Rob Woodhouse Reveals Bold Plans For Revitalised Australian Swimming League
Swimming Australia CEO Rob Woodhouse has revealed his plans for a National League as he spearheads the push for a world class Aquatic Centre for the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics and a new Headquarters for Australia’s most successful Olympic sport.
Woodhouse, the two-time Olympian from Los Angeles and Seoul, is leading a public charge that would see Brisbane become a true jewel in swimming’s global crown.
Saying that any decision to set up his governing body’s move into the 2032 Olympic City, would largely depend on the development of the National Aquatic Centre.
POOL OF EXPERIENCE: Rob Woodhouse perfect man for the job. Photo Courtesy Rob Woodhouse Collection.
Woodhouse has outlined his thoughts on the Courier Mail’s Toward The Games podcast with Swimming Australia revisiting an opportunity for a team-based swimming league for Australian and international athletes – after a similar League failed to get off the ground in 2021.
Woodhouse has only been in the sport’s top job 12 months this week and has wasted no time in getting the sport very much back in the fast lane. Swimming Australia’s Major Coup
The 1984 Olympic bronze medallist in the 400IM was instrumental in various roles in the successful International Swimming League (ISL) between 2019 and 2021.
He used the Toward the Games podcast to reveal the proposed team-based domestic league he said would keep fans engaged outside of the cycle of major championships, Olympic and Paralympic events.
“That’s in the pipeline … it’ll be a team-based event similar to the ISL,” Woodhouse told podcast hosts David Lutteral and Courier Mail editor Chris Jones
“Something that is made for TV and something that’s exciting and having the Australians race … and we’re not just talking about the Olympians we’re talking about the Paralympians as well.
“It would be an integrated event and integrated teams with some internationals – starting off mostly with domestic athletes – but starting to bring the internationals in particularly as we get closer to the Brisbane Games.
“In these new concepts that we’re looking at, we bring the brands in, we bring the fans in and away we go.
“Globally, I think swimming is on the rise not just from a performance point of view where world records are constantly being broken, but there’s far greater engagement from a greater number of countries in the sport of swimming.
“Twenty or 30 years ago, athletics dominated in terms of the number of the countries that actually participated in Olympics or world championships but now swimming is right up there.”
The ISL created huge excitement. Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
A team-based swimming league for Australian and global athletes to battle in made-for-entertainment races is being developed as the sport’s answer to Australian cricket’s explosive and successful Big Bash 20 over competition.
The concept is aimed at growing swimming’s mainstream appeal and boosting the profile of superstar athletes in the lead-up to Brisbane’s 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games – and coming hot on the heals of Swimming Australia’s 10-year broadcast deal with Channel 9s Wide World Of Sports.
Early detail suggests the League would be similar to the highly successful ISL – but featuring both Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
The rebel ISL was founded in 2019 by Ukrainian energy tycoon Konstantin Grigorishin and held three successful seasons before being paused indefinitely in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
National Aquatic Centre
Meanwhile Woodhouse continues to push bold proposal to create a $650m, five-pool National Aquatic Centre for swimming, water polo, diving and artistic swimming that was handed to Queensland’s 100-day infrastructure review last month.
Part of the new centre at Centenary Pool would include a new head office for Swimming Australia, which is currently located in Melbourne.
Woodhouse told the Toward the Games podcast his organisation would review plans to relocate if the National Aquatics Centre is not built.
“Would we (Swimming Australia) move up (to Brisbane)? I think that would be unlikely, but we’d review all that, obviously, after we find out whether it will be part of the plan or not,” Woodhouse said.
“We have a head office based here in Melbourne. We have satellite offices in Brisbane and in Sydney as well.”
(Diving and water polo are based in Brisbane while artistic swimming is headquartered in Perth).
“We do anticipate growing a sport and growing a spectator base, the fan base, and bringing more fans in,” he said.
Proposed National Aquatic Centre in Brisbane. Image supplied.
“If we’ve got a bigger venue we will fill it.”
Woodhouse cited the 8500-seat sellout of the 1999 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships that saw Ian Thorpe headline one of the most successful non-Olympic meets in Australia’s storied swimming history.
A meet that saw 11 world records broken in eight days –with the finals broadcast live in prime time on Channel Nine, that recorded record ratings, creating the perfect platform leading into the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
“If we have a stadium big enough, we can sell it out at the big events that we create,” Woodhouse said.
Olympic and Paralympic swimming was slated to be held at a drop-in venue at Brisbane Arena during the 2032 Games.
It will follow Los Angeles 2028, which will use SoFi stadium to temporarily deliver the world’s largest swimming stadium.
