What does rowing need to do to stay relevant?

Rowing is my passion and for many of you I’m sure you could say the same. However, in my ten years of rowing I have come to realise that the highs you get from doing well or winning races peaks very early in your career.

The opportunities available for rowers is abysmal frankly and it does not have to be this way, this paradigm that rowing promotes that it is a serious, gentleman’s sport and teams must keep to themselves is simply outdated in a world where you find out your neighbours birthday on Facebook before you find out in person.

In order to become relevant in the current digital age rowing needs to be far more open on not only a club level but at an athlete level as well. This means that you as an athlete should be responsible for documenting what you are doing and sharing it with the world. Clubs should support this by creating engaging content and designing a new atmosphere in an archaic sport. Explain which races you will compete in, tell people who your competition is, tell people if you are feeling good for a race and that you are disappointed if you don’t win. Generate interest by giving people content to be interested in.

Outside of rowing the only rivalry people know is oxford vs Cambridge, it’s time for this to change. Stop gatekeeping the sport and invite spectators into the events. There are so many huge events every year that nobody knows about outside of rowing, its time to make them relevant, advertise them to people outside of rowing, create cringy promotion videos, take interviews. This is the only way people will start to engage in the sport.

Marathons are a classic example of how marketing has prevailed. I for one am not a person to sit through 2 hours of a person running around, however somehow marathons are in mainstream media with huge sponsors and huge characters. This isn’t because people care to watch a person run, it is because they tell a story about the event. Similarly head races are painfully boring to watch and I don’t believe anyone could convince me otherwise, however if teams presented it differently explained the rivalries, documented the history of the event and explained what it meant to each person in the team suddenly it becomes relatable.

People need a reason to watch and engage and without that they simply won’t. Rowing is the last sport to take advantage of the huge potential of social media and access to almost anyone in the world through the internet. It also has a huge amount of history; the first rowing races were massive events on the Thames in London with thousands of spectators. Now we are in a position where there simply isn’t an audience because the interest has been taken, the stories have been lost to history, and the rivalries and stakes have dissolved away.

Through the medium of my podcast, I am hoping to quash this lack of storytelling through those of you reading this now. I am also calling out anyone who loves the sport to help support me or begin your own journey into bringing rowing into the 21st century. If you have a camera, film something, if you have social media post something, if you have friends bring them to your races.

If you run a rowing club, I am asking you to bring down the iron curtain, tell people what your goals are who you will be racing and why. Promote your athletes, allow them to gain an audience of their own and don’t shame them away from creating their own stories.

If these changes are made, steps can be taken to bring money back into the sport through sponsors and investors. I ask that we don’t spon this on buying silky new empacher 8+’s instead market your teams and athletes, create higher quality content, host better events, tell better stories.

If you are still reading thank you and I hope some of this rant has inspired you to make a change in our sport.