CrossFit team competitions can be tough to watch. It’s an opinion shared by many commentators in CrossFit media.
At least, that’s what I thought until I watched the TYR Cup last month in Huntington Beach, CA.
Remind me: The TYR Cup at the inaugural TYR Wodapalooza SoCal was a team-style exhibition featuring two groups of eight athletes, all of whom competed as individuals at the recent CrossFit Games.
OK, so maybe part of the reason the TYR Cup was so entertaining was because I knew all the all-star individual Games athletes on the floor. In contrast, I’m not generally that familiar with most of the team competitors at the CrossFit Games.
But it was more than that.
The TYR Cup’s entertainment value for the spectators went well beyond athlete familiarity. There are certainly some things the CrossFit Games organizers (in my opinion) can learn from the TYR Cup to make the Games team competition more watchable, especially from a spectator standpoint. Here are five of the biggest takeaways.
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Have Fewer Athletes on the Floor
Sure, the TYR Cup had the luxury of only featuring two teams, and this format might not be practical for a CrossFit Games Team event. However, it could be logistically possible and useful to feature some smaller match-ups, like the TYR Cup did with their one-versus-one and two-versus-two contests.
Underdogs Athletics coach Justin Cotler, who watched the TYR Cup and said he found it “innovative and entertaining,” had a similar thought.
- “I think from a strategic standpoint, it would be very cool to have a team competition that went back to six athletes, where the events were a mix of one-versus-one all the way to three-versus-three. I think that would bring a lot more interest to the team competition [at the CrossFit Games],” Cotler said.
Create Simple Workouts
A CrossFit Games team competition can oftentimes look like a confusing cluster of athletes working out with very little direction. Simply put, there’s just too much going on.
While you do need to test high-level skills, I would argue the most entertaining event at the TYR Cup was Event 9, where teams selected just one man and one woman to go head-to-head against just one other competitor in three short sprint tests: 50/40 calorie Echo bike, 50 bar-facing burpees, and a 500-meter Assault run.
The event might sound boring on paper, but the simplicity and relatability of the tests made for an incredibly exciting showdown for viewers.
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Improve the Ability to Follow the Race
Further, the TYR Cup was easy for me to follow as a spectator.
You knew which team was in the lead at all times — a prerequisite to any sport being spectator-friendly, in my opinion — as opposed to the CrossFit Games, where it’s often hard to decipher where any team is at.
Joakim Rygh, the long-time coach at CrossFit Oslo, which had three teams competing at the 2024 CrossFit Games, had this to say: “Spectators like to follow races. A big thing that made [the TYR Cup] fun to watch was that you could really see both teams on the screen at all times.”
- “To make CrossFit more TV-friendly, I think we need to do less close-ups of the athletes and more full screens where it’s easy to follow when athletes are closing in and passing,” he added.
Further, the live stream at the Games needs to be better at keeping spectators informed about how the race is playing out.
- “I think there are a lot of ways to show more split times…especially on the endurance events,” Rygh said, adding that CrossFit needs a “live scoring system where it’s easy to follow where everyone is….[that would] make it a lot more exciting.”
Tell Stories to Build the Race
Rygh also thinks it would be helpful to tell more stories about the teams in the build-up to the competition, as this gives spectators more of an emotional attachment to the athletes.
- “A big thing [at the TYR Cup] was that you either rooted for Team World or you rooted for Team North America,” he added.
Condense the Timeline
Finally, another big difference between the TYR Cup and the CrossFit Games team competition was that, instead of events spanning all day, the TYR Cup was condensed into two hours each day.
Spectators don’t necessarily want to park in front of a live stream all day waiting for the next event; they are arguably more likely to set aside a two or three-hour block of time, the way they do for an NBA or NFL game.
Rygh agrees.
One of the keys that made the TYR Cup so appealing for spectators, he said, was the fact that there were many events in a short amount of time.
- “Two to three hours with events going back-to-back made it easier to follow, and I also think it’s easier to take that block out of your evening to watch than to spread it out during the day,” he said.
Ultimately, Rygh thinks CrossFit would benefit from “finding ways to make the competition more time effective.”
- “You could possibly do the last three events [at the Games] within a two-and-a-half hour [window],” he added.
One Final Thought
It’s no secret that the team competition at the CrossFit Games is a bit of a sideshow — or an afterthought — to the individual competition. And with the rise of superteams in recent years, where not everyone trains at the same affiliate, fans have become arguably even less loyal to the teams.
To develop more of a fan following, Rygh thinks it’s worth considering having each training camp put together its own team.
- “I think doing this would create more [of a] following and I also think that each training camp would prioritize [the team competition] more,” he said.
More From the TYR Wodapalooza SoCal
- Seher Kaya Shines at TYR Cup, Thrives on Team World
- Gui Malheiros Leaves TYR Cup Refreshed, Ready for More
- Reps Ahead Pro 4 Results: Jayson Hopper and Anikha Greer Victorious
Featured image: Scott Freymond
