USSA National Steinholding Championship Wild Card Competitions

Now that we've launched our National Championship, we know that there are great Steinholders out there in states where we haven't set up a State Championship Tournament (yet), so in addition to our State Championship Tournaments, we're opening up another pathway to participate in the USSA National Steinholding Championship Finals. A limited number of spots are available for venues to host their own independent qualifying competition and sponsor competitors to represent their location! We're calling this our U.S. Steinholding Association National Championship Wild Card Competition Venue Program.

Wild Card competition location representatives (one man and one woman) will be invited to compete against the best Steinholders in the world at our National Championship at Cincinnati Lager House in Cincinnati, OH, on November 21st, 2026. We want the Wild Card program to be flexible but we also want to have a consistent experience for the competitors. To help ensure this, each Wild Card venue is responsible to pay a $599 non-refundable buy-in fee which will be used to pay for one night hotel stay on 11/20/26 or 11/21/26 (based on competitor's preference) for each of their two representatives (one women's division competitor and one men's division competitor). This hotel stay will be arranged by USSA. Any balance of this buy-in will be used toward other expenses such as the steins, competition shirts, swag bags, etc., for your competitors. The USSA will give you and your competitors access to any discounted hotel block rates that we have available if your competitor(s) decide to stay any additional nights (room block discounts will be available from 11/18/26 through 11/23/26).

We also recommend that the Wild Card venue contribute to cover travel costs for their representative competitors to attend the National Finals, but this is up to you and what your budget allows.

We want you to feel comfortable holding these important competitions that will be a direct path to the National Championship, so you'll also get two free Standard entries into our USSA Judging Certification program, so two members of your team can have access to our judging training resources, and complete our official certification to show that they're ready to judge high level competitions. You'll also get all of the benefits that our Member Venue locations receive, including access to our live video training calls, glassware and merch discounts, and more- (you can see the full list here).

What do you have to do to participate? We're trying to keep it simple- here are the highlights:

• Pay the Wild Card Competition Venue registration buy-in fee ($599 for the 2026 Season) before our registration period ends on Friday October 3rd, 2026. Note that only two total Wild Card spots are available for 2026 and only one Wild Card spot is available for each state on a first-come, first-served basis. Once you register with us, we'll be in touch regularly to walk you through the rest of the steps along the way. If you're ready to commit, you can use the Add To Cart button at the bottom of this page to lock in your spot instantly.
• Hold your own Steinholding competition(s): This is pretty self explanatory, but there are options! You can keep it simple and have one single competition event OR you can host as many competitions as you want throughout the summer and fall to have your own local tournament to find the strongest possible Steinholders representing you. The format is up to you and what works best for your location.
• Contact us with your winners' information(s): We need you to have your National Finals representatives identified and communicated to us no later than Sunday November 1st, 2026, so we can coordinate with them to confirm their attendance for the National Finals and share more details with them. Once your final competition is completed and you have identified your location's local champions (and some back-ups just in case), pass their contact info along to us ASAP.

If you want to be a part of our biggest competition season ever and have your location represented in this year's historic Steinholding National Championship, or if you have any questions before jumping in, email the U.S. Steinholding Association Commissioner's office at jbanko@ussteinholding.com. We hope to hear from you soon and we hope to see you and your competitors in Cincinnati this fall!