USA Swimming announced some big changes to the upcoming season of the Arena Pro Series, unveiling a schedule that drops several long-time stops, adds another one, and now includes the Phillips 66 National Championships in the series points standings.
According to USA Swimming’s press release, the first stop will take place in Austin, Texas, January 13th-15th at the Lee and Joe Jamail Swimming Center, home of the Texas Longhorns. For the past several years, a meet late in the calendar year in Minneapolis had been the opening meet of the series, and was usually the only PSS meet held in yards (although it was in LCM this year, due to the upcoming Olympics).
Also no longer on the schedule is the Orlando stop. This usually had been a relatively poorly-attended meet, due to its proximity to NCAA’s. However, there will still be a Pro Series meet in March, only it will take place in Indianapolis, at the legendary Indiana University Natatorium, a pool that has hosted several Olympic Trials and National Championship meets. That pool will also host both the men’s and women’s NCAA Division I championship meets later on that month.
From Indy, the Arena Pro Series will travel to Mesa for some outdoor swimming in April, as it has the past few years. Next up will be Atlanta in May, where athletes will get the chance to compete in the 1996 Olympic pool at Georgia Tech, the site of this past year’s NCAA championships. For the past few years, the May meet was held in Charlotte, succeeding the long-running Charlotte UltraSwim. The series will travel back to a familiar location in early June, the George F. Haines International Swim Center in Santa Clara, California.
At each of those stops, swimmers who finish in the top three in individual Olympic events will earn points in the series standings, as well as cash prizes of $500, $300, and $100 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, respectively.
In a new twist on the series, the Phillips 66 National Championship, which is scheduled for June 27th-July 1st, in Indianapolis, will also count toward the final tallies, but points will be doubled. Cash prizes will increase to $1200 for 1st place, $700 for 2nd place, $500 for 3rd place, and $200 for 4th place. Also at stake is a $10,000 bonus, as well as one-year lease on a BMW.
This year’s winners were Conor Dwyer and Katie Ledecky, although Ledecky could not receive the money or car lease in order to maintain her amateur eligibility for Stanford.
Here’s the full schedule:
Jan. 13-15, 2017: Arena Pro Swim Series at Austin (University of Texas)
March 2-4, 2017: Arena Pro Swim Series at Indianapolis (Indiana University Natatorium, IUPUI)
April 13-15, 2017: Arena Pro Swim Series at Mesa (Skyline Aquatic Center)
May 4-7, 2017: Arena Pro Swim Series at Atlanta (Georgia Tech)
June 1-4, 2017: Arena Pro Swim Series at Santa Clara (George F. Haines International Swim Center)
The new Pro Series at Georgia Tech is the week before “The Atlanta Classic”. This is interesting as i know they stated the ATL Classic would be annual around the same time and they were able to attract many of the best swimmers in thew country this year making it a very fast meet. I wonder if USA swimming is not moving a Pro Series there with the attention the Georgia Tech facility is getting this year. NCAAs / ATL Classic.
I feel as though there should be a meet in New England. Maybe at Brown University or at MIT? This is just a thought, it may be exciting to see the swimmers travel farther up north.
At this point, I think World Champs need the seating of a professional sports stadium, not a college pool. Maybe Boston Garden with Harvard for diving, and MIT for sychro and/or water polo.
I’d like to watch a grand prix meet in New York one day in a big great modern facility entirely built for swimming. Why not national championships and the comeback of a world cup there? And let’s dream, long course world championships for the first time held in USA! If I’ve well understood there are not many great 50-meter pools in that region. I think there’s a huge under-exploited youth swimming potential in that area.
Cool to see the cash prizes increase. Swimmers deserve it.
By the way I don’t still understand the 1-year lease on the BMW. BMW is very cheap in that case. They can’t give simply the car forever? It’s horrible to give a present to… Read more »
Bobo – FYI, the 2017 US Open meet will be in New York.
Hosting a FINA World Championships for Long Course is a huge undertaking. We tend to focus on the pool swimming aspect of it, and in that regard, we have lots of options. As has been proven in recent World Championships, arenas or stadiums can be the pool site, and sure, we have lots of options in the USA to do that. Any domed stadium could be the site, so cities like Houston, Atlanta, Indy, San Antonio, New Orleans could be considered. Multi-purpose arenas can also do the trick: Omaha, Staples Center, Verizon, etc etc etc.
However, the FINA World Championships covers all aquatic disciplines, which include diving, water polo, synchro, and open water, NTM Masters in all those disciplines the… Read more »
Minneapolis is another possibility with U.S. Bank Stadium and the University of Minnesota pool for water polo, synchro, and diving.
Very good analysis; one question though is where near Indy would the OWS venue be? Lake Michigan is pretty far away. There are Eagle Creek State Park in NE Naptown (IndiaNAPolis) as well as Lake Monroe, but that is down by Bloomington. Perhaps others can weigh in on the requirements that FINA would have for the OWS venue.
I haven’t seen any official requirement, but given that, as we talked about in a report earlier today, the 2017 Worlds will have the open water swimming and high diving 75 miles away from swimming/diving/water polo, there’s a mountain of options. One would guess that Eagle Creek Park, with some amount of infrastructure in place at the rowing center, would be the most likely option in that scenario.
It is all about $$$$$. to televise 3 days is more expensive and they don’t bring in any ad revenue in the US.
I like the changes….always good to keep it fresh. More money is always good. The last two are 4 day meets….not sure about that…
Less prize money next year. Prize money this year is/was 1000/600/200.
So nothing in the fall?