USA Swimming membership has been unpredictable the last few years, with a massive rise in membership in 2022 followed by a significant decline in 2023. USA Swimming released their demographic data for 2024 today, and membership stayed very stable, adding 493 members for a 0.13% increase of their numbers to 376,320.
This is not the first time the organization has not seen a significant increase or decrease. From 2009-2010, they added just 85 members for a 0.0% increase.
USA Swimming is still struggling to regain the numbers they lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019 they had 411,672 members before a massive drop in 2020 and 2021 as a result of public pools and club teams closing their doors.
The organization is expecting a significant increase in next year’s numbers due to the post-Olympic surge, typically a 4-12% increase.
USA Swimming’s Total Membership Since 2013 (% Change)
- 2024: 376,320 (+0.13%)
- 2023: 375,827 (-4.61%)
- 2022: 393,970 (+18.9%)
- 2021: 331,228 (-8.8%)
- 2020: 363,093 (-11.8%)
- 2019: 411,672 (+0.1%)
- 2018: 411,324 (-1.9%)
- 2017: 419,427 (+5.2%)
- 2016: 398,585 (-0.4%)
- 2015: 400,165 (-1.1%)
- 2014: 404,423 (-0.1%)
- 2013: 404,940 (+11.5%)
One of the statistics we focused on last year was the member retention rate. In 2023, the rate was the lowest on record dating back to 2019 at 68.9%. This year, that number dropped to 66.9%. 16-year-old girls had the highest retention rate of all the tracked ages and genders with 72.1% renewing their memberships for this year.
Other Key Figures:
- Club Membership: In 2024, USA Swimming added 63 club teams, totaling 2,740 teams to increase from the 2,677 clubs in 2023
- Minority Percentages: Asian swimmers make up the largest non-white percentage of athletes at 12.5%.
- Age Distribution: There were more than 41,000 8 and Under swimmers with memberships last year.
- Zone Distribution: The Western Zone was the Biggest Zone, comprising 25.6% of the athletes. The Southern Zone had 24.9%, and the Eastern and Central Zones both had 24.7%.
- LSC Size: Illinois was the largest LSC with 15,711 total athletes. Pacific was the next largest with 14,368
Not sure what I think about the, “You’ll see the Olympic bump next year” line.
On the one hand, the bump has always come in the Olympic year (in 2016 I had to turn people away) and that obviously wasn’t the case this cycle, so it could just be USA Swimming making an excuse.
On the other hand, the rec league in our area DID get a huge Olympic bump, so there may be some truth to the theory that it could take a year for that to trickle down to the USA clubs during this cycle.
USA Swimming is in absolute turmoil. College swimming is being decimated by the NIL/lawsuit. Club retention beyond 11/12/13 YO is abysmal. Not good signs…
We have tryouts at the end of the month for our Long Course season… Registration opened last Monday and normally we get about 75-100 registering to tryout in the first week it is open.
This year we have 27 as of this comment
Most larger clubs say that bump isn’t coming because it didn’t happen this past fall as it usually does. USA Olympic performance matters, not just participating.
The women did pretty well. Let’s see if there’s a difference in growth between the boys and girls.
NO bump this year….
yeah the us olympic performance was historic — in all the worst ways 😬
it also doesnt help that the us stars outside of ledecky (bobby, torri, kate, regan, gretch) got very little mainstream post olympic press — the one podcast that regan did w jake paul was oriented around how bad the us did at the olympics lol…
compare that to how gabby thomas got a press hit in basically every single late night or morning show (ofc it helps that shes incredibly telegenic and credentialed)
With roster and program cuts, expect membership to drop. Not much incentive for club kids to stay in the sport going forward.
What incentive do Aussie club swimmers have without NCAA? Brits? Japan? Chinese? Etc!
Easy. All of the aforementioned are supported by govt funding.
Only the top swimmers get funding in Australia.
People should swim to get better faster and improve and worry about college recruiting later..You can’t control college coach decision making or NIL like events..Get better and see where the chips fall..
The renewal rate is not retention. Many organizations count renewal this way and while it may be an important business statistic it reveals very little about retention. True retention in youth sport organizations has to be tracked in cohorts over multiple years in order for it to be of any real value to the NGB.
Agreed. Most youth sports are going to show a very bad renewal/retention rate year to year, given the nature. Kids try new sports, then quit, try a new one, then quit. Tough metric.