Why is swimming so much more popular than track?

Yes, swimming is popular at least in the Olympics. Why? Because US swimmers set world records and win gold medals 🏅. The only track events we do that are the sprints and maybe field events.

Plus most swimmers look buff.

The US is not doing as well as they usually do, but we still have Dressel and Ledecky winning golds.

I watch both and neither one is extremely exciting to watch in real time. You have fantastic moments broken up by many minutes of boredom. DVR is a must.

And I'm speaking specifically about how NBC markets it. They obviously know America loves it.

But back to Rowdy Gains. Compare his commentating to our track commentators so far. It's not even close for drumming up excitement

Only in America. 99% of competitors in swimming are Caucasians. 99% of of track are people of colour. Track however is more popular in the rest of the world than swimming is except for perhaps in Australia.

My sense is that gymnastics and swimming are both more popular on tv than track in the Olympics, not because of greater participation but because gymnastics is more fun to watch for the average fan--since they're not just running in a straight line or around a track or swimming in a straight line (there's some variety in the different strokes in swimming), because the USA has been a medal contender in both sports in almost every event for decades, if not since the beginning of the sport in the Olympics, and because the athletes are or were mostly white. They don't need to be white to bring in the audiences, as Biles proved, but it doesn't hurt if middle America can identify with them. In track, we win a lot of medals in the sprints and field events, but only very recently in the distances and even there we are often uncompetitive for the golds. In the 5000m and 10000m, for instance, we might get a medal rarely. Centro's gold in the 1500m was our first since 1912.

Swimming is popular once every 4 years. Track is the same throughout.

As far as Olympic coverage- someone at NBC is making some stupid choices- they OBSESS over Simone Biles and wait to show track events in prime time instead of live.

I think they overcover swimming because they can talk about individuals who can win multiple medals.

Think about if Athine Mu could run 800 meters four different ways and be on 4 different relays.

Swimming even has an individual relay!!!!

They like to highlight people and they have to be more than one event and done to make them appear "great".

I generally like NBC's coverage but this time, it's pretty bad- and I wish Hoda would go away.

Because the athletes look better than the skinny runners.

i guess if you're into buff triangle shaped dudes the swimmers look good. personally the oversized shoulders don't really do it for me. and most of the women do not look good, i'm sorry. part of that probably has to do with the suits compressing the f out of their curves, but also they have even more exaggerated shoulders than the guys. i know this is hashtag "problematic" body shaming but it's an anonymous forum and swimmers who are self conscious hopefully don't frequent this place.

for whatever reason i seem to be in the minority of people on a site supposedly targeted at running fans who finds the runner body type attractive. go figure.

It’s a better tv event for the average person to watch once every 4 years.

The races are pretty short, they are pretty rapid fire so easy enough to pay attention too. The WR and OR are almost always within reach and there are fast times every race. There is a bit less strategy that the average Joe wouldn’t know about it’s go and swim fast. An American is almost always in contention to win or at least medal sport NBC has something to talk about and a person to make you root for. You see the same swimmers over and over throughout multiple events so you can kinda recognize them more and NBC can again talk about their medal counts. Phelps helped make it popular the past few olympics. Now they have Ledecky and Dressel. And yes Rowdy Gaines is awesome

sbeefyk2 wrote:

This is a funny thread. You never EVER hear of swimming outside of the Olympics. Literally, when have you ever seen any swimming mentions anywhere outside of the Olympics? You haven’t. It’s non existent. Track will get a few random mentions on ESPN every year. Swimming gets zero.

In Europe the best swimmers are household names. They even have a pro circuit. Nobody knows the name of the best track runners with a few exeptions (Farah, Radcliffe).

Star wrote:

It’s not more popular than track.

It’s just on in the first week of the Olympics and track is in the second week.

I don’t hear much about swimming in between Olympics.

I don’t know if swim fans notice much about track between the Games.

Yes, a bunch of American Golds and world records helps.

I think track records are a much bigger deal since they are so rare.

There are major track records on the books from the 80s and 90s.

Bob Beamon’s famous long jump record from 1968 is still #2 all time.

This. I watch swimming in the Olympics like it's the super bowl or the track world championships every four years in the Olympics and then I couldn't care less in between. I'm not sure why.

Arguably the best thing swimming has over athletics is that the qualifying stages are purer than Track and Field in that luck of the draw is eliminated as it’s simply the fastest 16 through to the semi finals and fastest 8 to the final. Competitors are far less aware of how other lanes are going and just have to push through to their quickest possible time.

This is a big driver to the regularity of world records being broken.

Obviously Athletics don’t do this due to a) weather such as wind speed is a much bigger factor than the indoor pool and b) all events above 1 lap are not run strictly in lanes.

I remember when I was in high school the track team and the swim team use to have a rivalry. The swimmers use to claim their sport was harder and more competitive which meant they were the superior athlete over us track guys. They never won anything past their conference meet while we were going to regionals and nationals. Both sports were the bottom of the totem pole but the swimmers were probably more liked than us nerdy track guys. I once went to a swim meet in person. It is not spectator friendly what so ever. Without the help of the graphics that are on tv you have no idea who's swimming, what place they got in or their time until after the race is over.

sportwatcher wrote:

Yes, swimming is popular at least in the Olympics. Why? Because US swimmers set world records and win gold medals 🏅. The only track events we do that are the sprints and maybe field events.

Plus most swimmers look buff.

Have swimming WRs plateaued? I'm some events, women now swim faster than guys did in the 70s. I recall someone setting a WR that lasted until the next heat.

vaccinated wrote:

It gets press because it inflates the US medal count. No one in or out of the US cares about it though.

I have Australia on line 1 for you.

It's something of an underwear model pageant as the guys are shirtless, shaven, have Men's Health magazine physiques, tanned, and often handsome (e.g. Ryan Lochte). In running we send guys who are trying to look like literal bums (e.g. Ben Blankenship).

All male runners need to do is hit chest day a little more regularly at the gym and the male attractiveness problem would go away.

dullard wrote:

They aren't dominating this year.

To the American audience, Australians and Brits are considered American enough.

[quote]phelpsisthegoat wrote:

swimming is something we associate with vacations. running is something we associate with suffering/punishment

You have clearly never been to a swim practice. Most swim practices are way tougher than most running sessions. Swim practices are much more intense in terms of both volume and physical exertion. As a former high school swimmer, we practiced for 3-4 hours a day. Most practices had interveals that left us grasping for air. Compare that to running, where many people freak out if their heart rate is too high on an easy run.