WODconnect was present at the Dubai CrossFit Championship in December and is sponsoring two teams in Wodapalooza 17th to 20th of January. Both of theese competitions are new CrossFit sanctioned events, where athletes will compete for an invitation to the CrossFit Games. This article answers the following questions:

• How is the competition calendar changing?
• How the changes affect the awareness of the sport in long term?
• What the changes could mean for the athletes?

Changes to the competition calendar

CrossFit HQ published earlier this fall some major changes to the competition calendar that dropped off the Regionals phase and added several competitions around the world, the sanctionals, arranged by the members of the CF community. From now on the fittest athletes of the Open from every country will achieve a ticket to the CrossFit Games, followed by the top 20 athletes in the Open regardless of their country. Moreover, the winners of each of the CrossFit sanctioned competitions are getting an invitation to the Games too.

The changes come from the logistical challenges that arranging Regional competitions on four continents caused. Also, CrossFit HQ's core mission is improving the general health of people, which has been distracted by the workload that's been required to organize the hugely swollen Regional competitions. The goal is that the changes let CrossFit HQ to refocus on improving the health of people in the day to day life at the boxes. Moreover, from now on there are more possibilities to qualify for the Games. Greg Glassman also states that the CrossFit sanctioned events are a recognition of good work in building great competitions and communities around the globe.

Here's a good summary of the new rulebook: https://morningchalkup.com/2019/01/07/the-2019-crossfit-games-rulebook-has-arrived-heres-what-you-need-to-know/

The next growth phase?

With 18 CrossFit sanctioned events published to date, it is almost certain that the level of competition will vary between the CrossFit sanctioned events. For instance, in Dubai CrossFit Championship, there were several individuals, who are proven Games level athletes, but only one athlete from each category qualified to the Games. Whereas in some other sanctionals there might, in the worse case, be zero Games level athletes competing. The upside is that new athletes will get a chance to prove themselves but the downside is the risk that all competitions won't meet the standards that sending athletes to CrossFit Games requires.

Other relevant question is, how well is the audience going find these competitions, relatively unknown for other but the local people? A good sports experience, for both, the athletes and the spectators, requires an atmosphere which is created by the presence of audience. In Dubai, the tennis stadium was barely half full. Without the brightest stars such as Fraser, Briggs, and Sigmundsdottir the stands would have likely been even more empty. And competitions, where the prize money policy isn't as generous as in Dubai, might face challenges to tempt the top level athletes to the competition floor. However, online streaming surely grows the total audience of competitions and CrossFit Games has been a forerunner in the utilization of social media and other online platforms as a broadcasting channel. So far the streams have been offered free of charge to maximize the views, but once the fan base grows, things might change.

On the other hand, the new changes will be a step towards a more international and widespread sport. Certainly every competition organization, who get the honor to arrange a CrossFit sanctioned event will do their best to make their local community proud with a well arranged event. This increases the awareness of CrossFit locally. Second, to become truly popular around the world, CrossFit needs local heroes and idols. By giving a chance for athletes from every country with a CF affiliate to qualify to the Games through the Open and certifying competitions on all continents, CrossFit will surely gain awareness in the areas, where CrossFit is still a marginal form of a hobby.

Furthermore, now there are more interesting events for fans to follow, equally through the calendar year. Competitions that have earlier been meaningful only for the local communities will now have a meaning for larger, international, audiences as they are paths to the CrossFit Games.

Towards professional sport

CrossFit HQ did not reward the successful athletes in the Regional competitions with monetary prizes. The CrossFit sanctioned events, however, are free to pay the top performers prize money, which most of the CrossFit sanctioned competitions seem to do. This is a good thing in fostering CrossFit to become a professional sport.

The growing awareness of CrossFit will also affect the brand value of individual CrossFit athletes. The best Games athletes obviously are huge influencers already and have sponsorship deals with the biggest sports brands in the world but behind them, there's a huge amount of athletes, who are training like professionals but are not able to make a living fully out of CrossFit. The sanctioned events can be seen as an opportunity for athletes to build their personal brands on different market areas and in the long-term, gives them leverage to negotiate better sponsorship deals. Furthermore, athletes will benefit from the growing popularity of CrossFit, because that increases the potential audience for their personal brands. As the total amount of prize and sponsor money increases, so does the level of competition as more athletes are able to fully focus on training, which leads to growing interest towards the sport. Growing interest rounds back to the increasing prize and sponsorship money and eventually the cycle becomes self-perpetuating.

Our experience from Dubai CrossFit Championship is definitely positive and it is certainly one of the best arranged CrossFit competitions in the world. There's no reason to believe Wodapalooza and other sanctionals would somehow fail. With the recent changes, CrossFit might have stepped into the next growth phase from a phenomenon towards a recognized sport.

WODconnect wishes the best of luck to all the athletes in Wodapalooza, especially Team Basement Finland and Team Foodspring Finland! Follow Wodapalooza between 17.1.2019-20.1.2019 here: https://wodapalooza.com/ and here https://www.floelite.com/live/8095-wodapalooza-2019/signup