USA Dodgeball sets 2026 national championships for Chicago weekend

USA Dodgeball put its 2026 national championships on the calendar with a Sept. 4-6 weekend at Wintrust Sports Complex in Chicago, a format that gives teams a clear early target for travel, budgeting and roster planning. The event is open to teams from any region and splits the title chase across Open, Women’s and Mixed divisions in foam, cloth and no-sting play, turning one weekend into a national showcase with a built-in daily rhythm.

The schedule itself tells teams how to prepare. Friday is reserved for no-sting competition, Saturday shifts to foam and Sunday closes with cloth, so the championship does not stack every format on top of one another in a single day. That structure matters for squads trying to decide whether to chase one division or build a roster capable of handling multiple entries across the same trip to Chicago.

The entry rules are as demanding as the format. Every player must be a USA Dodgeball member, register individually for each division and pay $65 per division before the tournament. Team registration closes Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, and each squad needs six registered players to secure a spot. Teams also have to supply two referees per division, and those referees must pass a rules test, a requirement that pushes the championship toward a self-sustaining operating model rather than a simple sign-up event.

USA Dodgeball also built a scouting layer into the weekend. The organization said a scout or representative of each gender will be in attendance to report to the scouting committee, which gives the event a second function beyond the title chase. Teams are being asked to bring sportsmanship and dodgeball IQ even if they are not in the spotlight, a signal that the championships are being treated as more than a bracket run.

The listing says additional scheduling details will be announced closer to the tournament, and it notes that existing tournament credits expire on Oct. 31, 2026. Taken together, the early Chicago release reads like a calendar-setting move for a sport trying to make its biggest weekend more predictable, more formal and more useful as a championship pathway on the 2026 Premier Tour.