Why swimming tops ratings

Swimming leaves athletics in its wake
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Philip Derriman
March 22, 2008

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ATHLETICS fans are probably still grumbling about the fact that the national titles in Brisbane a few weeks ago - which doubled as our Olympic selection trials - received no live television coverage whatsoever, not even on pay TV. All viewers saw of them was 90 minutes of highlights on SBS the following Sunday morning.

Tonight, the Olympic selection trials for Australia’s swimmers begin in Sydney and, for the next eight nights, starting tonight, the event will be televised live in what the free-to-air networks call prime time - that is, from 6pm onwards.

Channel Nine will screen it on five nights, starting at 7.30pm, and Fox Sports on the other three.

So why does swimming get heaps of good TV coverage and athletics almost none? We all know swimming is a more popular sport, but it’s not that much more popular. (How could it be, an athletics supporter might ask, when all you see of the competitors is the backs of their heads as they go up and down the pool?)

Swimming obviously has other things going for it, one being a history of international success. Within the television industry it’s accepted that viewers are willing to tune into the swimming because it’s a sport they subconsciously associate with Australian gold medals.

[b]But there’s more to it than that. Swimming provides a case study in how a sport can raise its profile by marketing its star performers skilfully enough.

The story begins in the early 1990s. Swimming Australia (as we know the organisation today) adopted a policy of trying to get more media exposure by making itself as media-friendly as possible, which meant the swimmers themselves had to be media-friendly.

They had to be willing to give interviews, smile at cameras, that sort of thing.[/b]In Australia, this was quite a break in tradition, for in most sports the relationship between sportspeople and the media was generally strained, sometimes hostile. Cricketers - especially Test cricketers - were probably the hardest of all to get on with. In fact, one former cricket writer known to Square Eyes says he has lost much of his enthusiasm for the game as a result of having to deal for years with obnoxious Test cricketers.

Swimming’s strategy was to make popular heroes of its top performers. Fortunately, by the early 1990s, especially after the 1992 Olympics, several swimmers had emerged that were able to fit the bill - most notably Kieren Perkins and Susie O’Neill.

Later in the decade, they were joined by another wave of rising stars led by Ian Thorpe. Someone who was involved then in the marketing of swimming recalls, "We grabbed every opportunity to get the swimmers on TV or in the papers. We made the athletes as available as possible. We needed to get our sport on TV outside the Commonwealth Games and Olympic years, and we kept knocking on the networks’ doors. Channel Nine kept saying, “No, no, we can’t do it,” but eventually Nine succumbed to the pressure and said they’d have a crack at the '99 Pan-Pacs.

"They did seven or eight nights live or as-live. It was a major gamble for Nine, but it paid off. It paid off for all of us. There were 12 or 13 world records set that week.

“It all came together in a magical week of swimming that really has set up the sport as a major TV product.”

Swimming’s problem today is it needs to stay on a roll. If the supply of heroes dries up, swimming will be in the same position as athletics - on the outside looking in. Already there is some concern about a shortage of emerging male stars.

Cue the next Ian Thorpe.

I remember after Athens 2004 Clinton Hill was saying how they (Athletics Australia (AA)) should get at least one night of live athletics from a National Series Meet or National Titles each season. At least.

I don’t know why they don’t televise the Nationals live on SBS on the Saturday night. As if people (especially families) wouldn’t rather be watching 2 hours of athletics than re-runs of Billy Madison or some crap (subjective statement – ignore) like Iron Chef!!

I really think it’s more down to AA than anything else. They need to be willing to give SBS the rights for live coverage for cheap. Real cheap. Even free. Seriously. The marketing we’d get from just that one night a year would be at least an order of magnitude better than what the current situation is giving us.

Please AA!! Do it!!

Kieren, exactly who i was thinking about. People loved him, and still do.

As for Cue the next thorpe - well, might have been easier if he retired a bit later - They were on his band wagon, HARD, only to retire at a very young age.

I think you’ll find that AA has to Pay to get their stuff on any kind of TV. But when your athletes don’ty support the circuit, you don’t make enough money to be able to pay - and I don’t think the Govt gives money for that sort of promotional stuff. Usually every cent of Govt funding is quarantined for specific development areas and that money is strictly accountable and monitored by Govt. I’ve been harping on about this for years, but nobody cares. The NF knows if it doesn’t make money, it can’t spend any on marketing. It has only one product and that’s a few domestic meets. And then - unlike swimming - you get athletes refusing to talk to the press. And the media that already hates athletics notes that unlike swimming where they seem to be able to break world records during the domestic season and then back up and win gold medals at the Olympics, the athletes aren’t media-friendly, don’t set records at home and … :eek:

This sums it up, while you can have athletes who are approachable and friendly if they aren’t a force on the international stage then it counts for nought.

I think head-to-head competition will usually elevate the level of the opponents, will draw a crowd if the contests are great and will attract media, sponsors and it wouldn’t matter if the athletes don’t set world records like the swimmers. For a few years all that was true when Cathy Freeman raced Melinda Gainsford every weekend during the Oz summer season. And while neither of them set world records, both of them eventually became world class - Freeman of course finishing by far the better. You need two competitors - preferably in every event - who the public can relate to; then you need to bring them h2h in your own country where the people can actually walk into a stadium and see them, cheer for them.
It’s a simple formula for success but everyone needs to understand their role in putting on the entertainment because that’s all sport is: Entertainment for the participants, entertainment for the observers. And entertainment is big business and growing bigger. Anyone in track who doesn’t understand that has been left behind.

I think a lot of people in track seem to not be aware of this.

We could have marketed the Men’s 400m this last summer sooooo well, but didn’t. It sucks. I think the superstars need to do a bit more for the sport and if nothing else that means just showing up to meets (even just giving half-arsed performances if they must due to injuries or whatever).

I don’t know, it’s hard for our sport because the whole point of it is to peak for one meet per year - there’s no real season where the whole season counts, so people can’t follow it as easily and get into it like they do for footy or whatever. But then again, the case is the same for swimming.

The swimmers seem to support each other really well, and they are all friendly to the media (although some of it’s undoubtedly fake).