Legends Championship Co-Founder Joe Linton Talks Games Takeover of Masters Division

The Legends Championship has become one of the premier CrossFit competitions for the masters community over the last few years. In a series of season changes, CrossFit HQ recently announced the event would be taking over the end-of-season competition for the Age Group Divisions, a dream come true for co-founders Joe Linton and Bob Jennings. 

Remind me: Earlier this month, CrossFit HQ announced end-of-season competitions for the Age Group Divisions will be hosted by the Legends Championship (Masters) and Pit Teen Throwdown (Teens), while the entire Adaptive season will be hosted by the WheelWOD Games for 2024 and beyond. 

Linton and Jennings started the Masters Championship in 2017 and have since been able to grow the competition into one of the premier masters-only events. This year’s competition is being held in Tempe, Arizona from Thursday, December 7 until Sunday, December 10, with 570 athletes competing. 

While details on the 2024 Games season are still unclear, Linton shares some insight into the upcoming season and how the move is a great opportunity for the sport and the masters community. 

• “We’re excited to get through this first year and show everyone what we’re going to do because even on the masters community side where they don’t know a lot, all of that will get cleared up after one year,” said Linton.
• “The athletes will be blown away by what we can provide,” he added. 
• “Separating the competitions is going to open up way more opportunities for more sponsors to be present. I think it’s going to open up more sponsored athletes than what is currently provided because with the fields being so small, there’s not a lot of eyeballs when they’re actually competing.” 
• Check out this interview with Linton on the HerdFit podcast as well.

Linton and Jennings see this change as only a positive for the age group and adaptive communities. Linton adds, they plan to increase their athlete roster for the masters division and hopefully increase sponsorship as well. 

• “Everyone’s going to feel that spotlight and focus, they’re going to know it’s for them and they’re really going to enjoy that,” said Linton. 

He assures, while the divisions have been separated, there is immense collaboration being done across all communities. 

• “I think on a surface level it looks like a division, but through what we have planned and ideas that we’re all working on to collaborate, to create content that can be shown at every event, you’re going to see how it’s going to create a whole new series of Games level weekends.” 
• “Now, people won’t be able to travel to all the events unless you have the time and money, but overall it’s going to broaden the reach and it will take a year to show, so it’s just on our end now to plan these events.” 
• “We haven’t set a location yet, but we do want to make it a destination city.” 

The dates of the competition are still TBD, however Linton shared, the event will be more in line with the CrossFit Games season. The 2024 Games for elite individuals and teams will be held at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth from August 8-11, 2024. 

• “Likely, it will probably not be in December,” he said, so we are bumping it up significantly to be more in line with the Games season so that these athletes aren’t training year round.”

The bottom line: Many details are still being ironed out, but as soon as the decisions are made Linton assures that he’ll share with the masters community. An announcement regarding these details is expected come November.