The Doomed Growth of Rowing?

I think is safe to say that rowing is not a very common sport. When people say that you row, people often go “Oh yes, those machines in the gym – I do that too, ” or assume you are rowing around in a wooden boat, pottering on a park lake 18^th Century style. Very few imagine the high-tech and Brutal sport that it is, and it appears to be almost a word-of-mouth sport, those who row are almost attached to the sport for life, but rowing still struggles to be in the common eye nor maintain a stream of incoming athletes. 

For a very long time, unless you were in a private school that rowed, or in an established club, It was almost impossible to get into the sport, on the tideway, for example, Thames Tradesmen was the club that was the most accessible, being the first to Host LYR. These clubs helped small time juniors on a national level but dwarfed unknown committees perhaps only 2-3 hours from each other. However, things have started to change quickly and rapidly so in the past 30-40 years. 

The reasons for this are far and many, the immense success of Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent are certain factors that should be noted, the legendary pair, which dominated media coverage of the Olympics raised the reputation of the sport. In addition to the forever stoic “Boat Race”; between Oxford and Cambridge – not to mention Henley Royal Regatta, all of which have contributed, throughout and since the 90s, ’00s and ‘10s to the growth of the sport. Rowing has been etched further and further into the public’s conscious and the sport has grown immensely since then. 

The use of social media has caused rowing to explode in popularity, and for those within the sport, it feels like rowing is a sport with millions of followers and hundreds of thousands of new clubs, boats and athletes entering the sport and making the sport feel like a massive movement that transcends everything else. 

However, the reality while different is certainly complicated. While rowing certainly has grown massively with grassroots clubs such as LYR, 1861, Fulham Reach, Team Keane, etc. With some of these clubs going on bringing lots of people into the world of racing, and others simply doing the very critical job of bringing lots of people into the sport, keeping the sport well supplied with new recruits, it still feels like things haven’t changed dramatically.

Whilst a similar sport, cycling, has exploded in popularity in the past 20 years. Rowing has not, and there are a couple of reasons for this: 

One critical reason is accessibility, the major issue with rowing is that you need 1) (expensive) equipment, 2) a body of water 3) an experienced coach and 4) time (of course). And simply put there isn’t many rivers/ bodies of water to accommodate for this, so the majority of people simply don’t take up the sport (a fact increased by the wealth reputation that precedes the rowing culture). Additionally, joining a club can be a daunting experience and can be challenging to get in, the only real way to be involved is to join a club, and if the club is limited on whom it selects (Members invite members, no U18 and having to be part of a company etc) it can often be difficult to be involved. To add to this, in rowing you are either learning or racing, there isn’t really a space to do it recreationally despite the occasional ‘rec’ club dotted along the Thames. Not only this but there is a large amount of time between starting the sport to proficiency so it can be hard for those to join and last out the massive skill curve that you must cover before you can, for example, go out in a single and race. Whilst some can come in and just row naturally, for the large majority it takes time. 

Another is simply visibility, rowing still suffers from a lack of communication from the rowing world to the public and in addition to this internally the sport still suffers, other categories of rowing such as coastal and pure indoor rowing, are still relatively unpopular. Positively, on the other hand the rise in Rowing as an adaptive sport continually adds to the accessibility of the sport, hence balancing out these lesser-known disciplines. Yet rowing’s diversity isn’t celebrated as much as it should be, and although British Rowing’s 2020 vision is a good step in the right direction, more should be done for the public eye. 

And finally, retention. Is safe to say that rowing suffers from a retention issue, people either stay in the sport for the rest of their life or quit after 2 years, there isn’t really a middle ground and there are a couple of possible reasons for this. One of the major ones is the huge amount of commitment required at a high level, and often people can do nothing but rowing in their life and leaves little left, with people seeing their lives go by, some have enough early on, others endorse it and make it their life, living within rowing. In addition to this, there is no middle ground, people either race or don’t row and those who want to find a happy medium often find it hard and thus they often drop out and go cycling, sailing or weightlifting. Finally is its lack of exposure can often lead people confused and find it hard to understand why you would put yourself through all of that punishment and commitment and often it can lead to you still coming last, with rowers often having a bad relationship with their sport and not being able to process what’s going on, and with mental health being unnecessarily tabooed (with RTHM doing what they can), people can often say “I’ve had enough” and quit, even if they have the raw talent to continue. 

It would however be pessimistic to say that rowing is doomed, it can change and for the better, British Rowing’s Visions 2020 is certainly a great start and will propel some very good changes, but rowing at its core needs to change. It needs greater communication and advertising of its sport, and where it is possible to row recruit and train the maximum amount of people possible, creating new clubs and organisations to encourage rowing will make a massive difference, and seeing these clubs through will start a domino effect. The more people come into the sport, the more commercial invectives there are for those outside the industry and those inside to invest, to make it cheaper more cutting edge and make everything faster and accelerate innovation, then everything will follow.  

Cycling is certainly the only sport rowing can be compared with; however, it has one critical difference, cyclists can’t race on the water when its glass, an orange sunset in the sky, and a small thin layer of mist on the water. This somewhat cringeworthy imagery motivates athletes up and down the country, combined with personal anecdotes and ultimately helps propel the sport forward. 

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Ben Stanworth

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