2019 INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING LEAGUE – Finale
- Friday, December 20 – Saturday, December 21, 2019
- 1:00 – 3:00 PM Local Time (U.S. Pacific Time)
- Madalay Bay Resort and Casino – Las Vegas, NV
- Short Course Meters (SCM) format
- Top 4 qualifying franchises: Energy Standard, London Roar, LA Current, Cali Condors
- Live Stream (ESPN3)
It’s time for the ISL finale – we break down rosters, streaming options, event schedule and scoring details here. The meet will be held at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada – a facility which has a total capacity of 12,000 seats, but that the ISL will reduce to 3,800 seats for the purposes of this championship meet.
LINKS
- Live Stream (USA): ESPN3
- Live Stream (Canada): CBC
- Live Television (Australia): Channel 7
- Live Television (Latin America): Claro Sports
- Live Television (Brazil): TV Globo
- Live Television (Europe): Eurosport
- ISL Technical Handbook
- Buy Tickets
- Season Schedule
WHERE TO WATCH BY REGION
- United States: ESPN3
- Europe and Asia-Pacific: Eurosport
- Australia: 7plus
- New Zealand: Spark
- Canada: CBC
- Latin America: Claro Sport
- Brazil: TV Globo
- Caribbean: FlowSports
- Israel: Sports 1
- Middle East/North Africa: Bein Sport
TEAMS COMPETING
This weekend will feature the four qualifying teams: the top two European franchises and top two American franchises:
- London Roar: featuring Cate Campbell, Emma McKeon, Adam Peaty, Kyle Chalmers
- Energy Standard: featuring Sarah Sjostrom, Chad le Clos, Florent Manaoudou, Femke Heemskerk
- LA Current: featuring Nathan Adrian, Kathleen Baker, Ryan Murphy, Beryl Gastaldello
- Cali Condors: featuring Caeleb Dressel, Lilly King, Olivia Smoliga, Mitch Larkin
EVENT LINEUP
Here’s a look at this weekend’s event schedule. Each session is broken into three blocks, each of which ends in a relay event, which is then followed by a break, though the exact length of the breaks has not been specified.
| WOMEN’S EVENT # | DAY 1 | MEN’S EVENT # |
| 1 | 100 Fly | 2 |
| 3 | 50 Breast | 4 |
| 5 | 400 IM | 6 |
| 7 |
4×100 Free Relay
|
|
| —Break— | ||
| 9 | 200 Back | 8 |
| 11 | 50 Free | 10 |
| 4×100 Medley Relay | 12 | |
| —Break— | ||
| 13 | 200 Free | 14 |
| 15 | 50 Back | 16 |
| 17 | 200 Breast | 18 |
| 4×100 Free Relay | 19 | |
| WOMEN’S EVENT # | DAY 2 | MEN’S EVENT # |
| 20 | 100 Free | 21 |
| 22 | 100 Breast | 23 |
| 24 | 400 Free | 25 |
| 26 |
4×100 Medley Relay
|
|
| —Break— | ||
| 28 | 200 IM | 27 |
| 30 | 50 Fly | 29 |
| 32 | 100 Back | 31 |
| 33 | 4×100 Mixed Free Relay | 33 |
| —Break— | ||
| 34 | 200 Fly | 35 |
| 36 | 50 Free Skins | 37 |
| 38 | 4×50 Mixed Medley (if tiebreak needed) | 38 |
SCORING & POINTS BREAKDOWN
Scoring for each event will be as follows:
| INDIVIDUAL EVENT | RELAY EVENT | SKINS RACE | |
| 1st | 9 | 18 | 27 |
| 2nd | 7 | 14 | 21 |
| 3rd | 6 | 12 | 12 |
| 4th | 5 | 10 | 10 |
| 5th | 4 | 8 | 4 |
| 6th | 3 | 6 | 3 |
| 7th | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| 8th | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Relays count for double, and skins races effectively triple if you make it to the third round; if eliminated in the second round, an athlete earns double points, but if knocked out in the first round, the point totals are the same as a normal race.
PRIZE MONEY FORMAT
Athletes and relays earn money for top-4 finishes under the following system, which we’ve simplified based on the ISL ‘money point’ system. Prize money for the finale is more than tripled, with $1,000 given per ‘prize point’.
Season Finale:
| INDIVIDUAL EVENT | RELAY | SKINS | |
| 1st | $6000 | $3000 | $18000 |
| 2nd | $4000 | $2000 | $12000 |
| 3rd | $2000 | $1000 | $6000 |
| 4th | $1000 | $500 | $3000 |
Does anyone know where/how we can bet on ISL? Much thank.
Haven’t seen anywhere yet.
It would be highly improbable for Vegas to accept wagers on a first year competition like this. The systems and structures and levels of trust aren’t in place to ensure that the rules are followed (we’ve already identified places where the public-facing rules book haven’t been exactly followed) or that the meets aren’t corrupted by betting interests. For example, there’s a chance that Sarah Sjostrom could pull out of the meet at the last minute (lots of swimmers have done so this season) and that nobody would find out about that until after the meet starts – except friends and family of swimmers on the team, for example.
They should move this to the wave pool:)
Anyone know how ticket sales have been?
Terrible time to hold the meet. Who has time to take off to Vegas on the week before Christmas? Plenty of seats available…
Not just for the spectators but I’d imagine some of the swimmers would prefer to be back home in the days before Christmas too.
Sure — everyone would like a few more days before Christmas at home but these are professional swimmers — it’s their job. A lot of people don’t have the benefit of being able to take time off around the holidays.
Skins swimmers aside, folks like Lilly/Beryl/Kathleen/Ryan/Olivia/Melanie could go home with $20K of prize money! I think it’s great that they are given this opportunity and hopefully, a lot of swimmers will get enough money to keep them focused on training through trials w/o worrying about how to pay rent, etc.
A lot of these swimmers went through the NCAA system and are used to a busy end of year schedule which is school finals + a few days… Read more »
Is there a better time? (Not sarcasm; let’s float around ideas because it seems that ISL listens to it’s audiences)
Maybe the rationale is that most working professionals have Christmas week off, US universities are done with finals by now and kids are off on break from school?
I’d argue that it might be better to hold the finale during NCAA week. ISL and NCAA swimmers are pretty much mutually exclusive at this point
I think this time is pretty good. There’s no other swimming to compete against it.
The nba development is hosting an event dec. 19-22nd at Mandalay bay as well. Saw a bunch of swimmers around the casino last night. Kind of funny seeing very tall people at the craps and blackjack table.
It was to bad no isl gear being presold anywhere.
I’m going on Saturday and it looks like there’s maybe 300ish tickets available. I think the biggest problem is that tickets went on sale November 8th. That isn’t enough time for most people to plan a trip to Vegas from across the country let alone from another part of the world.
Knew about this last year. I think this time of year is the slowest for vegas so cost of hosting the event works better for them. I think having the event in a FAMILY friendly city is more important.
Vegas is extremely family friendly! It is more well known for the clubs and crazyness that accompanies that lifestyle, but it appears on a lot of “Top Family Friendly destinations” lists for the entertainment for kids, great food, and family friendly activities. If you’re able to drive, there’s also a lot of fairly close outdoors activities (like Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire State Park) that are awesome family activities!
That time is actually watchable on the east coast of Australia. 😍
Is that 8am?
7am in Queensland (where I am) and 8am in other east coast states. It’s not ideal but the other meets have been 5am or earlier.
Cairns here mate, I hear ya!
Thank you! Much better start than the others
Yeah ! I just worked that out too 😁
I couldn’t find anything listed in the TV Guide – is it only live on 7plus?
Yep.
When do we get entries?
About an hour before the meet begins. And, remember, that coaches can change entries prior to each session – so those initial entries are only guaranteed for the first 1/3rd of the first day of racing.
Do these changes allow for those originally chosen as relay only swimmers to compete in individual events in later sessions?
I doubt it
Anyone know the seating capacity of the facility?
The full Mandalay Bay capacity is 12,000 seats, but it’s being reduced to 3,800 for this event.
Geez, first event both days gonna be lit.