Glasgow Offers The Perfect Stage For Dolphins To Cash In On Swimming Australia’s Bold New Contract Plans
Timing is everything as they say and the upcoming Commonwealth Games and Pan Pac campaigns could well provide the perfect platform for Swimming Australia’s bold new plan to contract its swimmers and coaches.
Swimming Australia will this week officially launch its concerted bid to break back into a tough sponsorship market dominated by four football codes, cricket and tennis in a sports mad country.
The end game? To fund its proposed elite-level swimmer and coach contracts by 2029.
Swimming Australia CEO, two-time Olympian and former successful sports manager and marketer, Rob Woodhouse will start this renewed pitch with a business breakfast in Sydney on Thursday with plans to grow the sport from grassroots community participation through to elite-level swimming.
It is a sport that in the 1990s and 2000s enjoyed successful partnerships with the breakfast cereal group Uncle Tobys and National telco Telecom/Telstra.
In 2026 Woodhouse will dive into a market with renewed ammunition from grassroots to the Games.
“The football codes in particular, and tennis, are attracting all the corporate investment, and we are looking to turn that tide,” Woodhouse told the Australian Financial Review.
“We know we’ve got a lot to offer brands, at all levels of the sport.
“We need to commercialise our sport better. And to do that, we need to be engaging those community levels, getting more kids in and retaining them,” he said.
“For over 100 years, Swimming Australia has had no relationship with the swimming industry.
“We’ve got a million kids a year doing learn-to-swim lessons around the country, but the standards of the curriculum have been dropping significantly.
“Not in all swim schools by any stretch, but across the industry, we’re seeing kids come out who are not that proficient in freestyle, let alone the other strokes.
To pay for the elite-level contracts and the community outreach, Woodhouse is on the hunt for new sponsor dollars.
The sport’s governing body, together with highly respected global sports marketing group, Sportfive know they have a sport that will develop a swim team to carry the hopes of a nation as the country’s most successful Olympic sport over the next six years, on the road to its third home Olympics in Brisbane in 2032.
And it is banking on that golden glow of its world beating Dolphins to entice the sponsorship dollars back into its lanes of gold.
Sportfive and Commonwealth Games Australia played a vital role in resurrecting the Commonwealth Games for Glasgow, following Victoria’s disastrous withdrawal as hosts of the 2026 event.
The Games kick off next week when the multi-sport program returns to Glasgow – and will be televised by Games broadcast hosts, the Seven Network – with Olympic champions Ariarne Titmus and Cate Campbell among the hosts.
The Commonwealth Games remains a big deal in Australian sport and an expected record-breaking week at the Tollcross Aquatic Centre could well have Woodhouse and the Sportfive team rubbing their hands together.
A week-long program will feature Aussie world beaters like Kyle Chalmers, Mollie O’Callaghan, Cam McEvoy, Lani Pallister, Meg Harris, Shayna Jack and Sam Short.
Unfortunately, there will be no Kaylee McKeown who has been forced to withdraw from the international campaign with glandular fever, but Australia has a host of exciting next gen youngsters.
Swimmers like Flynn Southam, Iona Anderson, Sienna Toohey and Henry Allan are chomping at the bit to further their own careers and spearhead the Dolphins from the pool deck to the board rooms.
And no sooner will the Dolphins have dried off in Glasgow than they’ll be flying off to Irvine in California to face the might of the US, Canada and Japan at the Pan Pacs – a meet to be televised by Swimming Australia’s broadcast partners the Nine Network – presenting another chance to make a splash on national television.
The chance to cash in on what could well be the start of some brilliant new careers and a fist full of well-deserved dollars in their pockets.