Rich Froning’s Mayhem Madness team competition is coming together nicely, Morning Chalk Up is now starting to gate content for members only, and Gillette is sponsoring men at the Rogue Invitational online competition.
Good morning and welcome to the WODDITY podcast for news about CrossFit. We are a daily podcast, Monday through Friday, doing CrossFit news in five minutes or less.
My name is Ben Garves and today is Thursday, the 21st of May, 2020. Don’t forget, links to all of these stories are in the show notes of your friendly neighborhood podcasting app, as well as on the new WODDITY.com.
You know how much I love crazy news days, well…it’s a crazy news day! Let’s do this!
Morning Chalk Up Begins Gating Content
Fans may have noticed something new in the Morning Chalk Up newsletter this morning: an article labeled a member exclusive. The company has been advertising a new membership program for what feels like two months now, and has put those words into action with articles that are temporarily available for free but will become gated, blocking visitors from seeing them unless they become paying members.
Before you start the boos and the jeers, let me say this: WODDITY’s free content is because we make zero money and I pay for this with a full-time job in the tech industry. I do it for my love of you and the community. Just remember that when you’re giving likes, shares, and reviews.
Morning Chalk Up is a standalone company with many employees or contractors, and I believe they also have investors to keep happy. Their membership and ad-based experiences are keeping the brand alive and making sure they stay a reliable source of news for you and the community. So yeah, it sucks, but you really can’t fault them.
Mayhem Madness Details Released: CrossFit Team Competition
There are so many takeaways from a recent Instagram post by Rich Froning on the upcoming and all-new Mayhem Madness team competition. First of all, it is official, and it is officially a licensed CrossFit event. It will run August 2nd through the 9th in Cookeville, TN. Six days because it will follow a two days on, one day off format with cuts happening to four teams after two days.
Invited will be the nine teams winning CrossFit Sanctionals this year, along with three teams as decided by an online competition. Teams that have already qualified will also be required to compete in the online event for seeding purposes. CrossFit Mayhem Freedom and CrossFit Mayhem Independence teams will not be eligible for prizes, which range up to $3000 for first place.
Only events from previous CrossFit Games years will be used. Here’s the interesting part: teams will get to draft the order of the events based on their qualification finishing place. The remaining workouts will be determined by fan voting.
They’ve also mentioned a free live stream will be available and they are not at this time prepared to say spectators will be allowed.
Major CrossFit Athlete Sponsors
We’ve been watching over the past few weeks as some major companies outside the fitness realm have started to take on and sponsor elite fitness athletes. It kicked off with an announcement a few weeks ago that Sara Sigmundsdottir is one of two faces representing Volkswagen’s new sporty “R” brand. We saw last week that Mat Fraser and Tia-Clair Toomey are being sponsored by Chipotle.
Now, Gillette deodorant has thrown their weight (pun unintentional, but I’ll allow it) behind male athletes for the Rogue Invitational’s online competition. Why only the men? I don’t know, man. Procter and Gamble is Gillette’s parent company, which also owns Secret deodorant and Venus razors. And really there isn’t anything stopping the female athletes from using Gillette’s deodorant for men, because…I’m pretty sure it’s all the same stuff and now I’m wondering why we even have male-female brands. Thanks, Gillette.
Anyway, Gillette is partnering with athletes like Mat Fraser, Cole Sager, Patrick Vellner, Jacob Heppner, Chandler Smith, and Noah Ohlsen. They’ll use the deodorant during the online competition to see if they still smell like flowers after workouts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always happy to see new money in our industry.
That’s it for news about CrossFit for Thursday, May 21st. Thanks for listening. Please be sure to rate, review, subscribe, and share. For WODDITY, I’m Ben Garves. Behave yourselves out there.
