Brooke Wells, Chandler Smith, and Pat Vellner are already on board.
Last updated on December 24th, 2024
Additional reporting by Joe Genetin-Pilawa
The World Fitness Project (WFP) is here.
You may have seen a slow trickle of information on social media about the new organization recently, including announcements of athletes who “signed” with them and an overview of qualifying for the WFP’s “World Fitness Tour” roster.
- We got a chance to sit down with the WFP founders — CrossFit Games veteran Will Moorad and Isabella and Jackson Terry, who also co-founded GoodLyfe — for an interview to learn more.
One big thing: The WFP, an organization with the goal of creating “an ecosystem of the fitness world,” is launching a new competitive tour for fitness athletes with a pro card system and guaranteed contracts for cardholders.
- This is important because it gives athletes who wish to avoid the CrossFit Games season or supplement their incomes an opportunity to earn money and compete against the best fields in the game.
- Additional details are forthcoming, but we can report having heard separately that current contracts are in the upper-five-figure range for three in-person competitions and are based on ranking.
For fans, the World Fitness Tour format will be exciting to follow as there are races both for Tour Event and Finals podium positions. There will also be a cut line to qualify for a pro card and guaranteed contract.
Here’s the team behind WFP:
- Isabella Terry, Executive Director (co-founder, GoodLyfe)
- Jackson Terry, Director of Operations (co-founder, GoodLyfe)
- Will Moorad, Director of Sport (Six-time CrossFit Games veteran)
- Jason Ansley, Event Director, North America (1st Phorm Monster Games)
- Roger Nilsson, Event Director, Europe (WODLA Group)
- Ryan Husband, Director of Business Development (founder LRX Apparel)
- Maggie Husband, Director of Logistics
World Fitness Tour Details
The World Fitness Tour will operate like professional tours in other sports. “Pro card” holders will compete to maintain their position on tour, and challengers will compete to earn a card all on a season-long leaderboard.
For the initial season, 20 men and 20 women will hold professional cards. These athletes are selected from the field of top athletes and signed to a base contract for the season.
- The WFP has already announced several signed athletes, including Brooke Wells, Chandler Smith, Alex Gazan, Pat Vellner, Jelle Hoste, Alexis Raptis, and Travis Mayer. We expect to have the full roster by mid-January.
- It’s important to note that these contracts are not exclusive and do not prohibit athletes from competing in the CrossFit Games season or any other event.
[Related: Best Whey Protein Powders]
During the 2025 season, the signed athletes will compete for points across two in-person “Fitness Tour Events” (one in the United States, one in Europe) and the in-person “World Fitness Finals” (WFF) to hold their spot into 2026. Meanwhile, “challengers” will compete to earn their own spot and pro card among the 20 available (each for men and women).
In addition to the Pro and Challenger divisions, there will be a “Competitors” division, in which athletes are divided into age groups, skill levels, and team categories.
- There will be two Master categories, 35-49 and 50+, competing as same-sex pairs.
- There will be a Teen division called “Next Gen,” with two age categories, 14-16 and 17-19.
- For the Individuals, there will be elite, intermediate, and scaled teams of four.
The World Fitness Tour Season
The World Fitness Tour has three stages, both for the Pro/Challengers and for Competitors. These contain both online and in-person competitions.
Here’s the general season timeline:
- Challenger Qualifier I (Online, to qualify for Tour Event I)
- World Fitness Tour Event I (In-person, to earn points on the season leaderboard toward World Fitness Finals)
- Challenger Qualifier II (Online, to qualify for Tour Event II)
- World Fitness Tour Event I (In-person, to earn points on the season leaderboard toward World Fitness Finals)
- World Fitness Trials (Online, for Competitors to earn a spot at the World Fitness Finals)
- World Fitness Finals
[Related: Best Rowing Machines]
For Pros and Challengers:
- Stage 1: Accumulate points across the two in-person Fitness Tour Events.
- Each Tour Event has an online Challenger Qualifier preceding it.
- The top 10 will compete in the Pro division at that Tour Event, along with the 20 pro card holders.
- Numbers 11-30 in the online Challenger Qualifier will make up the Challenger division.
Each of the two Fitness Tour Events will have 30 athletes in the Pro division (20 pro card holders, 10 challengers from the online qualifier) and 20 athletes in the Challenger division (numbers 11-30 from the online qualifier).
- Stage 2: After the second Fitness Tour Event, the field of 30 athletes for the World Fitness Finals will be finalized. This field includes the 20 pro card-holding men and women and the 10 highest point-earning challengers. The WFF awards double the points.
- Stage 3: After the World Fitness Finals, the champions will be crowned based on the total points earned throughout the season. The top 20 finishers will earn a contract and pro card for the 2026 season.
For Competitors:
- Stage 1: Competitors can sign up online to compete in their chosen Fitness Tour Event. If they finish in the top three in their division, they will be immediately entered into the in-person World Fitness Finals.
- Stage 2: If a competitor does not achieve a top-three finish at a Fitness Tour Event or cannot attend, qualification to the WFF can be earned through the World Fitness Trials online competition (a month-long, multi-stage competition).
- Stage 3: Once at the World Fitness Finals, athletes compete for a top podium spot in their divisions in person.
The World Fitness Project Origin Story
While the world is just now finding out about the WFP, the organization has been in the works for a while.
- The seeds were planted by Isabella and Jackson Terry, the directors and founders of GoodLyfe. The duo had been working with at-risk youth, and they wanted to incorporate their passion for fitness into the charitable work.
In our interview, Jackson said this about GoodLyfe: “We go into low-income areas and start-up gyms so kids can come work out completely for free. We recently opened the gyms up to their families because if you cannot help the family unit, you cannot help the kids.”
- The Terrys opened several gyms around the world through their organization and eventually looked to build their company headquarters in Nashville, TN.
Enter Will Moorad.
Being a pro in the fitness space for over a decade, Moorad told us that it was “natural to want the sport of fitness to evolve into a tour sport.”
- Moorad shared some of the basics: “To be able to provide these athletes in the community a different spin on what is in the space currently is what we look to do. It wasn’t conflicting schedule-wise with the Games season, and it wasn’t conflicting financially for those athletes that want to compete in both.”
[Related: Best Cross-Training Shoes]
Moorad feels strongly that the tour element of sport was missing in CrossFit, and it will be exciting and supportive to the athletes. It is a win-win for everyone involved in the CrossFit space.
- “It supports the athletes,” Moorad said. “It supports the brands to have multiple events to showcase their stuff, and it supports the community to rally around these incredible athletes more than one time a year.”
Moorad’s experience in the competitive landscape makes him the perfect person to join the Terrys in making this a reality.
- “I wore the jersey for 11 years, and I am friends with a lot of the guys and girls we are signing,” he said. “I want to be that conduit from the athletes to the sport and what we want to make of this thing. It’s not an us or them CrossFit thing; it’s just another cool element to add to the space to help elevate everyone.”
The Terrys joined forces with Moorad to create a training facility to help subsidize the efforts of their nonprofit. Then, everyone began thinking outside the box.
- Jackson said that the first idea was to hold an event similar to the NIT Tournament in college basketball. This would act as a secondary event for those athletes who didn’t qualify for the CrossFit Games.
That didn’t come to fruition, but something else did. Through back-and-forth discussions about how to best create a new fitness space to facilitate growth in the sport, the concept of the World Fitness Project and the World Fitness Tour was born.
- “We really love youth mentorship and we really love what the fitness space does for all levels. So if we can support professional, recreational, and youth athletes, we can get a lot of purpose in that,” Isabella Terry shared in our interview.
The Bottom Line
Everyone on the team has big goals that they know are only reachable by slow and steady growth.
On the sport side, Moorad would love to see the World Fitness Tour become the marquee tour in fitness racing in five years.
- “I would love to have more major competitions with an amateur series, with streaming deals and a lot of visibility for our athletes,” he said. “Plus, a big community element behind all of the events. We are starting out with a good number of events, but the growth is fluid.”
Moorad laughed.
- “There is a lot of storytelling there. I mean, that is pro sports — people are not just fans of LeBron James. They want to hear about the other athletes in the sport, too.”
More CrossFit Stories
Featured image: @worldfitnessproject / Instagram
