By the Numbers: A Morning Chalk Up Year in Review

Morning Chalk Up’s Year in Review, by the Numbers

The last year has been full of bright moments as well as some extremely heavy ones. As the chief team covering the community and sport of CrossFit, we at Morning Chalk Up never take our responsibilities lightly.

Our Newsletter and Website Performance

Over the year, the Morning Chalk Up sent 266 editions of our free newsletter, totaling 19,000,000 emails. You popped over to Barbend.com almost 2 million times this year to read our interviews, profiles, community highlights, and deep dives into the industry.

Our Writing Team

Bringing you three stories per day is no easy feat, but we have the very best team of writers interviewing athletes, coaches, and professionals in our space and delivering articles on the daily. We brought on contributors like Jared Enderton, John Wooley, Justin Adams, and Mike Halpin. Twenty journalists contributed to our written content, producing over 1,000 articles. Emily Beers clocked the most on the team, like always.

Coverage of Tragic Events

Our coverage of Lazar Ðukić’s tragic death on August 8 and the related stories afterward were some of our most read of the year, and this was nothing that we took lightly. With every story that we wrote about the Ðukić family, countless tears were shed by those of us who turned them in.

Most Shared Posts on Social Media

On the social media side, many of our most shared posts were concerning Lazar and his family. It just goes to illustrate the love our community had for him and the ongoing support they have for Luka. Other major storylines that gained traction on social media were Haley Adams’ comeback and her first in-person event of the season at Syndicate Crown, as well as other comebacks, including Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, Gui Malheiros, and Maddie Sturt.

Social Media Growth

With over 1,200 posts imagined, designed, and written, we welcomed close to 40,000 new friends to our Instagram community on @morningchalkup and on Facebook combined.

Team and Changes

While there have been some minor changes to the Morning Chalk Up team this year, our core team has remained the same, with Joe Genetin-Pilawa as our Managing Editor and Nicky Freymond as our Social Media Manager.

Conclusion

It’s impossible to quantify the highlights and shoutouts we were able to help echo community-wide. Collectively, we all threw down at hundreds of local competitions, gave at least a million chalky high fives (don’t fact-check that one), and sweat in spaces and with people we hold dear. Readers like you give us countless ideas, inspiration, and fuel to keep pushing forward in this ever-changing industry, even through the darkest times we all faced this year. See you in 2025, and thank you so much for being here.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How many editions of the newsletter were sent this year?
  • 266
• How many emails were sent?
  • 19,000,000
• How many times did readers visit Barbend.com this year?
  • 2 million
• How many journalists contributed to the written content?
  • 20
• How many articles were published?
  • 1,000
• What was the most read topic on social media?
  • Lazar Ðukić’s tragic death and related stories
• How many new friends joined the Instagram community?
  • 40,000