By Riley Overend on SwimSwam
After bouncing back from the COVID-19 pandemic with promising growth in 2022, USA Swimming’s total membership took another step back last year, according to the organization’s latest Membership Demographics Reports.
USA Swimming recently released data for the past two years after a lengthy delay in the 2022 Membership Demographics Report. The good news? The national governing body added more than 62,000 members in 2022 — an increase of 18.9%, the highest on record — to get back close to pre-pandemic levels.
The bad news? USA Swimming lost 18,000 members in 2023. Proportionally, the -4.61% decline was the third-worst ever, with the other two coming at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (-11.8%) and 2021 (-8.8%). The organization has said it lost 660 clubs due to the pandemic, and most swimmers on a club that closes down don’t renew their membership elsewhere.
USA Swimming’s Total Membership Since 2013 (% Change)
- 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%)
USA Swimming has a goal of a 5% membership increase for 2025 “based on historical membership data from post-Olympic years and current projected capacity,” according to the Board of Directors meeting in January.
Membership retention rate was 68.9% last year, the lowest on record dating back to 2019 (the Membership Demographics Reports only go five years back online). Last year, some clubs told SwimSwam they started signing up their pre-competitive swimmers with AAU instead to save time and money. In September, the Board of Directors projected that membership revenue in 2023 would be $926,000 (or 3.8%) less than estimated, contributing to an anticipated operational deficit.
USA Swimming’s Membership Retention Rate Since 2019
- 2023: 68.9%
- 2022: 89.7%
- 2021: 80%
- 2020: 78.7%
- 2019: 75.1%
In January, USA Swimming said that its membership numbers were trending up through the first four months of the 2023-24 season. At the time, managing director of sport development Joel Shinofield estimated the current pace puts the organization on track to exceed 2023 totals by about 10,000 athlete members and 1,000 coaches.
In regards to USA Swimming’s demographics, the organization once again got less racially diverse in 2023. The responses revealed that 62.4% of members last year were white, up from 55.9% in 2022 and 44.4% in 2019 (though more than a third of athletes did not respond to the ethnicity question in 2019). Also of note, there is now no separate category for “Hispanic/Latino” as there was in 2019.
Other demographic data included the gender makeup of USA Swimming membership being 53.6% female and 46.4% male. The average age of a member increased slightly from 12 years old to 12.5 last year.
SwimSwam: USA Swimming Membership Declines 4.6% in 2023 After Promising Post-Pandemic Growth in 2022
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