CrossFit Finally Starts Selling CrossFit!
Greg Glassman started developing the CrossFit methodology in 1996. In 2000 he and his wife at the time incorporated the company as CrossFit, Inc. For the next 21 years, CrossFit gave away its programming for free. Every day of the week you could receive an email with a workout (or navigate to the CrossFit Mainsite) completely free. CrossFit made all of its money through two verticals, affiliate fees (the fee paid by a gym to be an official CrossFit box), and certification, the courses offered by CrossFit to teach the methodology to people who are interested in furthering their CrossFit experience.
But as of today, CrossFit has added another revenue stream. The actual programming! CrossFit will actually be MAKING MONEY from the thing that most people know CrossFit for! WILD. What a crazy idea!
Now, to be clear, they will still be posting absolutely free workout content to the main site, and sending them out in the EOD. They’ve brought in three high-profile members of the seminar staff, Austin Mallelo, James Hobart, and Spencer Hendel. Between the three they have 24 CF Games appearances, they’ve each run their own gym, and they’ve collectively educated more than 20,000 CF-L1 coaches — including current CrossFit CEO Eric Roza.
Anyone who’s been around CrossFit for any length of time has seen these three guys around. Before Brent Fikowski was around, Spencer was the perennial Games Giant (Anyone over 5'9" qualifies as a giant in CrossFit). James Hobart is famously the kid who finished law school and immediately turned around and coached CrossFit for the rest of his life. And who can forget Austin at the 2012 games in his Kick-Ass compression suit?
I’m being slightly snarky about these guys, but I’m actually a fan of all three and think they’re a great choice to head up the first programming offering from CrossFit. What I’m less sure about, is if there’s any reason for CrossFit to be offering up programming in 2021.
That’s five companies offering CrossFit-style training at both an individual and group level, and those are just the ones that I could list out off the top of my head. There are more, and they already have an established foothold in the market. They also have processes, platforms, and systems in place, both on the creation end, and the delivery end. And while CrossFit has the name, this is going to be a lot to overcome.
This is a long time coming, and will probably be a net positive for CrossFit, but it’s hard to ignore how much money they left on the table for two decades because Greg Glassman would rather pick fights than make money.
