The CrossFit brand has been remarkably successful. The trademark was registered in 2000.
13 CrossFit gyms in 2005
8,000 CrossFit gyms in 2013
15,500 CrossFit gyms in 162 countries in 2018
13,000 in 2024
The business model consists of affiliation, education and sport.
Affiliation fees are now $4,500 annually (originally $1000)
Level 1 certification is $1,150
Sport brings in money from the Open participation ($20/person x ) and sponsors
The brand's value had been estimated at $4.5B. Berkshire Partners purchased the company in 2020 for an undisclosed sum, estimated at $200M
Affiliation = 13,000 x $4500 = $58.5M
Level 1 certification = 35,000 x $1150 x 0.2 = $8M
Open Participation = 350,000 * $20 = $7M
Apparel revenue = $149M
13,000 affiliates x 100 members each x $1800 annual revenue = $2.34 Billion. When you factor in the CrossFit Games, sponsorship deals and goodwill the $4.5B brand valuation seems conservative.
Constantly varied functional fitness performed at high intensity was the brain child of Greg Glassman who found enormous benefit from combining his first love of gymnastics with weightlifting. Combined with his strong views on nutrition, metabolic health and disease, this created a strong product that athletes embraced.
Fitness had been trending to specialization. 3 sport athletes became the exception and honing your craft as a single sport athlete became commonplace in middle school. Being a bodybuilder and a powerlifter was a novel concept. Crossover from weightlifting to other sports was unheard of. Gymnasts trained gymnastics. There were some emerging sports like strongman that attracted athletes from other sports. Combining swimming, biking and running was considered pretty crazy in the 1980's. Combining any of those things with power cleans still seems off.
The CrossFit brand managed to attract multiple streams of athletes. Military special operators who had to be ready for anything, anytime, anywhere. Competitive college athletes who did not go pro. Routine gym goers who were looking for coached workouts and group fitness. Athletes in health distress who needed to get off the couch.
The community makes CrossFit. Shared suffering brings people together. Attendees usually attend the same classes and develop a relationship with the box owner and coaches over time. It is not unusual to have social gatherings and holiday parties. Gyms form teams for functional fitness competitions, endurance challenges and friendly hikes, runs and bike rides.
Controversy is part of any organization, but CrossFit receives the ire of established sports and the expectation of an affluent membership. Established sports talk about CrossFit dangers. The expectation to avoid even the appearance of misogyny or racism has not been met consistently. CrossFit having to hold a higher standard for athlete safety was capped with the unfortunate death of Lazar Dukic at the 2024 CrossFit Games.
The model has been successful enough that the boutique fitness world has taken off with brands like F45, Orange Theory, Row House, 9Round, CycleBar, Soul Cycle, CorePower Yoga, Title Boxing Club and others.
I have been to several and the coaches are usually very good and the facilities very nice. All are a step up from floundering around at Planet Fitness or any globo-gym.
While individual results may vary, the Level 1 certification sets a reasonable baseline and coaches truly strive to teach during class (not just lead a workout). While the coaching cannot rival that provided by a gymnastics coach, track coach, weightlifting coach, crew coach, it is remarkably accessible. There are very few opportunities for adult gymnastics and adult track & field. Those are pretty small clubs. At USATF senior nationals, my daughters pole vault coach was 1 of 2 entrants. Martial arts and distance running are the two exceptions that come to mind.
One of the most attractive factors is being infinitely scalable. The needs of the professional athlete and the sedentary senior citizen very only in degree. Consider the extremes of getting up from the toilet versus squatting 1000 pounds; falling and getting up versus competitive parkour; placing your luggage in the overhead bin versus acrobatics. When I explored the CrossFit methodology in 2015 (at the age of 44 and 185 pounds) I was looking for a change of pace. I found it in spades. I still love gymnastics movements, barbells and strongman movements in 2024 (at the age of 53 and 210 pounds), but I do not need to train as intensely to get the fire breathing effect.
CrossFit workouts of the day (WODs) are typically programmed for the 30 year old, strong, fit athlete with women's loads/heights/volume being lower than men's to have everyone finish at the same time. The is the as prescribed (Rx) workout. Competitive athletes would push heavier loads/higher heights/more volume (Rx+). Folks who are there trying to get healthy or beginners would go in the opposite direction (sometimes called L2/L3; Health; Beginners, etc).
Also any movement can be modified to work around injury or disability. If I strain my back, I can do hang cleans instead of cleans from the floor; if my calf hurts, skip jump ropes and do kettlebell swings instead; not strong enough to do hand stand push-ups, then try seated dumbbell presses.
Finally it is infinitely accessible. With connection to the internet and ones environment anybody can perform a variation of the workout of the day published free on the crossfit.com website. There are also free programming options from a slew of other social media providers including @thetinyapartmentwod.
A coach can start off doing workouts on their own, invite friends to join them in the garage or the park, cobble together some equipment, move into a commercial place with an established client base and ultimately open multiple locations. It is much cheaper to start than other businesses and affiliates are beholden to no one in terms of facility, programming or any other aspect. The only brand consistency is Level 1 coaches.
