The World Knife Throwing League (WKTL) recently conducted a survey to gather invaluable feedback from our community of throwers. We want to thank everyone who took the time to complete the feedback survey. Your input is valuable to us and it’s important to us to share that feedback with the knife throwing community. We are committed to using this data to refine the rules and make changes that benefit the sport, promote progress, and continue to maintain the integrity of competition.
The feedback survey had a record response from the community. The survey included both qualitative and quantitative questions and was conducted anonymously to encourage candid responses aimed at understanding two key factors. The first is whether we need to urgently improve communication. The Second is regarding how the community feels about the current rules.
Every single submission has been read over carefully by the Commissioner and the WKTL team to make sure every voice has been heard. With this opportunity to submit open-ended responses, we found that some people took the time to provide feedback that was not on topic, unable to be implemented, purposely unhelpful, or inconclusive, or wrote “Not Applicable”. As a result, you will see some specific categories where not applicable results were removed and noted with *. All feedback has been noted and will be taken into consideration, even if it was entered into a not applicable section.
A huge thank you to everyone who participated. Below are our findings.
As mentioned previously we wanted to gauge whether or not there were better ways to communicate and get the message out to the competitors. This shows that the community leaned more neutral or favorable toward our communication style currently which is a good thing. Moving forward we will continue to improve our communications and ensure that community members are up to date.
These results were somewhat surprising to see. Mostly in that, there was a clean-cut half-and-half. But what that tells us is that we have room to improve and will make moves to do so. We would like to stress though that while we understand it’s not something everyone is a fan of, it’s not possible for us to divulge all our operations in full transparency but it’s important to say that we will always do so when we can.
We had a lot of specific requests over the past year for different alterations to the progression of the sport. We took specific ones and collected them over the year and wanted to weigh the community’s thoughts on them.
The results were pretty clear that the satisfaction of the league competition currently is doing well in the eyes of the community and with little change wanted. We do want to say we will be specifically keeping these answers in mind when moving forward into 2025 rules and beyond. As we grow, the hurdle we’ll be facing is keeping that same level of satisfaction while having to make some changes for long-term goals and to help grow the sport as well. So please keep in mind there still may be some changes incoming but we will ensure to handle everything with as much care as possible.
Addressing allowing other manufacturers knives in WKTL. There are a myriad of reasons why we don’t. One of those reasons is that regardless of the common conception, we are not quite the size of being large enough for solid sustainability and we have a long way to go before WKTL is up and running to our projected levels. We have very minimal income and rely heavily on WATL still for financial support. The majority of the WKTL venues do not have dues associated with WKTL membership as we do it primarily as an add-on to their existing WATL affiliation. The knives allow us to help cover the major costs of running an organization. We have a huge variety of knives and choices available for people to choose from. As a result, we will be keeping WKTL-only knives in our league.
The 15ft line. This was surprising to see considering the previous question about distances heavily favored keeping the 2 distance system we have now. That being said we’ll be keeping it under advisement for the future but as of now, we’re planning on keeping the 15ft line for official league play. That being said we HIGHLY recommend doing unofficial 10ft only leagues to all affiliates and players and see how you like them. If the response is largely in favor then it’s a possibility for the future.
Amateur/Pro divisions: This is also another example of a contradiction to the majority feedback as well as divisions were voted on negatively. But, also something we’ll be keeping under advisement for the future as well. For now, it isn’t a feasible option for 2025.
Lastly, in the efforts of transparency, the Commissioner, Evan Walters, has addressed some of the direct responses from the feedback form and gives a bit of insight on the state of WKTL overall.
The quick version of the address from the Commissioner can be found on Tiktok here.
The more detailed version can be found on YouTube.
The Commissioner & WKTL Council have already begun reviewing and analyzing the feedback provided and will work to determine potential solutions for 2025 and beyond. In the meantime, we will continue to listen to thrower feedback and collect game data for review as the sport continues to develop. We are grateful to the community for your invaluable feedback and dedication to the sport. Your insights and passion are instrumental in helping us enhance and grow the sport we all love. Thank you for your continued support as we improve the sport of knife throwing.