EDITORIAL: Support Swimming – Watch Big 12 Men’s Swimming on TV Thursday at Noon on Fox Sports Southwest

By M. Duncan Scott

COLLEGE STATION, TX, March 2. BIG 12 Swimming and Diving from here will be on TV soon. Tape delayed, at noon today on FOX Sports Southwest.

I know we always need to be appreciative for any television coverage of swimming and diving we get, but something more is needed if we are to kick start the popularity of our sport between Olympiads.

Step number one has to be that swim fans within broadcast range WATCH IT. I SAY AGAIN, WATCH IT; GET YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO WATCH IT.

Let’s see. You can get motocross, NASCAR, golf and figure skating on the tube almost any time you want, along with a continuous supply of the football, basketball and baseball big three – I love being able to say that and have there be no dispute as to the “big” number since hockey is down for the count.

Unfortunately, swimming and some other “pure” sports (not necessarily clean from a drug standpoint but pure in the sense that you start together and go from point A to point B and the first person there wins) are not presented in ways that those in power recognize as formats, which will sell, well on the telly.

The problem is that decision makers, whether in standard print media or television have already made up their minds that swimming doesn’t sell. And so far we haven’t rallied the troops to show the executives wrong.

If that’s the case, though, why is swimming perpetually one of the biggest draws for a week straight on the biggest sporting stage there is. And its most popular time is in a meet that is straightforward vanilla rather than promotional drivel, albeit the highest quality of vanilla.

What is different in 2005 from 2004?

Attitude and preconceptions from decision makers.

And as hard as we work at it, those attitudes will not change unless the rating points spike for events when swimming is on its own rather than part of a multi-sport framework. Their attitudes become self-fulfilling prophecies when the niche we are allowed is a weekday at noon on a regional network.

But you know what? We just had a couple of weekends of great competition ranging from high school state meets to DI, DII and DIII conference events all across the country. Rather than complaining at this point about being on a regional network, with the amount of good competition over the last few weeks, why aren’t we on EVERY regional network. Are we working hard enough? Are we identifying and selling to our best audiences? The Southern California aquatic fair that culminated in the US Olympic Trials and the FINA short course championship in Indianapolis in October did a great job and had fine attendance. But we have to keep that ball rolling.

The American public’s thirst for competition has not been sated. Even fake – or at least not “pure” – events have come on the scene and been woven into our cultural fabric during a time when all the commentators can talk about is saturation of broadcast sports. But think of it. What is pro wrestling but blowhards packaged in a way that mimics competition. And the X-Games. They take frenetic daredevil activity and present it with a score. Voila!! Competition. And even beyond this we see the popularity of competition in the arts, normally the least competitive of activities. Singing or acting well do not require competition by comparison to others but that is how Americans have shaped their entertainment, especially in the last few years. American Idol, Survivor, The Apprentice, and before that Emmys, Grammys and Oscars. And as I sit here now a woman on television is sliding down a rope in downtown Las Vegas, holding on only by her bite, AS THE CROWD GOES ABSOLUTELY NUTS.

The point is, there is still enough lust for competition out there that if we do it right we have to be able to tap into it, between Games.

We must maintain the integrity of our main events – it hasn’t hurt the Olympics. And it seemed the last day of the men’s Big Ten meet this last weekend produced enough electricity between Minnesota (720), Indiana (717) and Northwestern (held the Minn/IU race in its hands till the last 50 yards of the last relay) to light up the Twin Cities. But how many were watching? If a tree falls in the forest, does it make any noise, yada, yada, yada. If they were watching, live and with enough commentary to understand what was happening, the audience would have been into it.

But we also have to work harder at coming up with other ways to package and present:

A sprint type event tour; More festivals around open water swims or joined with triathlon events; Creative costumes; Emphasize the beauty mind and spirit of an Amanda Beard and the zest for life of an Aaron Piersol; Races using mechanical aids, paddles/fins/elastic cords, etc.; Reports from workouts during Christmas training. Ever hear of spring training?

I can tell you from personal experience that there is something special about being part of a swimming AND diving team. Why not have special events where swimmers race and divers do things that make X-Games performers seem tame – No fear? Right!

Charity events have multiple value. Think of Hall with his truly wonderful Diabetes work, and it spreads his name in places other swimmers could never go.

And I hate to say this since so much of our volunteer force is made up of parents of 11 year olds and 13 year olds, but we have to use real promoters working with long term national elite athletes to develop the kind of events and name recognition that may convince the TV decision makers to put swimming events on the tube in settings that give them a shot at success, prime time or midday on weekends. When we try to convince the LA Times about how significant the SoCal JOs are (choose your paper and meet in your area)… it ain’t happening no matter how great the local age group meet is. We in fact go backward in the minds of those who don’t really know the sport and its stars.

And don’t let the local print media shape a story about the local up and coming swim star by talking about their green hair and missed prom. That’s not what most of our kids are about, but it is what nearly every writer who is not familiar with non-Olympic swimming can relate to and falls back on. Give them something a little more interesting, or on occasion even specifically allow out a story that may be a bit controversial.

But for now, as your start, if you live in range of the Fox Sports Southwest broadcast of the Big-12 meet…WATCH IT, GET YOUR FRIENDS TO WATCH IT AND RECORD IT FOR LATER VIEWING. And make a point of letting Fox Sports Southwest know you did.

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