CrossFit HQ just released the participation numbers for the 2019 and 2020 CrossFit Opens.
This year, for the first time ever, there are two CrossFit Opens that fall in the competitive calendar year. As many expected, the numbers show a significant drop in participation from the 2019 Open vs. the 2020 Open.
The 2019 Open had 358,646 participants and the 2020 Open (which kicked off last week) has 239,106 registered participants.
CrossFit Open Numbers Breakdown
CrossFit HQ provided us with the numbers from this year’s Open registrations, and they can be seen below.
- 2019 CrossFit Open: 358,646
- 2020 CrossFit Open: 239,106
- Total Open participants for this calendar year: 450,386
As reported by The Morning Chalk Up, before the 2020 Open got underway last Thursday night with the announcement of Open Workout 20.1, CrossFit HQ released preliminary registration numbers that showed registration was down by 44%; this was reported with four days remaining until Open sign-ups were closed.
Now that full registration numbers are in, we’re seeing that the 2020 CrossFit Open registration numbers are down 34% compared to 2019’s numbers.
For additional context, the 2018 Open registration numbers was over 415,000.
[Open Workout 20.1 Tips from top athletes and coaches]
What Do These Numbers Mean
What makes this year hard to judge is that there are two Opens in the 2019 calendar year. The 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games just wrapped up in August, and now two months later the 2020 Open is underway. This was the shortest off-season ever after the Reebok CrossFit Games, and athletes and fans may be a little burnt out.
Even with the short off-season, notable CrossFit Games athletes have for the most part showed enthusiasm for the Open, even though the turnaround was so quick. In addition, CrossFit HQ is trying to switch things up for this year’s Open with a creative and interactive leaderboard to engage the community in different ways.
[CrossFit Open Introduces a Hashtag For Competitive Couples]
CrossFit Open 20.1 Views and Registrants
If we look at some of the viewing data from CrossFit Open Workout 20.1, we can potentially gather insights for how the next four weeks of the Open could go in terms of streaming, and what we could expect for 2021. As expected, Rogue Fitness’ live stream had the highest number of views for 20.1’s announcement and currently sits around 539,000.
Rogue Fitness ran a special live announcement for CrossFit Open Workout 20.1 featuring CrossFit Games athletes Rich Froning and Scott Panchik. Several smaller live streams had between 20-40k views each.
Right now we can’t take away too much from these numbers, but next year will certainly be telling.
Featured image from @richfroning Instagram page.
