Why has swimming been left without spectators around the world?
The big day for Spain in the swimming World Championships that just ended was Friday. The national team, in the women's water polo final, and Hugo González, in the final of the 200 backstroke. How to miss it? Apparently, either way.
The defeat against the Netherlands by Miki Oca's team barely accumulated 40,000 viewers on La 2, less than the reruns of Who lives there? in La Sexta and the Hindt series in Cuatro. And González's seventh place was at 79,000 followers, far behind the audience for the Women's Tour, an England-Denmark Women's World Cup and the start of the Spanish Athletics Championship.
Everything that happens in the water is of no interest in Spain and it makes sense: there is a lack of medals, references, tradition and facilities. But… Why does the same thing happen in countries that dominate swimming? At the Fukuoka World Cup, World Swimming has met with the disinterest of the world. A difficult problem to solve.
It all started before the start of the championship. The BBC decided not to pay for the live broadcast rights of the World Cup and kept some summaries that it broadcast in the afternoons. It was paradigmatic. The British public channel usually turns to the Olympics and had been showing the World Cup live since 1991. His absence was a sign of decline, but when the competition started there was more evidence.
The American NBC, the most important television in the Olympic universe, suffered horrific numbers. In most sessions of the World Cup, it did not reach 200,000 viewers, the minimum figure for the television audience to be recorded in the US.. Swimming, a college sport there, has never followed the trail of American football, baseball, basketball, motorsports, golf, tennis or soccer, but it's odd that it trails the newly created American rugby league. or the Westminster Dog Show, a dog show that is held in Flushing Meadows and whose last edition was won by a very cute Basset Griffon Vendean.
The absences, key
The reasons are many. The Fukuoka schedule hurt the fans of the United States -the finals were at eight in the morning- and hindered the European fans, but it was not the only thing. Since the retirement of Michael Phelps in 2016, swimming has been in search of a benchmark and the candidates for it, such as Caeleb Dressel, are lost in trouble. Katie Ledecky's hits were the only incentive for the Yankee audience while the British celebrated the emergence of Matt Richards.
The World Cup only had a pull in Australia, which enjoyed the finals in prime time and added up to 13 golds, the best championship in its history. Not even in France, with the rise of Leon Marchand, did swimming exceed 100,000 viewers, cornered on France 4, a France Télévisions channel where cartoons are usually broadcast.