IGX

BD said: What I know of you, you could easily. Children are less forgiving and much more vocal dogs, they reflect what you project. If you can raise a happy dog, you can raise a child.

Owning an English Bulldog before having two kids taught me all I needed to know.

Ca-ching$$$$$. New trainer levels announced: 3 and 4. Lots of test revenue, seminars, etc.
http://journal.crossfit.com/2014/07/cro ... ucture.tpl

But what really blew me away was this claim:

CrossFit’s growth has been organic and infectious: There were no marketing strategies and no projections for the now more than 10,000 affiliates and 90,000 trainers. It started with one trainer, then one more and then a few more.

10,000 affiliates at an average of at least $1,500 per year-likely now way more-every single year. 90,000 "trainers": 90,000 weekend courses at a few grand per.

Who would begrudge Glassman his own plane?

lasalle wrote:Ca-ching$$$$$. ?

Following that --

I had a meeting today at a law office in SF's financial district, and noticed a new (to me) Crossfit gym across the street. This is some of the highest-rent real estate in the city, probably in the country. I can't imagine what rent is on this space.

Membership is $300 per month. That is not a typo. This gym costs, per month, what I pay a year at my very nicely-equipped non-XF gym across the bay.

I went into the wrong business.

On Montgomery? I have a friend that goes there. It was started by hedge fund managers.

Remember as the DotCom bubble was rising...people said...the fuck is this? It cant last...

Then the real estate bubble? The fuck? This is insane...

CF is no different. They are going to go down..HARD. The bulk of the affiliates cripple people for money. The ones that will weather this storm are not doing anything like..constantly varied blah blah blah.

There's a lot of confusion on this point by people who remember when you could not buy bumpers. Their experience is nostalgic and delusional. CF is a stumbling corpse.

Bud Charniga's gaping asshole wrote:

lasalle wrote:Ca-ching$$$$$. ?

Following that --

I had a meeting today at a law office in SF's financial district, and noticed a new (to me) Crossfit gym across the street. This is some of the highest-rent real estate in the city, probably in the country. I can't imagine what rent is on this space.

Membership is $300 per month. That is not a typo. This gym costs, per month, what I pay a year at my very nicely-equipped non-XF gym across the bay.

I went into the wrong business.

While $300 a month is expensive, it's not outrageous for group class-style training. A single class at SoulCycle is $30 without shoe rental, cardio barre or anything else like that is like $150 a month. Average gyms are probably closer to 75-100 bucks now unless you live in flyover country. Your current deal of $25 a month is ridiculously cheap.

I'm not making any claims about the value of the "group class" at @fit, just saying that it's not quite as absurd as you think, compared to similar faddy stuff.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Remember as the DotCom bubble was rising...people said...the fuck is this? It cant last...

Then the real estate bubble? The fuck? This is insane...

CF is no different. They are going to go down..HARD. The bulk of the affiliates cripple people for money. The ones that will weather this storm are not doing anything like..constantly varied blah blah blah.

There's a lot of confusion on this point by people who remember when you could not buy bumpers. Their experience is nostalgic and delusional. CF is a stumbling corpse.

A couple years ago, I decided to leave my garage for a while and got a membership to a local Golds - it was like $10/MONTH for a 3x/week plan! Seriously, $300/month to lift and learn how to do a muscle-up?... You're absolutely right - it's a bubble and it will not last.

I love many within the KB community, but that bubble burst long ago - the certs are scrambling to diversify but when the foundation of your business plan is manufactured scarcity and exclusivity it's only a matter of time...

Bud Charniga's gaping asshole wrote:

lasalle wrote:Ca-ching$$$$$. ?

Following that --

I had a meeting today at a law office in SF's financial district, and noticed a new (to me) Crossfit gym across the street. This is some of the highest-rent real estate in the city, probably in the country. I can't imagine what rent is on this space.

Membership is $300 per month. That is not a typo. This gym costs, per month, what I pay a year at my very nicely-equipped non-XF gym across the bay.

I went into the wrong business.

In bold is the key point. East Bay is the only place sanity reigns in the AO.

the predictions of them going down hard have been said for years now

haven't seen it happen even a little bit yet, more and more people are doing it...

Eight years, 34,000 posts and nearly five million views and the last page of the couch thread is still "It's a bubble!"

Whatever.

WildGorillaMan wrote:Eight years, 34,000 posts and nearly five million views and the last page of the couch thread is still "It's a bubble!"

Whatever.

As someone said about 700 pages ago, Couch won. There can be no dispute.

Jay wrote:the predictions of them going down hard have been said for years now

haven't seen it happen even a little bit yet, more and more people are doing it...

I've seen a number of boxes fold in my small world. You only have to pay attention.

How does that affect Couch or the average CF trainee? Not at all.

WildGorillaMan wrote:Eight years, 34,000 posts and nearly five million views and the last page of the couch thread is still "It's a bubble!"

Whatever.

Eight years is not a long time in my mind.

It's interesting because my wife and I took FOREVER to buy and house, and we shopped for years, all the while thinking "Jesus, POS houses are expensive around here!" while realtors said to us that the market (and prices) would continue to grow and rise. We waited, and we were right to wait.

Not that they'd the same thing (and not that I care that much) but we could look at other fitness and sporting trends and try to draw parallels to CF: aerobics, Nautilus, MMA (UFC), etc.

Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:
While $300 a month is expensive, it's not outrageous for group class-style training. A single class at SoulCycle is $30 without shoe rental, cardio barre or anything else like that is like $150 a month. Average gyms are probably closer to 75-100 bucks now unless you live in flyover country. Your current deal of $25 a month is ridiculously cheap.

I'm not making any claims about the value of the "group class" at @fit, just saying that it's not quite as absurd as you think, compared to similar faddy stuff.

My place is definitely cheap -- and to be fair, I'm not paying list price. I asked them for a deal when I re-upped. But even list price is something like $50-60 per month. And that price includes free group classes, including a pretty well-attended KB class.

Adding, SF's Financial District is full of people for whom $300/month for a gym makes about as much difference to their bottom line as my $25/month does to me. So bully for them for charging what the market will bear.

But it still astounds me.

I honestly can't say that I hate Xfit, not anymore. Occasionally I bump into Crossfitters who can't shut the fuck up about their workouts, and that's annoying, but I also bump into folks who do generic boot camp stuff and can't shut the fuck up about that, or yoga evangelists, or P90X or whatever. I'm mostly just befuddled by the money sloshing in and out of that organization, for a formula that doesn't seem notably better than the alternatives.

As Boris has pointed out...8 years is a blip. If you are building a business with less than 15years as a horizon...well you're not building a business at all, you're building a commodity..a commodity in this case which is diluted, and corrupted.

This forums suffers from a NOTLIVINGINTHEREALWORLD syndrome (see related head up own ass) The rest of the country is not conversant in 531 this, Westside that, hell...most people know nothing and care less about what a WOD is. What matters is that every time I hear the word CrossFit in a gen pop setting, I immediately hear a horror story of someone who knew someone who got terribly injured. When my indolent rich lazy clients are conversant in the patella reattachment and SLAP tears....that shit is going down. Ask a new affiliate how much money they are making...CF as it exists now is pure MLM, the people making actual bux are rogue and reebok.

And above all...anything...absolutely anything that requires pure junk yard dog shrillness to defend itself is not a sustainable practice. Like the DotCom bubble, real money will have been made, and real dollars will have been lost, and a permanent dent will have been left in the market. But 5 years from now the conversation will be all about how can I open my box with crippling insurance premiums, and landlords who know to never ever rent a space to these people. You can only eat your own young and scorch the earth for so long.

Most of the boxes I know that are any good already have an alternative identity forming or already realized. They know its just a matter of time, but why not ride it out while the going is good. The brand comes with enthusiasm, but also a lot of unanswered questions.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:What matters is that every time I hear the word CrossFit in a gen pop setting, I immediately hear a horror story of someone who knew someone who got terribly injured.

Everytime I hear Crossfit now in a gen pop setting, it's always about someone who used to do CF for a few months, then stopped, mostly due to lack of interest or money. I'm curious to know what the average retention rate is. There will always be some hardcore members who will do it 4LIFE, but that's a niche population.

As long as there are able-bodied people who haven't "done Crossfit" (meaning dropped a grand for classes for a few months) they will still prosper. Eventually they'll cycle through all those people and then we'll see boxes offering discounts for those who return to the cult after years of unfaithfulness.

5 years ago I predicted that the bubble would burst before this years open. I was wrong.

At that time there were 2 box's servicing about 500,000 in MSA, there are now close to a dozen or so.

I still work out at a box as it is 3 blocks from my work. It's about double the price as my other options but is much better suited for powerlifting.

The guy that owns it is pretty low key and let's me do my thing during open gym hours.

And....the first marijuana shop in my city opened up today two doors down from the gym.

lasalle wrote: As someone said about 700 pages ago, Couch won. There can be no dispute.

Sure Couch lives in a mansion, bangs a different hot xfit chick every day, drives a Lambo, wipes his ass with hundred dollar bills, and never works out.
But he doesn't have IGx cred. That's got to tear him up inside. I don't call that winning.

johno wrote: Sure Couch lives in a mansion, bangs a different hot xfit chick every day, drives a Lambo, wipes his ass with hundred dollar bills, and never works out. But he doesn't have IGx cred. That's got to tear him up inside. I don't call that winning.

I'm in Raleigh / Durham today where I saw multiple large boxes just driving around. Also saw a badass Couch quality Camaro which made me think of Him.

Greg stands atop a parapet of castle Couchula communing with his children of the fitness night knowing that he stands above all detractors and acolytes alike.

So far betting against Glassman has been a suckers bet. He's the stock that has to fail yet rises despite expert opinions to the contrary.

kreator wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:What matters is that every time I hear the word CrossFit in a gen pop setting, I immediately hear a horror story of someone who knew someone who got terribly injured.

Everytime I hear Crossfit now in a gen pop setting, it's always about someone who used to do CF for a few months, then stopped, mostly due to lack of interest or money. I'm curious to know what the average retention rate is. There will always be some hardcore members who will do it 4LIFE, but that's a niche population.

As long as there are able-bodied people who haven't "done Crossfit" (meaning dropped a grand for classes for a few months) they will still prosper. Eventually they'll cycle through all those people and then we'll see boxes offering discounts for those who return to the cult after years of unfaithfulness.

I also wonder about retention.

My 43 year-old sister, who has never done anything athletic in her life, asked me what a snatch was the other day. Turns out she joined a Crossfit gym and has already "hurt" her back. (She was probably just really sore.) She won't last long there, and she seemed to grasp instinctively that the risk of injury was high.

The point is there is an endless supply of 43 year-old women that are desperate to hold onto their current appearance or regain their former one. CF isn't going anywhere.

I do wonder when we'll see the number of gyms level off. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one in affluent Northern Virginia. Eventually there will be drop in prices followed by a correction in the number of boxes, but Couchfit is not going to implode.

When a business like Golds Gym reaches market saturation and then gets systematically destroyed by Planet Fitness....that's an implosion...they set themselves up to be picked off by an inferior product.

In this case..it's even easier...as CF itself is the inferior product and what's more, CF eats its own young, and like all fads, will absolutely suffer a massive retraction. All you people citing examples of "success" are building a case for an unsustainable brand. There's not an endless supply of anything. "Fitness"as defined by shirtless fucktards and stacks of 10 pound bumpers is here to stay....CF as a brand is not.

The market will salvage its investment by divesting of the name. CF is the RealAudio of the "Sport o' fitness" bubble.

I have had the pleasure of doing clinics and working with almost of dozen of CF's ..to the last, each owner has learned to tone down and distance themselves from the CF party line, learned to go outside the franchise to develop their own version of the fitness product and above all to bust ass directly serving and retaining their customers. That is smart business..that is honorable business and it will always trump the Glasshole Machine.

WildGorillaMan wrote:Eight years, 34,000 posts and nearly five million views and the last page of the couch thread is still "It's a bubble!"

Whatever.

Its actually laughable to see people still predict their demise when they are growing, and doing well. Even more funny to see it being called a fad when its been the longest fucking fad in history. Fads are pet rocks and rubber day glow bracelets.

A lot of you forget one fact, they get people in shape. It isn't a gym like Gold's where you throw yourselves to the wolves, its a community they built.

For as flawed as they can sometimes be, they are changing a lot of people for the better.

they are here to stay.

Tirofijo wrote:

kreator wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote: Eventually there will be drop in prices followed by a correction in the number of boxes, but Couchfit is not going to implode.

You can get a year or two of @fit here for less than $100 month (going rate is $150-$200+) just by using Groupon and switching gyms every time the deal expires.

Jay wrote:

WildGorillaMan wrote:Eight years, 34,000 posts and nearly five million views and the last page of the couch thread is still "It's a bubble!"

Whatever.

Its actually laughable to see people still predict their demise when they are growing, and doing well. Even more funny to see it being called a fad when its been the longest fucking fad in history. Fads are pet rocks and rubber day glow bracelets.

Apologists are ruining this thread.

I suspect that Dwrg and I are older than you and have been around the iron game a little longer. The cert business is living high on the hog now - it will not always be so.