The Futures Championships are designed as an intermediate step between Sectional Championships and Junior National or National Championships, and are open to swimmers of all ages as long as you qualify for it.
There are only allowed to be 800 swimmers maximum in total in each region. So in total through all the regions there are from 3,200 - 4,000 swimmers in total.
The times that they use are still the same since ↦2019 these are the times right here ↦
Image Source: SwimSwam
Futures gives a gap between sectionals and junior national championships, and it provides developing swimmers with elite competitions to race against other swimmers who are in the same position. You can’t be too good and too fast for this meet, but you can be too slow and if you're too slow, you don’t qualify.
Breakout swimmer Claire Weinstein, who recently qualified for the 2022 World Championships team in the 200-meter freestyle, competed at last year’s Futures meet in Richmond, VA. She now has the fastest time swam by a 15-year-old American in the 200 free. Other names that you might recognize that swam in the meet are Gretchen Walsh, US National Junior Team member Erin Gemmell, and 2022 NCAA champion in the 1650 free Paige McKenna.