A look ahead at the upcoming Word Cup

This summer's Word Cup is almost close enough to taste it. Four weeks from the very moment this post goes live, players will be in the playing room slinging tiles (by my calculation, they'll be just starting round 17, to be exact). I think I can speak for the whole team when I say we're immensely excited. This is an event we've been planning for months, and everything's falling into place just right. We're eager to deliver an exciting tournament experience for everyone, both inside the playing room and out.

Since the tournament's drawing so close, and it's been a while since we've shared much info publicly about Word Cup, I thought this would be a good opportunity for an update. Here's where everything stands with just 26 days to go...

The field

As of this writing, we're up to a total of 88 players ready to duke it out in Collins, including 45 competitors in Division 1 and 43 in Division 2. Our whole CoCo team is tremendously proud of this number, as it represents one of the largest CSW fields ever assembled in North America.

And it's a ridiculously competitive field, too. By my count, we've got five former world champions in the group (David Eldar, Adam Logan, Wellington Jighere, Joel Wapnick, Akshay Bhandarkar) as well as 10 former U.S. national champions (David, Adam, Joel, Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, Dave Wiegand, Jesse Day, Austin Shin, Will Anderson, John O'Laughlin, Peter Armstrong). I honestly don't remember the last time I saw a field this stacked anywhere. It's been years.

Plus, the action in D2 should be rousing as well. The under-1600 contingent includes a host of both solid veteran experts and fast-improving up-and-comers. I'm excited to see who takes home the big prize out of that cohort, too.

The diversity

You see that image at the top of the page, with the 11 different flags? Those are the flags we'll be flying in the Word Cup CSW playing room - one for each of the 11 different countries that players will be playing for. There's at least one Word Cup competitor representing each of the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, India, Ireland, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

Since the day of our founding, one of the CoCo's key goals has been to unite the U.S. and Canada with the rest of the Scrabble-playing world, getting everyone to play together under one roof with one lexicon. We did plenty of that in 2020 and '21 with virtual play, but this event in 2022 will be our most international in-person tournament yet, by far. We're pretty psyched about that.

And it's not just the geographic diversity we're proud of - it's also great to see a wide range of player skill levels in the field. We've long believed that CSW Scrabble play can be appealing to anyone in the game, ranging from novices to world champions. This tournament will be living proof of that.

The stream

If you can't make it to Word Cup this year but you still want to follow along with the whole tournament, from start to finish, then don't you worry. We've got you covered. Plans are in the works to put together a complete live stream covering the whole event, from the opening game through the closing ceremonies.

I can't share every single detail of these plans just yet. There are a whole lot of i's still being dotted and t's still being crossed. But I'm confident that come tournament time on July 9, we're going to have a broadcast all-star team in place including a great producer, a rotating cast of world-class commentators, and a bunch of solid people working behind the scenes to make sure everything runs smoothly. Rest assured, you can look forward to five days of incredible Scrabble content. Mark your calendars now.

The other content

We won't be stopping with just live video, either. The plan is to offer a broad spectrum of multimedia content that will bring the tournament from Chicagoland directly to your living room. You can watch the stream; you can check out the archives later on YouTube. You can follow along on your social network of choice - be it Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You can check out this very blog, which we'll be updating with regular posts on the tournament.

Also, you can get live coverage from our website that's truly live. Because we've moved to exclusively digital results submission for all CoCo tournament games, every game outcome is reflected live on our site the moment it goes final, quickly and paperlessly. That means, if you ever want to find the latest pairings or standings from Word Cup (or any other CoCo tournament, for that matter), you can do so at any time, in real time.

With all of these efforts, the goal is simple: We want to deliver a compelling Scrabble tournament experience for everyone. Not just the players in the playing room, but all the people out there who know and love Scrabble, all over the world. We hope this Word Cup will be one to remember, whether you're with us in Chicagoland or not.

Having said that, if you do still want to join us in Chicagoland, there's still time to make that happen. Sign up today and reserve your spot.