USA Swimming Flex Memberships Totaled 25,000+ In 2019, But Membership Drops

USA Swimming‘s 2019 demographics report shows that more than 25,000 members used the new flex membership option, but overall membership fell by about 300.

You can see the full 2019 demographics report here.

Flex Membership Pulling From Other Categories?

In 2019, USA Swimming introduced ‘flex membership’, a new, less-expensive category of membership designed to attract new swimmers who want to ‘test the waters’ before jumping into a more expensive year-round membership. The flex membership typically only permits a swimmer to compete in two meets, though they can renew their flex membership.

The fear, though, encapsulated at Board of Directors meetings, was that the flex membership option could drain members from the organization’s other member groups, with the lower cost leading to less USA Swimming membership revenue. That actually led to changes last month in the pay structure, upping the flex membership fees for athletes 11 years old and above. USA Swimming officials suggested that 38-42% of USA Swimming athlete members swim two meets or less during the year, and if that entire group switched to flex membership, USA Swimming could lose over $6 million.

Based on 2019 numbers, it appears a good portion of athlete members did jump into flex category. USA Swimming now offers five types of athlete memberships:

• Premium: regular-price, full-year memberships
• Outreach: full-year membership with a reduced fee for “under-represented and/or economically disadvantaged youth.”
• Seasonal: short-term membership for periods of 150 days or less
• Flex: full-year membership with a reduced price in exchange for limited benefits – 2 or fewer meets, no meets above the Zone or Sectional level, etc.
• Single-meet open water: membership for one single open water competition, swimming unattached

USA Swimming combines Premium & Outreach memberships together in its numbers. The 2019 numbers show that the 25,180 new flex members roughly even out with drops of 19,398 premium/outreach members and 6,031 seasonal members. USA Swimming‘s overall athlete membership dropped, but only by about 300 athletes.

Total membership actually rose slightly, but only because of an increase of about 650 non-athlete members.

Athlete Members By Group

Total Members Since 2015

Year-round membership fees can vary because LSCs charge their own fees, but USA Swimming‘s base price is $60. Flex membership costed $20 annually (though that price will go up in future years), with $10 going to the LSC and $10 to USA Swimming. But USA Swimming also pays for insurance out of its half of that income.

All that adds up to mean that year 1 of flex membership probably cost USA Swimming a good chunk of income. Based on those numbers, USA Swimming would lose $50+ on each premium member who switched over to flex.

Ethnicity: More Reporting but Growth Unclear

The demographic report also breaks down membership by reported ethnicity. Members are asked – but not required – to provide their ethnicity on their registration forms. At first glance, it appears that minority members have increased across the board – but upon closer inspection, that’s only because the number of “no responses” to the ethnicity question dropped by more than 5,000 from 2018.

USA Swimming Athlete Members By Ethnicity

Note: the 2018 numbers don’t entirely add up – all ethnicity categories added up come to 13 less athletes than the 371,687 reported above.

It’s still about a third of members who choose not to include their ethnicity on their registration. The 2019 demographics report does show increases in every ethnic category, but none by a major margin. Relatively speaking, the biggest rise came in the “other” designation, which increased by about 12.5% from 2018 to 2019.

This is notable because USA Swimming has worked to increase its diversity – as of November, the organization had spent about $181,382 in 2019 on “membership growth and diversity.”

Relative to total membership numbers, flex membership didn’t seem to have a particularly notable appeal to ethnic minority members. 7.06% of Hispanic or Latino USA Swimming athlete members were flex members, the highest among the listed ethnicities. African-American members (6.43%) were the second-most-common to utilize the flex membership option, but all of the other ethnicities hovered between five and seven percent: