the Michael Phelps factor when it comes to television exposure, I'm still curious whether the sport of swimming is truly made for TV in its current format. Do swimmers really care enough about more than 2-3 meets a year for regularly-scheduled meets to have an impact on television?

The one thing that has been proven is that sports with competitions that matter during the regular seasons are successful both financially and from an exposure standpoint. Success on television, which is the key to growing a sport to a grand scale, really comes down to the fact that fans live vicariously through sport. They need to see that what they are watching matters to those engaged.

At the Olympics, all a swimmer cares about is getting their hand to the wall first. At NCAAs, all a swimmer wants is to win a national title. Why is it that it takes a meet where the clock doesn't matter for most of our swimmers to demonstrate that high level of passion?

Amazingly, most U.S. National Championships aren't even the focus of elite swimmers. How many times have you heard that such-and-such swam through Nationals when it wasn't a qualifying meet for international competition?

Yes, the sport of swimming must work within the confines of taper schedules, but the random fan that we are courting to try to grow the sport does not understand this concept.

The question I have is whether the fall season of the sport in the U.S. can be altered into some sort of NASCAR-type regular season where every point matters leading towards a post-season. Or maybe an ultimate team title could be awarded at the end of the short course season that ends with short course nationals in December. This all might have the chance to be done while maintaining the integrity of the standard long course season that would end with long course nationals in July.

I don't believe I have even a tenth of the answers for how this might be accomplished, but what I do know is the concept of swimming through a meet adversely impacts the overall potential growth of the sport. If our true desire as a swimming community is for the sport to gain mass mainstream acceptance and coverage more than just every four years, some sort of paradigm shift needs to happen with the importance on all of the potentially televised events.

In the end, for a casual fan to care enough about watching swimming on television on a regular basis, each event must truly matter to the swimmers involved. Sports fans are just too smart not to catch when that isn't the case.

Michael Phelps and Garrett Weber-Gale Celebrate After Winning the 400 Free Relay at the Beijing Olympics

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