The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) has updated its competitive system and rankings to support the recovery of its member leagues and the sport of roller derby. A Competitive Play Task Force composed of volunteers (WFTDA leadership, skaters, officials, and coaches) from leagues around the world worked with WFTDA membership to create a new regionally based competitive structure. The new structure includes adjustments to the WFTDA rankings algorithm and games policies to promote more roller derby and competitive play opportunities at all levels.

All WFTDA member league charter teams will compete in one of six regions and will receive a regional ranking. Rankings play takes place in an extended season to allow for more time for fundraising and required off-season months for athlete safety. Every two years, each region will have a Regional Championship of the size and structure that best supports the needs of the region, and the WFTDA will designate a number of seats per Region to seed teams to compete for the Hydra trophy in the Global Championship. The current cycle’s Regional Championships will run from April to June 2024, with Global Championships taking place in October or November 2024. 

The adjusted WFTDA Rankings Algorithm is capped to support more team choice in opponents and to reduce the amount of travel necessary to compete. Teams can be more widely spread out in rankings and can still play a viable game for their rankings (eg. if Team A has double the ranking points of Team B, they are predicted to win a game between the teams with double the score). 

In order to promote more roller derby for more members, the WFTDA Charter Roster Policy has been updated to allow leagues to enter more than one charter team into the competitive season and to allow skaters to play on a maximum of two charter teams (in any member league). Any two teams are given a maximum crossover of eight (8) skaters in the regular season and three (3) skaters in the Championship events.

The WFTDA Rankings website was also updated to reflect these changes, and public rankings announcements will resume when enough sanctioned game play has taken place to warrant a public release, likely when these updates are completed.  The site is located at https://stats.wftda.com.

To read the full WFTDA Competition and Rankings and related policies, visit our Resources page.

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