Can Fans Expect A Close Team Race In The NCAA Championships In The Future?

Thank you to Andrew Mering and his NCAA box scores for contributing to this report. 

The 2025 Men’s NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships featured one of the most anticipated team races in years—certainly in the post-COVID era of collegiate swimming. Despite myriad records and exciting races in Federal Way, fans were treated to the opposite of the expected back-and-forth team battle between the Texas Longhorns, California Golden Bears, and Indiana Hoosiers.

Instead, the Longhorns took the lead after the opening two relays and did not surrender it. The meet took on a familiar shape once Indiana fell out of the race for first and the SwimSwam comments filled with the age-old question: will Cal have a big enough final day to catch Texas? This year, they did not. The Longhorns—though they had left the door open for things to break in Cal’s favor during the last session—were able to maintain control of the ship and win the team’s first title in the Bob Bowman era.

But, the lack of excitement from a team standings perspective prompted a different question for us here at SwimSwam. How many times does the lead actually change hands at the NCAA DI Championships?

We looked back at the men’s and women’s DI Championships from 2018-2025 to see what the recent championships could tell us. 2018 was our cut-off because it’s the earliest year we have data that tells us what the score was after each event at both the men’s and women’s championships.

Lead Changes at the NCAA Championships, 2018-2025

With some exceptions, the men’s team races in this period have been a race between California and Texas, which has resulted in many close contests. However, the last seven years in women’s NCAA swimming has been defined by dominance, first Stanford’s, then Virginia’s. So, it’s no surprise the number of average lead changes at the men’s meet is much higher than at the women’s meet. The average number of lead changes at the men’s championships is 3.42, while it’s only 1.42 for the women.

Sometimes, the lead change is a superficial one. For example, at the 2023 Women’s NCAA Championships, Texas passed Virginia after a monster 500 freestyle performance but the Cavaliers took back the lead in the 200 IM, the next event. The one lead change at the 2019 and 2024 Men’s NCAA Championship came after the second and third events, respectively.

Additionally, there have been three women’s NCAA Championships in our data set that saw one team lead for the entire meet: 2018 Stanford, 2021 Virginia, and 2022 Virginia. Meanwhile, the 2025 Texas team is the only one in the last seven men’s meets to hold the lead from the first event to the last.

Of course, there are a couple factors to keep in mind with this data. The NCAA Championship schedule evolved significantly during this period. The NCAA ditched prelims relays in favor of timed finals after the pandemic. Day 1 of the competition also changed. When the “relay only” session was put into action it was first just the 800 freestyle relay before the 200 medley relay was added. This year, the 100 butterfly and 400 IM swapped places on Day 3. If the schedule had stayed the same from 2018 to 2025, presumably the team races would play out differently, even if the end result was the same.

The men’s 2018 NCAA Championships leads all meets during this period with nine lead changes during the competition. NC State, Texas, Cal, and Indiana all held the lead at one point during the meet, with Texas taking control after platform diving—the last individual event—and holding on for the win.

Here’s how that team race played out:

Men:

One of the things the NCAA Championship team standings reflect is the parity in the league that season. Parity is an increasing concern for many NCAA swim fans in the evolving world of college athletics. With college athletic departments assessing the value each sport brings, some schools are going to invest in swimming and diving programs more than others, eventually decreasing whatever amount of parity currently exists.

NCAA swimming and diving is at a crossroads as it prepares for the changes an approved House vs. NCAA settlement could bring. At the same time as programs are trying to attract wider audiences, the changes the league is undergoing could hamper those efforts. A tense team battle isn’t the sole thing that makes an NCAA Championships exciting. Swimming families still make up a large percentage of viewership, especially in person. But, growing the sport means attracting a different type of viewer. It’s easier for a non-swim nerd to follow the dynamic of a close team battle than understand why a sub-6:00 800 freestyle relay is historic. The team aspect of the sport is often the most familiar to a new swim fan.

So, as this era of college athletics closes, the powerhouse programs at the top of the NCAA swimming and diving world look more firmly entrenched than ever. Time will tell if any program will be able to mount a serious challenge that reignites a real team race.