This new sanctioned event stuff is going to be interesting. Seems a lot hinges on athletes and teams having enough sponsorships (or crowdfunding? haha) to continue traveling to the events if they don’t qualify early in the season.

For example, if (what would be) a top 5 team travels to events 2, 6, and 10 and loses out to other top teams, do they have enough to keep traveling to some of the remaining events? How many of these events can athletes realistically go to and give 100% while also trying to fix their weaknesses, improve their strengths, not burn out, peak for the games, etc? Especially if they also have to do qualifying workouts for each sanctioned event to gain entry.

Or do we have something like the golf mini tours where golfers live out of their cars and carpool to tournaments each week, while also trying to get family and friends to invest in their dream by giving them some spending money? The big difference is that even the bottom of the pack golfers that make the PGA tour make a lot more money than any CrossFit Games athlete.

On the individual side, will athletes like Tia and Mat dominate even more because they’ll have all year to get better, while a lot of the other top athletes will have to fight through a bunch of sanctioned events?