Battle of The Year

Battle of the Year, commonly referred to as BOTY, is an annual international b-boying series that began in 1990. It is a crew (as opposed to individual) competition. Regional qualifying tournaments, also known as preliminaries, are held worldwide culminating in the BOTY International, the world finals event which was held at the Volkswagenhalle in Braunschweig, Germany until 2009. Since 2010, the world finals take place in Montpellier, France. Battle of the Year is widely regarded as the premier b-boying tournament in the world, frequently referred to as the "World Cup of B-Boying". Battle of the year creates "spaces for a globalization at the bottom, bringing people together across the barriers of geography, language, and race". Benson Lee filmed a documentary on the Battle of the Year called Planet B-Boy which gives a point of view on what type of people take part in the Battle of the Year. "BOTY becomes more and more international and that means more and more popular. So the capacity of the venues grows and every year there are some more key men in the BOTY-team. One of their aims is to integrate young and motivated people. And it's necessary to do it because it is getting harder and harder to fulfill all the claims". BOTY audiences increased over the years - in 1997, 4000 people watched the finals. The BOTY finals in 2000 held in Hannover, Germany had the largest audience, with 10000 people watching the finals. In 2001, "A change of direction" was added to the BOTY logo as decisions were made to change the format due to the increased popularity and to make it more manageable.