FREESTYLE CROWN
Registration is OPEN for the 2026 Freestyle Crown
WHAT IS THIS?!
What the heck is the Freestyle crown you ask? It’s two rounds of VIRTUAL Freestyle submitted to be scored by an awesome panel of judges. All participating teams will earn legit UpDog points, receive judge feedback, and have the shot to win some super cool prizes from our event sponsors (deets soon!)
The Freestyle Crown is ALSO the finale of the 2026 Freestyle Royale. All six rounds (4 Royale, 2 Crown) will be complied and each team’s top 5 rounds will count towards the Overall Winners for each division. If you played less than 5 rounds, all of your rounds will count towards your total overall.
DATES
Here are the important dates you need to know for this year’s Freestyle Crown!
October 1st-14th: Film and Submit your CRITERION Round Video
October 15th-31st: Film and Submit your PERFORMANCE Round Video
More detailed dates coming soon, including Virtual Watch Party dates, LIVE SCORING for Round 2, and player feedback deadlines.
SPONSORS
We’ll be making a separate sponsor post with allllll the fun things that will fill your Candy Bucket this year! 
FAQ
Here are some common answers to questions about the Freestyle Crown:
This is a VIRTUAL Freestyle competition. You’ll film yourself rocking some Freestyle and submit it to the Crown!
Teams will submit TWO rounds of Freestyle (one criteria, one performance) throughout October this year. Dates are listed above.
Videos can be uploaded to any sort of video service, such as Youtube or Vimeo. They MUST be either public or accessible with the shared link. If it’s private.. the judges cannot watch or score it!
All participating teams will earn Updog points for submitted rounds!
Unfortunately you cannot submit Freestyle rounds recorded at UpDog competitions during that time frame. You’ll already be judged and receive points for those from UpDog!
Videos MUST be one continuous shot, no flow edits or cuts can be done on your submission. Edits such as adding music is 100% allowed!
Submissions will be judged at the same level as an “in person” round at an event. Judges cannot judge what they cannot see, so discs caught (or not caught) off screen won’t be judged. Same for sequences that are off screen, etc. You may have a helper with recording that pans your camera to catch all the action! Just remember… no cuts or flow edits!
RULES ARE THE SAME as live events.. especially for costumes and safety!. Check ’em here: https://updogchallenge.com/freestyle-showcase/
NO experience necessary, brand new teams are welcome (and encouraged!) to play!
There will be THREE Divisions: Novice, Intermediate, and Pro. Youth teams can play in the division they feel most comfortable competing in.
All teams are playing LEVEL 2 Freestyle this year, which provides more scoring points in each category (Dog, Human, Team) which in turn gives players even more feedback from our Rock Star World Champions Judging Team, along with Improvements & Highlights that normally come with Criterion Round judging.
You’ll receive your Criteria feedback Mid-October so you can apply it to your Performance round submission! HECK YEA!
Since we are all rocking Level 2: all teams have 135 seconds and a minimum of 90 seconds of content must be submitted to be scored.
Scoring for this event: scores from both rounds will be added together for cumulative awards. The top 3 teams from each division will receive awards.
You don’t have to play each round this month, you can do either the Criteria or Performance round if you want, but the cost is the same ($40 total per team for October).
There is no minimum field size needed – backyard play is a-okay! Just make sure your space is clear of obstacles and safe for Freestyle play.
The Freestyle Crown will round out our summer long Freestyle Royale event (but you did NOT need to play in the Royale to play in the Crown.. it is open to ALL teams!)
Once you submit registration you will be sent a confirmation email. This email will include information on how to submit the links to your videos for judging. That form opens October 1st and closes October 31st at midnight.
QUESTIONS? Ask them below 
(if you’re wondering about September Royale results, stay tuned! Judges are picking their theme winners right now, you guys provided SO many fun options for themes this month, and then September winners will be announced along with the updated Leaderboard for all 4 months to date!)
