The 2025 CrossFit Open begins on February 27. Register here.
Over the last few weeks, we have been on a journey together, tracking the day-by-day numbers for the 2025 CrossFit Open registration period.
On February 27, the Open kicks off at CrossFit Mayhem with the announcement of 25.1.
Over the last few of these reports, we have touched on three of the four data points I have been tracking each day on Instagram (@known_knowable), which is a daily check-in from four different angles:
- Counting up from Day 0 to the final day of the registration period.
- Counting down from the first day of registration period to the final day.
- Prize purse funding.
- Total registration by Competitive Region.
We previously focused on counting up and down, then dove into the prize purse funding, and now we finish off the lead-up to 25.1 with competitive regions.
Before we jump in, here are the registration numbers for the past four years:
| Year | Total | YoY Growth |
| 2020 | 239,106 | -33.02% |
| 2021 | 263,529 | 10.21% |
| 2022 | 293,805 | 11.49% |
| 2023 | 323,014 | 9.94% |
| 2024 | 343,496 | 6.34% |
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Competitive Region Analysis
While the Games season structure for 2025 does not feature competitive regions as significantly as in the past, several In-Person Qualifying Events are using them to determine athlete eligibility for their competitions.
To date, the competitive region registration looks like this:
All of our tracking has illustrated that registration numbers are down across the board, but digging a little deeper shows that there’s not much year-over-year variation by region.
- In other words, while speaking with athletes, coaches, and community members, there was an indication that because of the death of Lazar Ðukić, the Europe region might lag compared to other regions.
So far, that has not come through in the data:
At nine days out from the close of week one, here is what it looked like for 2024 and now 2025:
| Competitive Region | 2024 Count | 2024 % | 2025 Count | 2025 % | Difference |
| Europe | 66,796 | 33% | 39,233 | 32% | -27,563 |
| NA East | 56,490 | 28% | 35,935 | 29% | -20,555 |
| NA West | 37,868 | 19% | 24,706 | 20% | -13,162 |
| South America | 15,188 | 8% | 5,501 | 4% | -9,687 |
| Oceania | 10,736 | 5% | 7,171 | 6% | -3,565 |
| Asia | 10,383 | 5% | 8,364 | 7% | -2,019 |
| Africa | 3,880 | 2% | 2,304 | 2% | -1,576 |
While the numbers are considerably down year over year, the European representation compared globally remains the same. European registrations represent one-third of registrations in both 2024 and 2025.
But if the numbers are down across the board, where is everyone?
Who’s In & Who’s Out
Much has been said about the top elite athletes who have made posts on their status for the 2025 Open and the subsequent CrossFit Games season.
That’s not what this report is about.
- The athletes may be able to reach millions through social media, but it would be impossible to pinpoint the impact directly attributed to posts by Annie Thorisdottir or Patrick Vellner saying they are “Out” and by Rich Froning and Scott Panchik saying they are “In for the Open.”
The elite Games athletes are less than 0.03% of the total Open athlete population.
I want to focus on something larger, something that is the heart of the community and who brings CrossFit to the masses each and every day: the affiliates.
In the 2024 Open, there were 343,528 total registrants, and the top gym on the 2024 affiliate leaderboard was SuperForce CrossFit, with 613 registered athletes.
In 2025, CrossFit HQ has pushed to get affiliates more involved.
- In addition to increased marketing, HQ is also offering $2,500 Rogue Fitness gift cards to the top affiliates by participation and team performance.
It’s also worth noting the new “In-Affiliate” Semifinal can only be done within the four walls of a CrossFit affiliate.
By the Numbers
In 2024, 307,115 affiliate members, representing 10,904 affiliates, participated in the Open. The other 36,413 were unaffiliated. That’s 89.40% of the total from affiliates and 10.60% unaffiliated.
Those 10,904 affiliates averaged 28 athlete members participating in the 2024 Open.
At present, for 2025, there are 8,590 affiliates with a minimum of one athlete registered for the 2025 Open.
But how many members do these affiliates have?
To set a baseline, I looked at two places that know this well. The first is the Two Brain Business State of the Fitness Industry for 2024, which puts the average at 122.5 members in “Big Group” gyms.
- “Big Group” is how Two Brain Business categorizes CrossFit gyms and other large group class gyms, of which CrossFit gyms are 50 percent of their total respondents.
The other place that shows an average number of members is CrossFit’s Affiliate Playbook, which is publicly available. In the financial planning section of the Playbook, CrossFit shows an average of 118 members as the “minimum number of members needed to hit operating expenses and allot for your yearly take-home goals.”
- So, for the purposes of this exercise, we are estimating 120 members each, on average.
Here it is: If 10,904 affiliates with an average of 120 members participated in the Open last year and an average of 28 members per affiliate registered, that means that an average of 23% of members signed up at those gyms.
- Worth noting: Based on 343,000 being 23% of total registrations for 2024, we can roughly estimate that there are around 1.5 million members in total across all CrossFit gyms.
I wanted to try another angle on this, so I did my own survey.
I put out a fairly simple question to affiliate owners on my Instagram story a few days ago: “What’s the name of your affiliate? How many members do you have?”
- I received just over 50 responses from affiliate owners. Within the request, I stated that I would not identify the gym or the owner. Thank you to those who participated.
The respondents (from 15 countries globally) self-reported to represent 8,709 members collectively, and at present, they have 1,703 members registered per the most recent affiliate leaderboard. As of this article, that would be around 19.55% of their total members based on actual data provided by affiliates.
Some of the largest gyms from leaders at CrossFit are also lagging behind on registrations. Daniel Chaffey, International Director of CrossFit LLC, stated on the Coffee Pods and Wods podcast last week that his gyms are not currently prioritizing Open registration because of the current qualifiers for his annual competition, the French Throwdown.
Chaffey is the founder of CrossFit Louvre in Paris, France, as well as CrossFit Louvre II and CrossFit Louvre III. Between the three gyms, they have roughly 3,040 members.
At present, Open registration for CrossFit Louvre gyms:
| Affiliate | Members | Registered for Open | Percentage of members | Total Registered in 2024 |
| CrossFit Louvre | 1,300 | 43 | 3.31% | 188 |
| CrossFit Louvre II | 840 | 14 | 1.66% | 37 |
| CrossFit Louvre III | 900 | 28 | 3.11% | 177 |
How Many Affiliates Are There, Actually?
This brings us to affiliate tracking. Let’s start with Crossfit’s Affiliate Map.
- The map has been revamped over the last few years to provide additional detail and generate leads for CrossFit gyms. I like to use it whenever I am traveling to find a gym to drop into. It’s also an excellent resource for tracking the total current affiliated gyms.
Here is what the map looks like if you zoom all the way out.
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In total, that is 9,925 affiliates as of February 23, 2025.
By tracking this number since the spring of 2024, it appears that the total number dropped below 10,000 affiliates on or around Christmas.
The last time the total number of affiliates was under 10,000 was in the aftermath of gym closures due to COVID-19 regulations and gyms that de-affiliated after the actions that resulted in Greg Glassman selling the company.
- For more on that, check out this article written by Lauren Kalil in 2022: CrossFit Affiliates Increase By Nearly 1,400 in 2021, Home Office Plans to See Upward Curve Continue in 2022
In the article, Gary Gaines, who was General Manager of Global Affiliates and International but is no longer at CrossFit, stated that at the start of 2021, there were approximately 9,400 paid affiliates, and that number grew to 10,800 by the end of the year.
However, in total, the number at the end of 2021 was around 12,500 because there are a significant number of non-paying affiliates in prisons, military installations, and schools.
- Note: Gaines also mentioned in that 2022 article that “the largest this company has been in that paid cohort is right around 11,715.”
Here is a chart tracking total affiliate numbers beginning in March 2024 with just under 11,400 affiliates. The current number is now below 10,000:
Of the current total, the United States has around 40 percent of worldwide affiliates.
Based on this data, 604 affiliates left prior to the start of the 2024 CrossFit Games.
- Since the CrossFit Games, there have been an additional 857 gyms that have de-affiliated. In total, 1,461 affiliates have left the brand during this time and are no longer on the affiliate map.
The 1,461 affiliates could result in up to 175,320 members (using our 120 members average estimate) no longer in CrossFit gyms. Based on the exercise above, 23% of those would be 40,323 members who may not compete in the Open as their gym is no longer “in good standing” and affiliated with CrossFit.
On the other hand, many of those athletes may still compete without an affiliate. At present there are 10,117 unaffiliated athletes registered. In 2024 there were 36,372 unaffiliated athletes.
Let’s dive into this week’s numbers.
First, to set the table, here are some quick dates and info for the 2025 Open:
- Registration started on January 15 at noon PT.
- CrossFit Open Workout 25.1 starts on February 27 at noon PT.
- CrossFit Open Workout 25.3 ends on March 17 at 5 p.m. PT.
That gives us 43 days during the registration period and 18 days once the Open starts.
The schedule can be found here, and you can register for the 2025 CrossFit Open here.
Open Report – Weekly Update 5
We are now 41 days into registration and six days until the Open 25.1 submission date. The data below is through day 40.
Based on competitive divisions, the current registration progress looks like this through the last seven days:
Based on competitive region, the current registration progress looks like this through the last seven days:
The registration total is currently growing by an average of around 3.15k each day after the initial day-one total of 8,904.
But what does that look like compared to previous years?
During the same days in 2024, the average day-over-day addition of registrations was 3.85k after the initial day one of 20,982.
- The chart above, which is a year-over-year comparison chart counting down to the submission date for XX.1, now has 2023 data as well as 2022.
- Note: 2022 only includes the ‘Open’ division, not the 14-15 or 55+ age group divisions or Adaptive divisions.
As of the publishing of this article, that would equate to $1,318,270 in total prize money, divided into the following categories:
| Games – Individual | $645,952.30 |
| Games – Teams | $131,827.00 |
| Open – Individual | $65,913.50 |
| Open – Affiliate | $263,654.00 |
| Masters Games | $131,827.00 |
| Adaptive Games | $39,548.10 |
| Online Semifinal | $39,548.10 |
This will be our weekly monitor as the Open approaches and we go through to 25.3. I will also continue to post daily check-ins at @known_knowable on Instagram.
