The Open Report: Week 7 — The (Chalk) Dust Settles

Editor’s Note: “The Open Report” is a multi-part series by Mike Halpin that breaks down the current CrossFit Open registration numbers and examines their historical context. You can read the previous installments here and here.

The 2024 CrossFit Open workout 24.1 is done!

So, how did it go? Did you repeat it over the weekend or Monday afternoon? How’s your lower back? Does the mushroom clue make any more sense?

The top times for 24.1 (unofficially) look to go to three-time individual Games athlete Colten Mertens, who posted a blistering fast time of 5:19 at CrossFit PRVN, beating second-place Taylor Self by over 20 seconds. For the women, it looks to be the five-time HYROX world record holder Mirjam von Rohr, who posted her video to the Games leaderboard with a time of 5:39.

[Related: An Ode to the CrossFit Garage Gym]

• For perspective: I got 12:22, meaning both Colten and Mirjam could go back to back within the time I was still huffing through the final round of 9s. I felt good about it, though, regardless of what the elite athletes of the sport are doing, but hot damn!!

This is the day I have been waiting for. Not finishing 24.1, although that felt good, but the day we can finally look at the numbers (mostly) as a whole. While it may be odd, there will be some stragglers who see 24.2 and 24.3 and still sign up, but outside of a few hundred additional athletes, the gross number of registrations and participants is there.

The final numbers will come after 24.3 has concluded, but here is what we are looking at just after 24.1’s submission window comes to a close:

Here is what the last few days looked like, from Dave Castro’s chalkboard announcement on Thursday afternoon to the submission deadline on Monday night:

A total of 69,808 registrations were added across all divisions from Thursday afternoon to Monday evening.

This is the fourth consecutive year that the Open has grown, but not by double digits this time. 

As of just after the March 4 deadline, there were 342,373 total registrations, which is about 6 percent growth compared to 2023. 

In my prediction last week, I thought the speed at which registrations were moving in the early days would pick back up in the last few, but it did not. Similar to my plan for 24.1 that went by the wayside, that’s how I would size up 2024 registrations given what we know now. 

• The numbers held on to the lead through the middle weeks as the Open got closer, but then they started to stutter and take a few breaths toward the end. The last-ditch effort to speed up wasn’t enough. 
• It’s still better than last year, but CrossFit may have wanted a re-do as well.

As I have touched on a few times, registrations only speak to part of the bigger picture. It’s participation that tells the real story.

I have some ideas on what may have occurred, from the splitting off of Adaptive to a boycott in the Middle East to the increase in affiliate fees causing fewer affiliates to participate.

• There were 229 fewer affiliates in the 2024 Open vs. 2023. 
• And for the first time that I can see, there is not a single U.S. affiliate in the top 10 for affiliate participation.
• The Adaptive CrossFit Open by WheelWOD appears to have registered 865 athletes. This is based on totaling the divisions on Competition Corner, which hosts the leaderboard.
• A few readers and commentators reached out to me to pull data on affiliate participation in the Middle East from 2023 vs. 2024, and there is a drastic difference of around 1,730 athletes across the Middle Eastern countries.

There could be several different reasons for a few thousand less than expected, but this is further off the track record the CrossFit Games has built since 2020. Tens of thousands off. 

I am interested to hear Dave Castro and Don Faul’s thoughts once these numbers make their way around. 

In the shadow of the leadership changes that occurred in 2023 and the changes to affiliates, these numbers act as that barometer we talked about in week one. 

To stretch the analogy further, right now, the barometer readings in the CrossFit world are neither warm sunny skies (10-plus-percent growth) nor storm clouds (flat or lower registration year-over-year). 

It’s like a partly cloudy day in Ohio at my affiliate (shout out to CrossFit Fairfield!).

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The chalk dust is starting to settle. Here are the numbers for week seven of Open registration tracking:

• Registration started on January 9 at noon PT
• Open Workout 24.1 starts on February 29 at noon PT 
• Open Workout 24.3 ends on March 18 at 5 p.m. PT

That gives us a window of 52 total days for registration before the first workout. Plus, there are 19 days between workouts 24.1 and 24.3.

(Editor’s Note: All data within this report for the 2024 CrossFit Open was pulled from the CrossFit leaderboard on Monday, March 4 at 8:01 p.m. ET.)

The 2024 registration total grew at an average rate of around 5,951 each day after the initial day-one total of 20,982.

More Numbers: I’ve included additional data I’ve been tracking, along with a few suggestions from readers and commentators on Instagram.

2024 Open Division – Registration by Region and Division, Then 10% Cut and 25% Cut

Men

Women

Top 15 Countries by Athlete Nationality

Total Affiliate Count 2018-2024

*Note: For these two years, the count of registrations for each affiliate is blank, so it’s not possible to see if affiliates may have been listed with zero registrations, which does show up on ‘22-’24.

Top 10 Affiliates Registered for 2024

*Note: SuperForce CrossFit appears to be a 16 location franchise across different areas of Brazil. It appears that they are submitting all registrations under a single affiliate on the leaderboard. 

Top 10 Ages of Registered Athletes

Registrations by Age Group Divisions

More 2024 CrossFit Open Content

Learn more about the 2024 CrossFit Open with these stories from the Morning Chalk Up:

• CrossFit Open Workout 24.1 Livestream Numbers Surpass 2023 Figures
• CrossFit VP Jay DeCoons Takes on His First CrossFit Open
• Breaking Down the Most Common CrossFit Open Movement Combinations

Featured Image: @musclesandlungs / Instagram