The HERD FIT
Coach David Syvertsen discusses all things CrossFit, health, fitness.
The HERD FIT
Ep. 234: Hyrox is Dominating Crossfit...?
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We look at why Hyrox’s reported $700M valuation makes CrossFit’s recent market reality feel even more alarming. We compare business models, leadership, and programming choices to figure out what’s driving growth and what’s holding CrossFit back.
• Hyrox’s sale price and participation growth as a signal of momentum
• Why a standardized, repeatable race format lowers barriers to entry
• The direct-to-consumer revenue advantage of race entry fees
• How CrossFit’s affiliate licensing model leaves money outside HQ
• The missed opportunity of partnerships across the CrossFit ecosystem
• Whether CrossFit leadership can take feedback and adapt fast enough
• What affiliate owners can learn about change management and culture
• Outlast as an example of taking risks and creating crossover demand
• The case for seasonal programming that balances skills with endurance
• Training for longevity while keeping intensity and fitness standards
Welcome And The Big Question
SPEAKER_00Hey everybody, welcome to the Herd Fit Podcast with Dr. Sam Ree and myself, Coach David Syverson. This podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition, and most importantly, mindset. All right, welcome back to the Herd Fit Podcast. I am Coach David Syerson. I'm here with my OG partner, Dr. and Coach Sam Ree. And we're here yet again for maybe the tenth time to talk about what CrossFit has done wrong in the past five to six years, just from a macro perspective, big picture corporation. Um and we're gonna kind of tie this to the recent sale of HyROX, which was astronomical. We have some numbers to share with you in that regard. But Sam, I'm almost hesitant to do this, but at the end of the day, like I like leaning into the truth, and sometimes the truth hurts. And I think the more we run away from the truth, the more it eventually hurts down the road. Um CrossFit as a corporation, CrossFit as even as a methodology worldwide, it's getting crushed right now. And in 2017, people are saying, oh, it's gonna be done soon. In 2018, it's gonna be done soon. 2000, like everyone has been wrong to a point. But what we can say that I will agree with is it's not growing, it it's it's not a growing brand anymore, it's slowly going backwards, and there's 10 reasons why. It's never gonna completely die because it's such a proven methodology and it works and community and everything. But it's from an investor perspective, which is really what the premise of this conversation is, it's not an attractive business. And I want to talk about it, and I don't want to be afraid of hurting anyone's feelings. We just did a long survey, we did two episodes on it, Sam. If you can't avoid having your feelings hurt when someone talks badly about your business, you should get out of the business. So, how do you want to start this off before I get into some of the nitty-gritty details? Just like your opening thoughts on here we are again, talking about probably the most frequently discussed topic on our podcast.
SPEAKER_01Um, I would say, as an athlete and as a fitness person who does CrossFit, this does not affect me on a day-to-day level or my gym's level. Like CrossFit bison will do just fine regardless of what is happening in the greater picture. That being said, I like to see CrossFit do better. I've always wanted them to do better. I've wanted, I believe in the methodology. So it pains me that we keep getting together over and over again to talk about the greater picture and how that may not necessarily translate into bigger success. But I also want to keep into perspective that I did, I I worked out five days this week at the gym, and I'm sore as hell. I'm gonna continue to work out. I have done this for since 2014, and I'm going to continue to do it. But I also want, I think it's important for us to talk about it because we can see as people who believe in CrossFit, like there are issues, as you pointed out, at least 10, if not more. And we should talk about it. I think we want, you know, I think it's very important for us to also see the big picture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we, you know, we meet every month our ownership and we constantly talk about our future, we talk about our past, we talk about what we're doing today. And I do take situations and stories like this, I do try my best to apply it to our level. And not everything in here can directly be tied to a cross at bison gym or any affiliate that's listening out there, but there are elements to it that I think we should all be aware of. And if you can understand it from the affiliate perspective, I think you have a greater understanding of where this thing is heading. And that's probably the number one job we have is where are we heading? We don't need to talk about what we're doing right now, we don't need to talk about our monthly finance report from August. We need to talk about what do we think is going to happen a year from now and stay ahead of things. So let's get into some of the details of what happened
Hyrox Sale Versus CrossFit Value
SPEAKER_00here. Sam, we actually have some relationships with people that were very, very as close as you can get to the CrossFit sale. We got information that was never made public that very few people know about. And because of that, when I saw the fact that Hyrox got sold to L Catterton, which is a consumer-focused private equity firm for Bloomberg reported, which is the most reliable finance source in the world, for $700 million. Yep. CrossFit couldn't get anybody to buy it for $200 million. And that's what we think approximately it got sold for the last time it got sold to private equity. Private equity's goal is always to make money, to make it more valuable than what it was when they bought it, and they take a profit. That's what they care about. They don't care about your pull-ups, they care about profit. They can't turn a profit right now. I don't know if there's anyone out there. This is not confirmed. This is my speculation based on conversations I've had, that anyone was willing to buy it for $150 million. So you're talking about something that has gone down about what is that, 25% since the purchase at the same time as HIROX went from about $100 million to $700 million. So if you ever want to answer, if ask the question, who ate CrossFit's lunch? The answer is right in front of you. This is what CrossFit thought they would be at some point. And they didn't even get close. You're talking about thousands of percent difference. And to and where it's actually trajectory right now, just where it's going, the gap is getting even wider. It's like the good athletes and the bad athletes conversation we have at our gym. The best are getting so much better, the worst are or the people that aren't getting better are going even backwards. The gap is enormous. And I mean, when you saw that number, what did you initially think?
SPEAKER_01It blew my mind. And then I looked at the numbers and I saw that they are project, they project to make high rocks projects to make 270 million in l in revenue this year. So when you look at that revenue number based on the valuation of HyROX, that makes sense. You look at LVMH, which is the investment like the firm backing L Catterton, you look at the founders who are also in on the deal, and we can talk a little bit about how this deal worked, as well as that um investment company, Wonder Company, which is a Katzenberg company, the one that's actually invested also in Xenom, hint hint, what's gonna happen in the future. Like they're this the all of these guys are betting heavy into the future of high rocks, and we can we can ask why that is and why CrossFit is dropping in terms of their valuation in comparison.
SPEAKER_00And and for those that don't like the number, the money numbers, here's people numbers in 2022 slash 2023, the high rock season, 80,000 people did a race. Okay, 25 into 26, 1.4 million people have done a race. That is that blew my mind. That's almost a 2,000 percent increase in a three-year span. They are projecting right now 26 to 27 to break the two million mark with a lot of that growth coming in Asia. And um, I believe there was a a group in Asia that's actually a part of this sale as well. I mean, that's where that's where CrossFit tried to go out there. I think it failed in terms of really trying to grow the brand in Asia because it's so dense, there's so many people, it's untapped for the most part. And the it's just it's really interesting, it's impressive. Um, on a kidding aside level, you know, CrossFit vs. Hyrux, I'm really impressed by what they've done. And I I admire what they've done. They did something that CrossFit could not do. And if that rubs you the wrong way, if that makes you anchor into like whatever, we're CrossFit, we're harder than everyone else, go like good for you. But the numbers are the numbers, they don't lie. And um, what else do you want to touch on before we get into you know what has high rocks done that CrossFit missed out on? Like, do you want to get into some of the more the details of the sale, what the numbers tell you?
How Hyrox Simplified The Sport
SPEAKER_01No, I I think the sale is the sale, and we can talk about like it's not a typical PE sale, like uh when CrossFit got bought by PE. This is a little bit different, but I think the thing that really when I heard this, I was like, wait a second, how did CrossFit get to this point? And it it behooves us to go back and take a quick look. Like HyRox only started in 2017, and it was started by three guys. I can't even pronounce their names, doesn't really. I'm not gonna try. Yeah. And they basically said, Um, we want to do CrossFit, but without all the hard stuff in it, like the high skill stuff, right? So we know what CrossFit is. It's a 1k run and then like eight different workout stations, right? And they're like the ski, the sled push, sled, you know, pull, the burpee, all that rowing, pharma carry, lunges, wall ball. So so what they started with was 700 participants, 700 that first year in Germany. And they basically took out all the stuff that honestly a lot of people find hard rope climbs, you know, rig work, Olympic lifting, all that. And in 2019, uh there they got a big investment by Infront Sports and Media. So that was the first company that invested in HyROX at that time. And as you mentioned, they started growing exponentially. They started hosting events all over the world. Um, you know, they went from 700 to 10,000 by 2019, and then like in the millions, as you mentioned, by 2022. And what they did was they partnered with this is the difference I think between CrossFit and HyRox. They partnered with sponsors, they did the training, they started um affiliate uh sponsor, you know, um uh you could become a high rocks affiliate. Right. There was um they went into the media side of things with their most elite races. Um they had sponsorships, so we can talk a little bit about what HyRox's goals are, but and it's pretty obvious. But these guys started looking at all of the revenue streams, just not the event itself, which also makes up a ton of money. I mean, now they're having they have over a hundred events, 1.4 million participants, half 1.5 million spectators. Like that May New York event in uh that had 50,000. Yeah, and they had a 20,000 person wait list. Now, can you imagine a CrossFit event that was like that?
SPEAKER_00One week.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, in one week, they thought big, like really big, and they've become a standard the way people talk about Fran time, or you know, now they're like, What's your high ROX time?
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01They've gone from a nobody to now literally a standard like what's your marathon time, what's your 5k time? It's suddenly become into the culture to say what's your high ROX time. So so they've gotten into the fitness mindset so much at this point that it it makes it understandable why they would double down and spend even more money to think and think that this could grow some
The Revenue Model That Wins
SPEAKER_01more.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, another reason why financially they're crushing CrossFit is this everyone that does high rocks pays high rocks directly. They like high rocks, their race, that's the product people pay for. And CrossFitters worldwide, whatever we think the number is, let's let's say it's around 2 million people that do CrossFit. I that's we've been projected that two to three million in the past. Let's say it's on the lower side now. None of them are paying CrossFit directly unless they do the open, which is 25 bucks once a year. You do a HIROX race, man. I should have checked this before we started, but I think it's like 150 to 180 bucks per person per race. And we have people in our gym alone that do three a year. And I mean, just think about the math on that 25 versus 175 bucks, let's call it, per race. And again, you do multiple per year, and all of that money goes directly to CrossFit. Where let's say here CrossFit Bison, if you are a normally a normal monthly payer, you pay approximately $2,400 per year. CrossFit gets zero of that. Bison gets it all. And yes, maybe we'll get them to sign up for the open with us because that's something that we like to do. There's your $25 CrossFit once a year. Maybe they'll buy a t-shirt too. That is probably one of the biggest discrepancy in the business model, and that's why it's hard to compare the two. Another thing, CrossFit never did, they never took a growing affiliate and said, we're getting a cut of what your revenue is. They just said, like, hey, whether you have 60 members or 600, you're gonna pay us $3,000 per year. Now it's $4,500, no matter what. Now, from the affiliate owner, Sam, we love that because we grew. But imagine if, as we were growing, we had to report our numbers to CrossFit and we had to give them X percent of our revenue for that year. Or this is probably the best way to track it for CrossFit that if you're gonna be at an AcrossFit affiliate, you have to give X amount of money to the affiliate and you have to give $10 a month to us. Right now you have a real tangible number, how many people are paying affiliates. But the business model, now that's not gonna happen. Again, you're 20 years in, there's things at our gin that we just can't do because we haven't done in the past. I mean, we might have to at some point, but it's hard to just change everything you're doing. But that to me is probably the most under-talked about component to why high rocks is doing well. They get every dime, they have the affiliate model, it doesn't do much for them. But that's what CrossFit is. The education gets CrossFit money that high rocks does not. But that to me is why they're so valuable. But I do want to touch on and have a little conversation from two aging
Predictability For Aging Athletes
SPEAKER_00CrossFit. Happy birthday, Sam, by the way.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thanks. That was it. Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00Two aging CrossFit athletes that do we are a little more careful with what we do and what we don't do because we've touched the iron, as you like to say, a few times, or our ambitions with our training are less about PRing and scores and the open and competing and just want to be healthy. But does it feel like as an aging group of CrossFitters gets to a number, age, but body feeling that like they kind of don't like that feeling of I don't know what I'm walking into at the gym? And what if Dave programs squat snatches and pistols with muscle ups at the end? And you do that long enough, or you get kind of banged up enough, you want to do something where you know exactly what's coming, you don't have to worry about your mobility as it's slowly decreasing. That's another big difference. Where should you think the public should stand on this? Like if you're looking at CrossFit, you're looking at HIROCs, which one do you feel safer going into?
SPEAKER_01HIROX HYROCs is known is knowable, it's known as opposed to unknown and unknowable, which is the philosophy of CrossFit. And I think that that is a big part of it. Um, I think what you said could not you can't say it enough about the philosophy of CrossFit and their revenue model versus high rocks. Like when you said that, that that that spoke the most truth to me about why these paths are diverging and they will continue to diverge. Like you said, HIROCs get everything, they get the race entry fees, they get the gym licensing money when they when a place becomes a high rocks affiliate, the sponsorship money, the merchandise and branding, like the you know, the tr all of that goes right to higher. As you said, what is CrossFit? CrossFit licenses, as you said, affiliates and it does education, L1, L2, all that stuff. That's all they make. Like there was an estimate by Forbes, um, like maybe even 10 years ago, that CrossFit generated four billion dollars in the ecosystem of what CrossFit is. And what does that include? Rogue and functional fitness equipment, specialty apparel, shoes, gym management software, remote coaching, competition programming, media companies, nutrition companies, recovery businesses and equipment, you know, all of these things, athlete management, all of these things were generated just because CrossFit existed.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01And guess how much of that revenue went to CrossFit? Zero. Just like the open, like you said, every reg, you know, except for the registration, like none of it, none of it, all of CrossFit bison's money doesn't, you know, pretty much doesn't go to them. And so that was the what Greg Glassman intentionally did back in 2013. He specifically said, I don't want to compete with affiliates for the money. But at that point, what they could have done, and I don't want to second guess CrossFit, is could they have formed partnerships with all of these companies? So instead of buying rogue, which I've said before, what if they just said we own five percent of rogue? We'll partner with you, we own five percent with a nutrition company, with anyone, like concept two. Yes, concept two. What you know, we'll we'll be you'll be the CrossFit people, we'll take two percent or five percent of your company, like and and we'll co-invest with you. Like, where did these partnerships go? They didn't go anywhere. He he torpedoed Reebok and their partnership in 2018. He shut down media at that point, he closed Facebook and Instagram, and so all the things that a good company would do to partner, not take over, but you know, at least integrate to a certain degree into the ecosystem that they created, it would have put them on foot easily with HyROX or any other any other competing fitness company out there. Um and and CrossFit's philosophy of no, we we do education, we license affiliates. I don't see that changing anytime soon. Um that will always keep them out of the big revenue the way Hyrocks
Leadership And The Buyer Problem
SPEAKER_01has.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, those are great points there, and that kind of brings me to the point that I'm almost afraid, but I'm not afraid. Don't be afraid to say it. That you have let let's let's say there were five interested, serious, actual buyers in CrossFit. You know, a lot of people say like they they can do it, they can afford it, whatever. Some of that is egotistical. Let's say there were five serious buyers, and I'm sure one or two maybe backed out because they don't believe in the philosophy, the direction of the business, they don't think they can handle the competition. We've brought this up before on private calls, we've brought this up before on this call. I think it's time to ask if part of the reason why nobody wants to buy this is because who is involved at the top of CrossFit? I think it's time to ask that question. That's a great question. Because if I'm a billionaire and I want to add CrossFit to my portfolio, right? I don't want to work there, but I want to own it and I want to sell for a profit in 10 years, five years. If I'm looking at the leadership of CrossFit, and yeah, so I'll say the names Dave Castro, Chuck Carswell, Nicole Carroll, Jada Coons, who we like, people that we respect and admire. They've been at our gym. You know, Sam, I'm as big a Dave Castro fan as there is, maybe even to a fault. With that said, I think the same with that much passion, I feel the same exact way about this statement. The person that got you from one to five is not the person that gets you from five to ten. And you can start asking yourself now that are people that almost wanted to buy it but backed out or did not actually write the check, is that the reason that these people have a cultish type following with people in the media, with affiliate owners, with the quote, OGs of CrossFit, who are a little too self important. They think like they they gave birth to it in 2009 and they still want credit for it. All right, looking at some of you guys in the media who don't pay an affiliate fee to anyone right now, so you're really not a support. Supporting anything by other than your YouTube channel, right? That is that the reason why people don't want to come in because you're going to take your ball and go home. When someone comes in and says, this is the way we're doing things. We are going to make some corporate type decisions. We are going to piss some people off. We are going to change your job and your outlook and what people think about you. And you're going to be a good soldier and help us grow the brand for the sake of what we all say we want. We want to share the message. We want to spread this thing. We want to change the world. We want to impact people's lives. To this day, I still wake up thinking about that. That's my main my main motivation. Sorry, my main motivation. It's you want to impact people's lives through fitness and community. That's what we're trying to do. But you can't be stubborn and say what I did 15 years ago is the way we should do it. It's not working. And I don't think anyone, we've heard this from someone that was involved in a potential sale of CrossFit. That the first person that would have to go would be Dave Casho. Not because he's bad, not because he doesn't care about people, but because he doesn't take in as many ideas from others, and people are afraid to disagree with him. That is step one to a failing business, and it's going to be a slow death unless something like that happens.
SPEAKER_01You are hit the nail on the head. We have met all of these people at CrossFit HU, the OGs, as you mentioned, the Carswells, the Um Castros. And the word I've used a million times, I will say use is uncompromising. You are right. When we talked, and you particularly talked to these particular candidates, people who were interested in buying CrossFit, they had some pretty wacky ideas, some of them, like affiliating, like merging with other companies or doing this or that. And they thought so many of these people that were thinking about buying CrossFit were thinking outside the box. And guess what would happen? I mean, and maybe 15 of those ideas are stupid, but maybe one of them is really good. And what do you I can only imagine if they were presented to Castro because we've seen Castro be presented with many different ideas about the games or the open or all this? And he shoots everything down for reasons that I can't quite fathom, to be honest, other than the fact that he is trying to adhere to some standard that is represents quote old old school CrossFit on some level. They go back to what Glassman says as if it was reading the old testament and you know, like the Torah, and you have to like interpret like what what what he's saying, like, oh no, this is not a new movement. Remember, this came up in an article in CrossFit Journal back in 2015. So this is legitimate. We vote, you know, this is valid because it was mentioned in the past. So these guys are so stuck in like the old, it's so hard for me to imagine that, as you mentioned, if someone brought something else into it, that they would actually even think about it in a rational or or reasonable way. And and yet they're gonna go down with a ship. It's leaking. It's this model that they've developed is not happening. What if 10 years ago they said, you know what, let's do something like this. Let's do CrossFit Challenge New York, CrossFit Challenge Boston, CrossFit Challenge Miami, let's bring a bunch of people together. We will publish the events ahead of time. Oh my god, like, but that goes against CrossFit philosophy. No, no shit, it's okay, let's try it. Like they could have done that and had crazy enormous success with it. And yet, I and I bet you, I'll bet you real money that somebody did, and they were like, Nah, that's not CrossFit. Yeah, and that's why these guys are going down.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And that it's so
What Affiliates Can Learn
SPEAKER_00let's try to. If you're an affiliate owner or a coach or a member, like if let's try to apply what's happening right now to an affiliate. If someone came in and tried to buy Bison Sam, someone came in and said, like, hey, I want to buy this gym. I don't want to work there, I don't want to be the coach, I don't want to be the programmer. I just want to come in and buy the gym and maybe try to bring it to a higher level and sell it five years down the road. And we listen, we have this conversation, and they look at our team, they look at me, they look at our staff, our coaches, and they're looking, they're like, You have conversations, they talk to a few members which represent the affiliates from the other perspective, and say, you know what? I'm out. I don't believe in the leadership team here. And every you know, there would be a group of people that do support us and be like, What? They're great, they're awesome. But you'd also have some people be like, Yep, yeah, it's about time. That's right. Dave still does this, Dave still does that, Liz still does this. Their coaches at 5 a.m. still do this. And let's say they come in and do bias, and they start firing us one by one. Yeah, you're out. We just don't believe in you anymore. We don't think you're the person get bison from five to ten. Great job getting from one to five, clap, clap. We'll build a statue, see you later. Okay. The but you're not the person from five to ten because you're not good at this, this, and this. And we need you to be good at this, this, and this. And hey, you three coaches, you're out as well. The fear would be that those coaches would have enough pull with other members that you might lose some of their business. And you have to expect that to happen initially. But if you're thinking five, 10 years down the road and you actually have a vision of what you want this to be, you take you take it on the face for the first year or two and you reform the culture. And I don't think anyone in our gym, myself included, we're not self-important enough to say that the gym would crash without us. I hope no one actually thinks that. Bad job by you if you do believe that. There's not one person in our gym that holds the success or failure to it. So if someone did get pushed out in CrossFit language, if Dave Castro got pushed out, but like, hey, you did a great job, it's time for us to move on. There is still a future that it might not, you might not be able to feel it or sense it right away. But the next high rocks, because there will be another high rocks, there will be another trend in fitness, Sam. We both brought up fashion in both of our podcasts about how trendy it is. It's only a matter of time before things change. Example, what's like a trend right now that's not like over the top? Like the baggy t-shirt is is back, right? Women and men, these big oversized t-shirts, yeah. What I think about it is irrelevant, but they're I just see it more and more. If people were doing this seven years ago, they would get a lot like, what are you doing? What is that looking like? You know, it doesn't matter because again, trends they come and go. So there's another fitness trend coming. Do you believe that the people that are in CrossFit leadership right now are the ones that are going to see it, anticipate it, and then also cling on to it, not because you're trendy and you don't believe in philosophy, but because you think it's actually going to make CrossFit better. Because I will say this right now yes, this is a Monday morning quarterback. CrossFit would be better right now. Our affiliate would be better right now if those guys at the top got in bed with CrossFit eight years ago, straight up, maybe even to the point where our business would be 50% higher. Yeah, you're you're you're right, but Fran, but Fran, but but overhead squats, and again, it's not saying you get rid of that stuff, right? But there is a way to not be uncompromising. That's not necessarily a good trait in the fitness business, and that is where I want this business as a CrossFit affiliate owner. That's where I want them to go.
SPEAKER_01To me, it's about taking chances. And they have never took a chance in their life that seemed to me to be a reach or a stretch that was like, wow, no, you're right. Nobody knows what's going to happen in the future, other than whatever is currently popular, probably won't be. I guarantee you. I don't know, maybe not. Like Sasha 10 years from now will probably not be doing Pilates. Who knows? Maybe they she will, but I I have a feeling it's gonna fall out just like every other fitness fad. We cover our bases, we try different things. What do you think outlast is? Listen, what did we do this week on the CrossFit side? We did strict ring muscle ups, and the week before that we did rope climbs, okay? So don't if anyone tells us we don't adhere to the freaking CrossFit philosophy and your program doesn't adhere to trying hard things and high skills. F you like we're we're there. Like we are drink, we drank that, we're drinking that Kool-Aid, we're continuing to drink that Kool-Aid, but we are also trying many new things. You throw in different things in your programming to extend it beyond just that. Okay, you throw in the snatches and the overhead squats, but you also throw in all these long conditioning pieces and other things. Outlast is also an outgrowth of us trying different things. Not everything we do is going to stick, but we also realize that to grow, you have to try
Outlast And Taking Smart Risks
SPEAKER_01things. And talking about trying things, like freaking CrossFit always talks about the unknown and unknowable and trying new things. What new things have they tried? They have not tried anything new, like they're sticking to the old stuff. How about you guys trying the unknown and unknowable? Oh, new fitness company wants to do this event with you know, driven programming. Sure, why don't we try an unknown and new thing and work with you guys on it? Like, why don't we try, you know, changing some of this around and not like ruining like keeping our base, but also extending ourselves into different branches of programming? Like this is this is where they need to take their own advice and be more flexible. And and we realize not everything is going to work, but I mean, what have we seen Dave Castro do that has been so different uh over the past 10 years? I we we are, I lit, I literally think we as owners are trying. Yeah, absolutely, but I don't think they adhere to that philosophy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and like and I don't want to hear that he's trying new things at the games because the games is not what happens at the affiliate, you know, like new toys and new equipment and a new kind of workout, like that to me, that the games are not what we see at the affiliate level. And I do, yeah, I do appreciate that what you brought up about like we did try something big with Outlast, like that was a big risk, financial and just stress-wise. To the it's still to this day, is there, but I'll tell you this: I'm not afraid to say this publicly. That's probably keeping our bison fitness LLC afloat right now. Just to be transparent, if it didn't exist, I actually think bison would be in trouble right now. Like people would be getting cut, employees, spending would go down, salaries would go down, like that. So without Outlast, so but because we're ahead of it, why? Two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, the conversation started. You get ahead of it. And yes, I know for a fact it rubs to this day, Outlast still rubs people the wrong way inside the CrossFit bison gym. You know, they whether it's attention, whether it's equipment that they have, whether it's, hey, those people aren't doing CrossFit, right? And but what's happening, what has happened is that the crossover. I now have people from Outlast asking me to put more CrossFit workouts into Outlast. Yep. It happens almost weekly now. They want harder, faster, more intense. And know what I say, like see the cross the window, that's where you go. And then they come over, they do workouts, they buy a 10-pack, right? Or they take a month over here, but it's also going the other way. Yep. I still think 45% of our members outlast are from bison.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00So it's that's taking a chance. Like, what if Crossett did something like this? They said, after quarterfinal, semifinals, like that's our season, right? Don't ever get rid of it. I still love that stuff, by the way. Sure. I want to make sure I'm on the same page there. Like, I had a friend of mine text me the other day. I told him we did the open workout, Dumbbell Snatch, Burbie Box, and he goes, I can't believe you still work out like that. Really? And I was like, I love it. I was two minutes slower than 2020, don't care at all. I still love it. I love the feeling, all right? But whatever. But what and I will say this from that perspective.
A Radical Programming Reset Idea
SPEAKER_00What if after semifinals, CrossFit cap programming, and they push CrossFit affiliates to do this in June, July, August, high rocks only programming, not one Olympic lift, not one gymnastics programmed, not one. We're gonna do endurance, we're gonna run, we're gonna machine, we're gonna sled push, we're gonna burpee broad jump, we're gonna cut a belt. And I right now I can hear the people that love thrusters and your squat cleans with your seven knee sleeves, two wrist straps, and thumb tape and an extra thick belt so that your body could be numb while you lift. You're like, no, I don't work out for more than 20 minutes at a time. I'm not doing that. That's stupid. That's for weak people as you get weaker, right? What if we said that's three months? Everyone in CrossFit is doing that. That would be risky, that would be a leap. But you know what it would do? It would get more people in your gym, and it would actually probably make the people in your gym fitter, which is that's the goal of what we do. It's not to make you good at Olympic lifting. I'm sorry, lifters, that's never been my goal. I'm my goal is to make you fitter, and then guess what? September, October, November, we go into Olympic lifting cycles, gymnastic cycles back and forth. I'm not saying you get rid of it, but what would your reaction be, Sam, if that was the risk CrossFit HQ took and we followed?
SPEAKER_01That was that would be genius. I I it would blow my mind. I would hate it and I would love it at the same time. Like, that's the thing. Like, there's so much about CrossFit I hate like doing that Wad again on Wednesday exposed every weakness that I had mentally and physically again, you know. Like I just I could see it, I could tell, like I'm not here mentally on this, I'm not here physically on this. Um but it but that's the stuff that is what CrossFit is made of. And to to zig when other people are zagging and say, yeah, let's do this for three months. How crazy would that be? First of all, the amount of media attention would be awesome, right? If CrossFit HQ did that. Like you said, the amount of people drawn to affiliates to try it out would be awesome. And like you said, all the purists who who are so close-minded, if they actually tried it, would actually appreciate it after they'd yeah, they'd be like, oh man, shit, doing this stuff is actually like better than just like doing my one reps and three reps or whatever maxes. So why this is what boggles me. Why this this high rocks to get back to it, um, buyout and where CrossFit is currently does not surprise me because we have never seen out-of-the-box thinking with CrossFit like that example that you just said from them. And it's it's so so disappointing because CrossFit as a methodology is great. I don't mind if they're only an education/slash B2B licensing company and that's how they want to make their revenue, fine, but at least think out of the box and and and try to grow your brand. Like you you're not going to grow it anymore by saying we're gonna stick to the basics, like yeah, that's not happening. I I love I think I like Bruce, the new CEO, but the his message does not inspire me to think he's going to be thinking out of the box the way you just said, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And like you know, we we've we've been through a handful of CEOs.
SPEAKER_01Oh, are you gonna do that by the way for our gym?
SPEAKER_00It honestly, I'm never gonna say never because I think I think we should we should think about things like that. I do. I and um is it too extreme to say no Olympic lifting for three months? Maybe, but maybe we do one day per week of it and it's four days a week of body weight, and then it comes back vice versa, where we do four days of strength throughout the fall. Like it's not, you know. I think in our survey, one of the things said, like, I think someone actually said, please do not become a hierarchy, or we're just doing endurance every day. And um, it was one of the nameless ones, but that would I don't think that's that's the answer. It's never like get away from something, but it might be like, let's take a chance and see what happens to your fitness level, or just some of you guys with like your recovery, like for the crossfitters are notoriously banged up, like every other week it's something new. I wonder if that would help. That you know, we we don't put you in a front rack for two months straight, we don't have you do a heavy hinge for two months straight. Um, you know, we we had a good conversation with with one of our outlast coaches that you know, she gives a lot of input and feedback on our programming at both gyms and wants, I think she actually said she talked to you about it, like a bit more like accessory type workouts where yes, where like, hey, we don't do anything intense on a Wednesday this week, it's gonna be 45 minutes of accessory type stuff, and your watch is gonna tell you that you burned 109 calories and you're gonna feel like it didn't do anything for you. But as we kind of look at our message, what is our message as a CrossFit affiliate to our members, not even people on the outside? It's like forging elite fitness and be fitter, and then we redo an open workout from three years ago and nobody gets better. It's like, and I understand that's a whole nother discussion that I'm thinking about doing an episode on it
Fitness For Life And Better Results
SPEAKER_00soon. Uh just a solo 15-minute talk about that. But we do want to start pushing the message of what I do think everyone deep down wants, it's less about being elite at fitness. I think everyone wants to be fit, but it's also like I want to feel great, I want to age properly. I want to, you know, I that's where I think you see you hear that more and more. And that doesn't mean you don't do intense workouts anymore. That's a huge part of aging correctly, is keep that VO2 max up, get that heart rate really high. You have to do that. We do that at Outlast every week. People hate it, but you go hard every single week over there, but and it keeps people alive, right? When they if they have a heart attack, right? Like we had a doctor tell us about one of the heart attacks in our gym. Like this intense work saved his life. So that's not, I'm not getting down to that path, but I am getting pat down to a path of us trying something different with the intention of making people fitter, healthier as they age. And if you still care about performance, this will also feed into that as well. And the second you go down the path of nope, can't do it, it's not what we've done. Nope, it's not CrossFit. That's not what we've done. You are now falling into the trap that just made CrossFit get annihilated in the private equity market. And you might not care about private equity, but it does filter down eventually to the affiliates.
SPEAKER_01I can't wait for the feedback you're gonna get with all the speculation you just did about programming.
SPEAKER_00I I can't wait. Well, I'm thinking about it. So if anyone does have feedback on it, share it with me because I I get more out of conversations with people, athletes, coaches, new people, old people, competitors, non-competitors. I get more out of that than just thinking about it to myself.
Bruce, The Future, Final Thoughts
SPEAKER_00So I do need outside opinions. To wrap this up, Sam. Is this the last time we're gonna talk about this? Is this water under the bridge? CrossFit's never gonna be a $500 million company. It's it's currently with how it's set up. I don't think it's ever gonna get there. But how with its current setup, I don't know if it's ever gonna get back to what it was sold for to Berkshire Partners, which is what I think 200 million, 150. I don't think it's gonna get back there. Is it water under the bridge? Are we do we should not even talk about this or even think about it anymore? And you just hope that they can stay stagnant instead of trying to progress forward.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I don't hear good things from Bruce. I mean, he says HyROX is a portal to CrossFit, GLP medications are a portal to CrossFit. Yeah, portal to what? Like, what are you doing where people who just lost 50 pounds on Ozempic is going to come to you and what makes you more attractive than uh you know, some other gym, you know, or or methodology? You know, why are people gonna keep going to CrossFit gyms through HyROX if there are high rocks more specific type of training facilities that really sort of go there? Like I don't see it, I don't see the messaging from CrossFit that's going to change my mind that this is going to be any different. HyROX is going to be An Olympic event. I would put real money on that. Okay. They are going to make this a lifestyle, travel, media, merchandising juggernaut. You know, these guys are they are thinking so big. And they're not compromising anything by doing that. It's like it's almost like CrossFit's like thinking that if we become anything different, we are somehow soiling ourselves with the stink of money. No. You know what? That Hyrux Pooh athlete was like the biggest thing. I mean, people who don't even know Hyrux, like that thing just went like crazy viral. That's good. I mean, it's disgusting press, but it's good press. Like, you know, that the anything is like CrossFit won't do anything to help themselves in any way. They they are going to go down with the ship and be like, yeah, we did it the right way. Nobody hears of us, nobody knows who we are, nobody wants to do what we do. Everyone's doing a variation of it, but yep, we were we we founded it. Yeah, okay, good, good for you. You you just torpedoed yourself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, yeah, and I'll wrap it up with saying that we're hoping to have a conversation with Bruce at some point, still trying to make that happen. I was told it's gonna happen, but we'll see. Um, I'm gonna say us, Sam, it's like just me, you like our ownership. Like, we're gonna have a good conversation with him.
SPEAKER_01And you may want to cut out what I just said.
SPEAKER_00I I wouldn't mind, honestly, at this point. Well, I mean, don't have really much to lose. Like, I want to ask these tough questions about what makes you different. And I think part of the reason why he was hired is because he had relationships with people that we already mentioned on this episode. They're buddies, they're comfortable with each other. He was there when there was a big surge in CrossFit. He probably played a big part in it, but that was before all this competition that is out there. And I question if that's the right decision. There's probably should have been something or someone new to come in that is not afraid of taking changes. Now, we're gonna give this guy time. It just I don't know, it's not even been a year yet. But if we're sitting here a year from now, we can't really give anything, we can't say anything that has changed, then uh it's only a matter of time before someone it's it's you're gonna have a new CEO.
SPEAKER_01Like some how many CEOs are we gonna interview? We've already interviewed one. This will be our second. Are we gonna have three or four after that?
SPEAKER_00We might, we might. We'll still be here. We're not going anywhere. That's right. So um, but yeah, interesting conversation, Sam. Congrats to Hyrox. That that's a huge, huge accomplishment. What they did getting sold for 700 million. Um, they definitely have leaned into and found something that a lot of other people could not figure out. And at the end of the day, that's success in this business, is figure out what other people are not doing, make it attractive, execute it correctly, and then you scale up from there. And I just I applaud them from a CrossFit perspective and in the same breath, CrossFit, get it together. It is you guys have a long way to go before you can even be in the same room as them. And it was not that way 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_01Truth, truth.
SPEAKER_00All right, thank you guys. We'll see you next week. Thank you, everybody, for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Herd Fit podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.