North American Scrabble Championship

The North American Scrabble Championship, later renamed the Scrabble Players Championship, is the largest Scrabble competition held in North America. Its roots trace to 1973, when the first officially sanctioned Scrabble tournament was organized by Joel Skolnick, a New York City parks and recreation director; the first true national tournament, the North American Invitational, followed in 1978 in New York City. The National Scrabble Association ran the championship from 1980 through 2008, after which NASPA Games took over as organizer beginning with a 2009 event in Dayton, Ohio. The tournament uses the NASPA Word List as its official word authority, and since 2012 has also included a separate division played under the Collins Scrabble Words list used in international play. In 2022 the event was renamed the Scrabble Players Championship to recognize the long-standing eligibility of Canadian competitors alongside those from the United States. The championship was not held in 2020 or 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its finals were broadcast on ESPN and ESPN2 from 2004 through 2006.