USA Wrestling breaks membership record, surpasses 345K members

USA Wrestling set a new milestone, sailing past its previous membership record of 344,494 members on April 4, 2025. The organization surpassed 345k members for the first time in its 57-year history, with nearly five months remaining in the 2024-25 membership year.

The USA Wrestling membership total, which currently sits at 346,861 at the time of publication, is comprised of athlete members and Wrestling Leader members, which include coaches, officials and other leadership positions within the wrestling community.

Landmark member No. 344,495 was 13-year-old Kniko Atkinson of Live Oak, Florida, who recently wrapped up competition with the Suwannee Middle School wrestling team and joined USA Wrestling for the first time.

The USA Wrestling membership year concludes on August 31, 2025, giving the organization ample opportunity to add to its record-breaking year. Current projections peg USA Wrestling to surpass the 365K membership total this year.

“Our volunteer state, club and event directors continue to provide opportunity, safety and security for our members across the country,” said Tony Black, USA Wrestling Director of State Services. “It’s quite remarkable that we have more events than ever before, more clubs than ever before and more members-per-club than ever before.”

It’s an unprecedented time of growth for USA Wrestling. Last year was the first time USA Wrestling surpassed 300K total members. The previous decade of membership saw fluctuation between 200K and 250K total members annually, with the exception of the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic year.

Much of the USA Wrestling’s membership growth can be attributed to advancement of technology, the rapid growth of women’s wrestling and the dedicated efforts from the organization’s volunteer leadership nationwide.

“One of USA Wrestling’s core values is to network the wrestling community, and we continue to develop both our membership system and event management software to make it even easier to do just that,” Black added.

In addition to its total membership record, USA Wrestling set high-water marks for other key membership metrics, including at the time of publication:

• All-time record number of athlete members – 293,856 (breaking 2023-24 record of 292,810)
• All-time record number of Wrestling Leader members – 53,005 (breaking 2023-24 record of 51,685)
• All-time record number of female athlete members – 52,041 (breaking 2023-24 record of 46,146)
• All-time record number of clubs – 5,687 (breaking 2023-24 record of 5,528)

Another record USA Wrestling projects to break during the current membership year is the number of USA Wrestling sanctioned events. 2,371 sanctioned events are currently logged for 2024-25, 110 short of last year’s record of 2,481.

The top 10 USA Wrestling state associations for total membership at the time of publication are:

1. Illinois - 26,869
2. California - 25,971
3. Washington - 18,982
4. Kansas - 18,026
5. Wisconsin - 14,964
6. Missouri - 13,602
7. Indiana - 13,602
8. Ohio - 11,407
9. Colorado - 11,164
10. Oregon - 10,860