The 2025 CrossFit Games rulebook was published Friday afternoon. Tyler and I walked through the rulebook live as we reacted to some of the new things added this year. You can watch that above.
But now, after taken some time to review in more detail, here are the key items you need to be aware of for the 2025 CrossFit Games season…
Section 1.01 – The Open
Even with the change to In-Person Qualifying Events this year, athletes looking to qualify for the 2025 CrossFit Games must register for the CrossFit Open and finish within the top 1% of Open participants in their division.
Some IPQE’s have a separate online qualifier to qualify for the in-person IPQE. However, if an athlete does compete at an IPQE without meeting the criteria above, that athlete will not earn an invite to the CrossFit Games.
Age-group athletes must finish in the top 2% in their region during the Open to advance to the In-Affiliate Semifinals.
Section 1.08 – Open Registration – Region Selection
Unlike the past two years, an athlete’s region will be based on an athlete’s residency, not citizenship. In other words, an athlete will appear in one of the seven regional boundaries based on where the athlete is living.
The assigned region, however, will only impact athletes competing at one of three In-Person Qualifying Events – Syndicate Crown, TFX Invitational and Rebel Renegade Games. These three IPQE’s are limiting their field based on geographic location.
Syndicate Crown is only inviting athletes from North America East. The TFX Invitational will only host North America West athletes. r is open to athletes who have an African or United Arab Emirates passport or work/train in those regions.
Outside of those situations, the regions will have no bearing on the competition.
Section 1.22 – Open Workouts – Scoring Protocol
This year’s video review policy removes the minor and major penalty designations and instead just refers to videos “with penalty”. This change removes the percentage penalty range that is applied with videos deemed minor or major.
This switch appears to mean that CrossFit will use its discretion on the applied penalty based on each video.
Section 1.33 – Open – Prizes
This section outlines the prizes to the top individual athletes and CrossFit affiliates. I’ll detail the individual prizes later and will focus on the affiliate prizes here.
This year CrossFit affiliates will have the opportunity to earn a $2,500 Rogue Fitness gift card based on either [i] performance or [ii] participation.
CrossFit will award top performing affiliate teams in each competition region at the end of the CrossFit Open. The number of prizes within each region will be based on Open participation in that region.
The participation award will go to affiliates with the highest number of registered participants within in each competitive region.
Affiliates can only win one prize. So if they are eligible for both the performance and participation awards, they will receive the performance award and the next affiliate in line will win the participation award.
Section 2.01 – Semifinals
This year Semifinals are online. While it’s similar to last year’s Quarterfinals, athletes will have the opportunity to qualify directly to the CrossFit Games from this second stage of competition.
Athletes, however, MUST complete the workouts at a CrossFit affiliate and MUST submit scores with videos for every workout.
Section 2.02 – Semifinals – Head Judge Requirement
As mentioned earlier, all Semifinals workouts must be completed at a CrossFit affiliate in good standing.
This year there is an added layer of judging requirements. In order to host Semifinal athletes, an affiliate must have a head judge to oversee the competition. This head judge must [i] hold an active CrossFit L1 credential, [ii] complete the 2025 Judges Course, [iii] complete the Advanced Judges Course, and [iv] must be on-site and introduced in each athlete video during each workout of the competition.
The head just will spot-check judges on the floor and ensure video set-ups and floor requirements are met.
Section 2.07 – Semifinals – Judging and Video Requirement
Individual and Age-Group division athletes will be REQUIRED to submit videos of all workouts and they must be publicly viewable on YouTube (no “private” videos).
Athletes cannot upload to any other video hosting service such as Vimeo or Rumble.
Section 2.13 – Semifinals – Leaderboard Finalization
The rulebook denotes when the Semifinal leaderboards will be finalized:
- Age Groups: April 21
- Teams: May 2
- Individuals: May 19
For individuals, the number of Online Semifinals qualifiers will be based on the number of athletes qualifying for the CrossFit Games via the IPQE’s.
The Games will have 30 men and 30 women. Right now, there are 10 IPQE’s that will qualify 18 athletes which means the top 12 men and women will earn an invite to the CrossFit Games directly from Semifinals. This number could change if an IPQE is added or an IPQE does not occur for some reason.
Section 3.01 – CrossFit Games Qualifying Event
This section clarifies how Games invites will be managed in the event an athletes earns multiple invites. In simplest terms, the first invite chronologically will be official invite for an athlete. Any subsequent competitions such that an athlete earns and invite will be passed to the next athlete in that subsequent competition.
For example, if Austin Hatfield wins the Mayhem Classic in early April and then finishes inside the top 12 of Semifinals, Austin’s invite will come from the Mayhem Classic and the Semifinal invite will go to the 13th place individual.
Section 9.01 – Gender Classification Policy
This year “athletes must compete in the division corresponding to their gender assigned at birth.”Â
Last year transgender athletes could compete in the division based on how they identify as long as they met certain criteria including proof of meeting certain testosterone levels.
Appendix E: Judging Credentials Not Met
If it is found that the head judge or floor judge used during Semifinals does not meet the judging criteria, the athlete may receive a penalty up to a “0 score”. According to the rulebook, it is the athlete’s responsibility to ensure the judges meet the required criteria.
Appendix F: Prize Money Distributions
This year the prize money for all stages of competition will be based on 2025 CrossFit Open registration fees. The fees collected during the Open will directly impact the size of the prize purse.
The registration fees will be split as follows:
- 50% to CrossFit, LLC
- Remaining 50% goes to the various prize purses:
- Open – Affiliate Prizes: 20%
- Open – Top Individuals Performers: 5%
- Individual Semifinals: 3%
- Individual Games: 49%
- Affiliate Cup Games (teams): 10%
- Masters: 10%
- Adaptive: 3%
The rulebook goes on to share more detail on how each of those percentages above will be split among the top finishers. The top 20 individuals will receive prize money at the CrossFit Games (which means 21st through 30th will not). Here is how the Games prize purse will be broken down:
1st: 50%
2nd: 10%
3rd: 8%
4th: 7%
5th: 3.5%
6th: 2.7%
7th: 2.5%
8th: 2.2%
9th: 2.1%
10th: 2.0%
11th: 1.7%
12th: 1.5%
13th: 1.2%
14th: 1.1%
15th: 1.0%
16th: 0.9%
17th: 0.8%
18th: 0.7%
19th: 0.6%
20th: 0.5%
While only 20 of the 30 individuals will receive prize money, all 20 teams advancing to the CrossFit Games will earn a portion of the prize money.
