Is This the Final Year for Teams at the CrossFit Games?
The first year of team competition at the CrossFit Games was in 2009 at The Ranch in Aromas, CA.
There was no Open and no qualification stage back then, so 96 teams registered for the inaugural Affiliate Cup and competed at the Games.
- After the first two events, the field was cut to the top 70 teams and then down to the top six. (And we thought the current cut system was a bit much. Imagine going from 96 to six in three events!)
NorthWest CrossFit won the first Affiliate Cup, but it was CrossFit Invictus who won the final event in 2009.
Will Invictus win the final event this year?
- It could be a fitting bookend for what may be the final year of the Affiliate Cup as we know it.
Wait, what?
Let’s take a few steps back.
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Dave Castro’s 2024 Games Athlete Interviews
Over the last few weeks, Dave Castro, General Manager of Sport and Education at CrossFit, started a series on his YouTube channel in which he interviews the individual athletes who qualified for the 2024 CrossFit Games.
- The interviews are short, ranging from 10 to 15 minutes. The topics vary, from learning about the athletes’ backgrounds to what events they want to see (or don’t want to see) at the Games. As the interviews have gone on, they have also included reactions to announcements, like the cuts schedule and Chad 1000X.
While the interviews are about the athletes, Castro also reveals some very interesting information.
Here are a few examples:
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- In his interview with James Sprague, Castro said that he is programming for the individuals while Adrian Bozmen is programming for the teams.
- In his interview with Alexis Raptis, he said that the Events will be announced ahead of schedule, but details may still be sparse.
- In his interview with Laura Horvath, Castro mentioned that the Games will be in Texas for the next couple of years, and there are plans to take it overseas for the 21st Games in 2027.
It was Castro’s interview with Saxon Panchik, though, where he revealed his thoughts about a possible future for the team division.
Panchik asked Castro: “Would you ever consider doing teams in the off-season and letting individual [athletes] make their own teams and do both?”
- Castro responded: “Yes, I guess I never really talked about it or this is the first I am talking about this. Seriously, separating the teams completely from the Games and just [keeping] the Games for individual athletes. That is definitely [something] we are thinking about…doing the teams as another phase, and again, guys like you [Saxon] could do both if you wanted to.”
Castro concluded his thoughts by addressing those who worry that separating out the teams would hurt attendance or the atmosphere at the Games.
“It would be fine; I think the same people would still come,” he said.
Why This Matters
A glance at history shows us that statements like these can lead to drastic changes.
In November 2021, Castro, then the Director of CrossFit Games, was on the CrossFit Games Podcast with Chase Ingraham to announce the upcoming 2022 season. (This was the season he wasn’t a part of after he was let go from CrossFit in January 2022.)
- During that podcast, at the 12:45 mark, Castro says he “does see a future…where we completely pull the age groups out of the Games and have their own Games [on a separate timeline from the Games each August]. That’s not happening this year [2022] but would like that to happen very shortly.”
Fast-forward two years, and the Age Groups and Adaptive are split into three Divisional Games, each on its own timeline, separate from the CrossFit Games.
Will the teams have the same fate?
It’s something Dave and his team have considered, and it could be a great opportunity for CrossFit and the individual athletes.
The Big Picture
In the last calendar year, we have seen an expansion of off-season events that involve individual Games athletes teaming up.
FitFest in Birmingham, England, hosted a three-team CrossFit Invitational Showdown as part of their Fitness Festival.
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- FitFest looks to be expanding further this December with new teams led by four captains: Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson, Sara Sigmundsdóttir, Ricky Garard, and Arielle Loewen.
This September, TYR Wodapalooza SoCal will showcase the first TYR Cup in Huntington Beach, CA, which pits North America against the world. The WZA team is calling it “an all-star match-up, featuring a two-team, head-to-head format. Each squad will be composed of four men and four women, with the captains chosen by YOU.”
Splitting the teams from the individuals may solve another pressing issue for CrossFit: Creating more opportunities for ESPN broadcasts.
Last year, CrossFit CEO Don Faul spoke at a meeting of the Professional Fitness Athlete Association (PFAA) just after the Games.
He spoke about the recent announcement that the CrossFit Games would once again be broadcast on ESPN. But the deal extended beyond the initial single-year broadcast.
- Faul mentioned during the PFAA meeting that CrossFit would look to provide ESPN with additional in-season competitions with elite athletes, which would give fans more opportunities to see their favorite competitors.
Unfortunately, beyond the Semifinals and the Games, CrossFit doesn’t own the rights to any other elite-level competitions, like FitFest, Rogue, and TYR WZA.
An additional CrossFit competition, with elite individual athletes, could build upon what the Games can provide to ESPN.
We may be entering the real Super Team era.
Even if the Affiliate Cup continues on a separate schedule from the CrossFit Games, Saxon Panchik and others may look to build an elite team for their own affiliate. The same goes for affiliates like Hard Work Pays Off CrossFit in Vermont, CrossFit PRVN in Nashville, and CrossFit Torian, to name a few.
One Last Thing
Imagine if HWPO could have Jayson Hopper, Pat Vellner, Brooke Wells, and Jacqueline Dahlstrøm.
Imagine a CrossFit PRVN DownUnder team with Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, Gracie Walton, Jay Crouch, and Bayley Martin.
- At this year’s Games in Fort Worth, the top-seeded teams out of Semifinals include CrossFit Invictus, Peak 360, and Raw Iron Mayhem Thunder, as well as Prestanda Kriger from Europe, along with three other Kriger teams.
If this is the last year in which teams compete at the CrossFit Games, it will be a good one. And just to think, next year could be even better.
Featured image: @ironandcastle / Instagram