The Dave Castro Interviews: By the Numbers
Once the Semifinals are over and the CrossFit Games athletes are decided, it’s athlete interview season.
- Podcasts like the Sevan Podcast, Coffee Pods & Wods, Clydesdale Media, B. Friendly Fitness, The Barbell Spin, and others all compete to line up interviews with veteran athletes and Games rookies. Many of these conversations top over an hour each.
In most cases, getting 10 or more interviews in the summer months is a large undertaking, as athletes are preparing for the Games and traveling across the country (or the world) to get to Texas and acclimate to their new surroundings.
- Worth noting: Since the 2024 Semifinals began, the Morning Chalk Up has published 29 interviews and spotlight articles on Games athletes.
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But no one thinks of interviewing all 80 individual CrossFit Games athletes.
Enter Dave Castro, General Manager of Sport and Education at CrossFit, who can now add “Seasoned Podcast Host” to his list of titles.
On June 23, Castro posted a short interview with Brooke Wells that launched the series. He then discussed it on his weekly show, Week in Review (WIR) on June 24:
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- So I started this new series where…I’m going to try to interview all the athletes, all 80 of them, prior to the Games,” Castro said. “And [they’re] going to be from five to 10 minutes long [each].”
He went on to say that since the 2019 Games onward, he felt disconnected from the Games athletes each year and hasn’t had a chance to get to know them.
- “I’m also not really following on social media or engaged like that,” he continued, “So I figured, well, I might as well try to just briefly get to know some of the athletes. And why not record it and then put it out as a little video?”
Fast-forward less than a month later, on July 22, and Castro did what some thought was unthinkable: he completed 79 interviews.
Remind me: Why not 80?
- Ilya Makarov was unable to secure his Visa to travel from Russia to the United States for the Games.
Makarov was a backfill after the first-, third-, and fourth-place athletes in front of him were all flagged for drug policy violations.
- I reached out to Castro to inquire if he would still interview Makarov and that was not answered directly, but Castro mentioned elsewhere that he would only be interviewing athletes that were competing in Fort Worth.
So, 79 total interviews, here’s what that looks like by the numbers:
40+39 – Total interviews, 40 women and 39 men.
5 out of 25 – There were only five women interviewed in the first 25. That means 20 of the 39 total men competing at the Games next month were interviewed before July 4, when the first event, “Chad 1000x,” was released.
19 hours, 46 minutes, and 34 seconds – This is the total run time of all 79 interviews added together.
10:14 – The shortest interview was Luke Parker’s, which was the fourth overall. The earlier interviews really stuck to the five-to-10-minute time frame that Castro set at the beginning.
59:14 – The longest interview was with Danielle Brandon, which was also the final interview.
- It appears that once Castro got toward the end, he just let the conversation ride.
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Brandon was originally the first athlete the GM contacted, but ended up being the last interview.
- Viewers can tell in the interview that Castro has a soft spot for the Games vet as they reminisced about her previous years at the Games, including being a Demo Team athlete in 2020 and the odd scenario Brandon had at the 2021 Games due to COVID-19 protocols.
651,537 – Total views across all 79 interviews. That number is still growing rapidly, and the current total is as of July 24. By the time the Games start in August, it’s likely that the view count will approach or break 1 million.
Top 5 Athlete Interviews by Views (as of the morning of 7/24):
- Pat Vellner (interview 70) – 23,362 views
- Danielle Brandon (interview 79) – 22,607 views
- Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr (interview 33) – 22,320 views
- Haley Adams (interview 26) – 19,077 views
- Brooke Wells (interview 1) – 18,441 views
- Worth noting: Castro mentioned in one of the interviews that he purposely decided not to monetize the videos as he felt that it would be bad form to use his position in CrossFit and his relationship with the athletes and this platform to put a few bucks in his pocket.
$6,000-$20,000 – Roughly the amount of money that Castro would have earned had he monetized the interviews. On average, YouTubers earn between $0.01 and $0.03 per view, which can vary widely based on the channel.
20 – The amount of times that Dave asked the athletes about benchmark workouts and which one was their favorite.
- “DT” was the top answer, with three athletes preferring the barbell-cycling masterpiece.
16 – The amount of times Castro asked athletes specifically about the benchmark workout “Cindy.”
The first and most notable instance was during his conversation with Luke Parker. Castro’s question about “Cindy” seemed to be in passing but then became quite the topic of discussion as Parker told Castro he had never done the workout and didn’t know the movements or rep scheme.
- This then became an ongoing topic throughout the series. It’s difficult to know if Castro asking about “Cindy” was a clue about what may be coming at the Games, or if he just wanted to point out how funny it was that Parker didn’t know the classic benchmark.
Parker knows what “Cindy” is for sure now, as he sent a score to Castro of around 27 rounds during the 20-minute gymnastics burner shortly after their conversation.
13 – The total number of athletes interviewed after the Hero Workout “Chad 1000x” was announced on July 4 said that they have done it before.
There were 24 interviews between June 23 and July 3 before “Chad 1000x” was announced, so there may be more. And there are for sure more athletes now who have done it or some variation during Games prep.
19 – The total number of athletes who stated they are “good swimmers” when Dave asked.
- Some of those were before the “Event 1: Run Swim” was announced. This includes Gracie Walton and Julia Kato, who both mentioned they were national-level swimmers.
8 – The total number of athletes Castro asked about how skilled they are on a bike.
- This included the first interview with Brooke Wells in which Castro told a funny story about how he once advised all the athletes competing that “whatever you do, don’t bike like Brooke.” There was also a much longer conversation with Ricky Garard about biking that led to his having to drop out of the 2023 Games season.
The bottom line: It’s quite an accomplishment in the CrossFit media space to interview every athlete competing at the Games this summer.
- While it’s not likely anyone else would attempt to complete that task, Castro was the perfect candidate to do it, given his level of access to the athletes, and it’s good to see, even in the media space, that Castro is leading from the front for CrossFit.
Part of the reason I started @known_knowable on Instagram was to help tell the stories of athletes up and down the leaderboard in an effort to provide a platform where all of the athletes would get a chance to show who they are. I was hopeful something like this could happen and am excited to see where Castro takes this next.
- Castro has already discussed interviewing other sections of the CrossFit community, like affiliate owners and members of the Games team, as well as having the top 20 athletes return after Fort Worth.
More 2024 CrossFit Games Coverage
- How to Watch the 2024 CrossFit Games
- 2024 CrossFit Games Will Feature New Movements, According to Dave Castro
- Our 4 Favorite Friday Night Lights Moments at the CrossFit Games
Credit: @known_Knowable / Instagram