THEMAGIC5 is excited to announce a new partnership with the British University Swim League (BUSL).
“We are really excited to partner with a new, interesting company that wants to do more and is willing to help out with university sport."
We're relatively new compared to all the other competitions in the UK so the partnership works well: THEMAGIC5 are doing new and innovative things, just like we are” says BUSL committee chairperson Oliver Richardson.
TheMagic5 will be a title sponsor for the national finals and support swimmers directly by providing easier access to all TheMagic5 training equipment and custom-fit goggles.
“We see a perfect synergy partnering with the BUSL,” says TheMagic5 co-founder Rasmus Barfred. “We are both trying to innovate and elevate the swimming experience.”
THE BRITISH UNIVERSITY SWIM LEAGUE
Originally founded in 2018, the BUSL is a not-for-profit swim league that offers fun, inclusive, and affordable competitive opportunities to thousands of student swimmers across the United Kingdom. The completely student-operated league currently has 63 member universities and facilitates competitions throughout the year that culminate in a grand final.
“There’s a huge gap for university swimmers,” Richardson says. “You go from swimming for a club where you'll do county, regional, national, and loads of meets in between, to university where you're swimming twice a year at a competition. It’s a big change to what people are used to and that puts off most people from carrying on swimming and I hate that. I hate that when I did club swimming there was no talk about what you do after you're 18 and as soon as you start university.”
BUSL was precisely founded to bridge the gap for student swimmers and keep them in the sport. To that end, simply providing opportunities to compete wouldn’t have led BUSL to such success. Student swimmers have specific needs and catering to them has been central to growing membership, participation, and momentum.
Entry fees are nominal, a mere £22 ($27, €25) for an entire team for the whole season. Except for the national final, events are held in the host university’s pool during their normal practice time to avoid additional costs. Competitions during the regional conference round robin entail minimum travel, are only a few hours, include only the shorter 50 and 100 m events, and, at minimum, only require two pool lanes, starting blocks, and backstroke flags.
Their stripped down version of a swim meet is basic but it leaves a lot more room for fun and that means a lot more swimmers. With 3500 student swimmers, BUSL is definitely doing something right.
“The whole point of the league is that it’s fun, inclusive and affordable. It allows for anyone, of any ability, to join and have a racing experience but it also allows for the best of the best to compete against each other. We have Commonwealth Games
swimmers all the way down to recreational swimmers. It’s a nice range.”
THEMAGIC5 - BUSL PARTNERSHIP
As a primary partner for the 2023-2024 season, THEMAGIC5 see an exciting opportunity to further elevate the student swimming experience, not just by supporting BUSL as an organization to foster university sport but the swimmers directly with better, cutting-edge, customized goggles.
“We naturally share a similar spirit both being innovative start-ups,” Barfred says, “but, more importantly, we both saw the traditional swimming experience just doesn’t work for everyone. We also both realized the solution needed to be affordable, inclusive, and high-performing. Working together, THEMAGIC5 and BUSL can give even more students the opportunity to swim and enjoy the sport.”
