How many legit BJJ black belts there are?

[Mario Lopez Alvarez]

Ballpark, how may BJJ bb's are there? Your guesses?

[HerbChao]

1000???......random shot...

[Serge Bunimovich]

hard to say, man. Gracie Barra has around 600 black belts according to Wikipedia, with 400 school world wide. Alliance has only 13 schools, but being world championship team for some many years in a row, I wouldn't be surprised if they have 100 black belts between those 13 schools. Checkmat is probably up there too. Plust there are dozens of small organizations with hundreds, if not thousands black belts. I live in St Louis, MO, and we have 13 Black Belts that I know of.
My guess would be 5000-7000?

[rickdawson]

hmmm... 3-4k

[Mario Lopez Alvarez]

Dang! That's a lot haha

But i guess it's how you look at it. Out of over 6 billion people in the world the percentage is super small.

Serge, 13 in Stl is a lot! There are probably shit loads in Brazil.

It's gonna be crazy in about 10 years. As jiu jitsu keeps on getting more popular the amount of BJJ bb's is gonna grow like crazy! I wonder how high the level in this sport will rise.

Looking forward to it.

[Brandon Mccaghren]

Well, the state of Alabama is pulling the numbers backwards for y'all. I believe we still have less than 10 in the entire state.

[Mario Lopez Alvarez]

Well, the state of Alabama is pulling the numbers backwards for y'all. I believe we still have less than 10 in the entire state.

That's a huge oportunity for you Brandon! I bet you are at their level already too.

[Fraser Taylor]

Think we have about 8 in Scotland.

It's also probably safe to assume that there are a fuck ton in Brazil, where being a black belt isn't as rare of an occurrence as it is in certain parts of the US and Europe

[SmokeyBJJ]

This thread just shows me how truly blessed I am to be training in an academy with 9 black belts. It's pretty normal for us to have 3-4 black belts on the mats at a noon class.

[sean applegate]

its nuts in brazil.