To say it’s been a busy week for Nicole Livingstone would be an understatement.
The former champion Australian swimmer is a three-time Olympian with a medal at each of her successive Olympics. Since leaving the pool she has worked in the media as a commentator and more recently has kept busy as the chief executive officer for the AFLW.
Nicole Livingstone’s two roles crossed paths this week as she worked on Prime’s coverage of the Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide and the AFLW revealed a long-anticipated Collective Bargaining Agreement and the start date for the 2022 season.
Th sports administration role is Livingstone’s main focus these days, although she still works commentating at major swimming events.
“I did the Tokyo Olympics for the Olympic Broadcast,” she told Mediaweek. “Between Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games, every two years, I haven’t done a lot of TV recently.
“It’s nice to come back into the fold to do something like the Australian Championships with Prime. They have really done a great job with the coverage after a fantastic first year in 2021.”
As part of the exclusive two-year partnership with Swimming Australia, Prime Video has been streaming the 2022 Australian Swimming Championships live and exclusively this week in 240 countries and territories worldwide.
All live swimming coverage is available at no additional cost to Prime members, and fans can sign up or start a 30-day free trial.
Prime’s Australian swim team: Annabelle Williams, Grant Hackett, Giaan Rooney, Nicole Livingstone, and Matt White
The Prime Video commentary team is led by three-time Olympian and gold medallist Grant Hackett, Olympic gold medallist Giaan Rooney, triple Olympic medallist Nicole Livingstone, and Paralympic gold medallist Annabelle Williams.
Sports broadcaster and journalist Matt White is hosting the coverage across five days of live swimming events, joined by veteran sports commentator Jon Harker, who is calling the action.
Nicole Livingstone on working with Prime Video
“We were proud that swimming was Prime’s first Australian live sporting production,” said Livingstone. “To be able to have an Australian iconic Olympic sport to be the one Prime took to market first made us very proud.
“We are going with the same commentary team this year and we have known each other for much of our lives. I can remember being interviewed by Matt White at the 1994 Commonwealth Games when I was an athlete and he was a TV host. We subsequently worked together at Channel 10.
“John Harker and I have known each other forever and Annie, Giaan, Grant and myself have in a way grown up together. Albeit I am probably a bit more of the senior citizen of that group! [Laughs]
“I was fortunate enough to commentate during all of Grant’s and Giaan’s swimming careers. It just feels easy working with them.”
Livingstone said it was a new experience working for a streaming service. “One of the things that did feel different is Prime Video’s willingness to reinvent how the sport is covered. To have things like the big desk near the pool deck with Matt White hosting makes viewers feel they are really part of it. There are also more cameras taking viewers closer to the action.
“Sport is more competitive than ever for broadcasters and they are looking to do things differently to keep the audience more engaged.”
The commentary team is aware they are talking not to just Australia, but also the Prime Video audience taking an interest globally. “It reminded us to do more on the background of the swimmers. Commentators in general should never assume that everyone knows everything about the sport you are covering. The more interesting thing is that it did get a lot of coverage from swimming websites around the world who were watching our coverage. We got feedback from swimming organisations, expats and viewers with an interest in swimming.”
Competitors using Prime to keep an eye on Australia’s best
Countries that will be competing with Australia at things like World Championships or Commonwealth Games also tune in to check out the standard they will be up against, said Livingstone. “Other swimming teams will be studying technique and tactics to see if there are any learnings that might give them an advantage.”
Livingstone noted that tactics can be learnt for relay events with things like pacing and order of swimmers. The long and short distance races offer learnings about race tactics for some of the best swimmers in the world.
Before the introduction of subscription TV during the 1990s, Livingstone remembered back that swimming could be seen in primetime on a FTA channel when it came to large swim meets. More recently Seven has also offered some domestic championships on a multichannel.
“Subscription TV viewers are now spoilt for choice. While that is a good thing, it also means that there is more examination of ratings. Now we have Prime able to bring the sport back to a bigger audience. It can be hard to hold people’s attention these days, but to be able to offer the sort of coverage Prime is mounting is a good thing. The event is available not only live, but also on-demand for anytime people want to watch.”
Although Livingstone knew Grant Hackett well and has covered his career, the 2021 Championships was the first time they had commentated together. And because of the Covid restrictions last year, both called the event from a studio in Melbourne. This year though the whole team is together in Adelaide. “Grant’s sense of tactics and his sense of history is masterful and to be able to sit and commentate alongside him was something I really enjoyed.”
Covid struck Livingstone in the weeks before the Australian Championships this year, which means there weren’t any last-minute disruptions for 2022.
AFLW locked and loaded for 2022
“That’s certainly keeping me busy and it will be good to spend time in South Australia to catch up with our football connections there. The AFLW Season 7 is launching soon and will continue to grow the audience.
“We have Port Adelaide as one of the new teams this year and they have started to raid Adelaide and getting Erin Phillips is a big coup. It will be fascinating to see if the Crows can maintain their dominance.”