CrossFit gyms around the world are rebranding after the CEO's insensitive comments about George Floyd: 'They don't own the workout'
- A growing number of athletes, brands, and gyms have severed tied with CrossFit following a controversial comment from company CEO Greg Glassman on the death of George Floyd.
- So far, more than 300 gyms in over 12 countries have begun the process of rebranding, according to a spreadsheet shared by former CrossFit affiliates.
- According to affiliates, many gyms had already considering distancing from CrossFit before the latest incident due to Glassman's previous controversies.
- Although their names will change, the gyms that are dropping the CrossFit brand will still emphasize high-intensity workouts with weights and a strong sense of community, according to facility owners.
Amidst the slew of brands coming out in support of nationwide protests of police brutality, the silence of CrossFit, one of the largest fitness brands in the US, was conspicuous.
On June 5, CrossFit gym owner Alyssa Royse of Rocket Fitness emailed corporate headquarters asking for a public statement to affirm its commitment to community members. The response, from CrossFit CEO Greg Glassman, quickly spread among the CrossFit community. In his email reply, he calls Royse "delusional" and "disgusting," according to a screenshot of the email posted on the Rocket Fitness blog.
A day later, Glassman doubled down in a Twitter thread. In response to a post from th institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation defining racism as a public health issue, he wrote, "It's FLOYD-19."
Within a day, over 300 gyms in more than a dozen countries began the process of dropping their association with CrossFit, according to a spreadsheet shared and update by former CrossFit affiliates, and an Instagram post tracking announcement from various gyms.
Among those dropping the brand are some of the longest running and largest CrossFit gyms in the nation, including CrossFit NYC, CrossFit Invictus, CrossFit DC, and CrossFit Central.
With more than 13,000 affiliated gyms, CrossFit is one of the world's largest and most recognizable brands, and its influence has shaped fitness culture over the past decade. The current movement to denounce Glassman's comments is part of a long-standing disillusionment with the corporation, according to affiliates.
CrossFit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Major CrossFit gyms are denouncing Glassman and dropping his brand
Many gyms are now beginning the long process of considering how to distance their gyms from Glassman while maintaining the intense community and fitness enthusiasm they were founded on.
That's the situation for Mike DeNicola, owner and founder of CrossFit Stony Brook in St. James, New York.
His gym, one of the oldest CrossFit affiliates in the area was founded in 2010.
"What we loved was the whole supportive environment CrossFit affiliates had in our little community." DeNicola told Insider. "The community that we have in our gym helps to support every single one of our members, and that means being inclusive."
Now, DeNicola is one of many gym-owners reconsidering whether the brand best fits those values.
CrossFit NYC, a gym established in 2006 that's also now distancing itself from the brand, denounced Glassman's comments on Twitter and said they plan to rename their facility Black Box NYC.
"At a time when the world is asking whether Black Lives Matter and answering with an unequivocal YES, Greg Glassman has reduced George Floyd's life to a bad metaphor," the gym tweeted. "Continuing to miss the point, CrossFit has since tweeted that 'Floyd is a hero in the black community.' Wrong. George Floyd is a hero in the world community."
Glassman has long been a controversial figure in the fitness world
For many CrossFit affiliates, the latest comments from Glassman were the final straw in a long-standing unease with the CEO, according to Jared Stein, founder of Willy B Crossfit in Brooklyn.
"It wasn't a surprise to read. It was just very disappointing," Stein told Insider.
Glassman has a tendency to make abrupt and sweeping decisions without consulting members of the CrossFit community or affiliates, said Patrick Horsman of Ironstone Strength and Conditioning in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
His past controversial decisions include include changing the format of the highly-popular CrossFit Games competition without warning, firing members of the corporation's media team unexpectedly, and rescinding social media support for affiliates.
"Deep down, a lot of us already saw this coming. And for many of us, [dropping CrossFit] was a decision we had already made and not yet acted on," Horsman said in an interview. "I believe his comments were racist, and an indicator of a much deeper issue. But if you believe it's racist or not, doesn't matter, it's the lack of consideration as a leader in this community and a pattern of behavior that won't change."
Stein said that Glassman has a reputation among CrossFit affiliates for being brash, making incendiary comments, and starting conflicts on social media. That simmering conflict helped fuel the current mass exodus from the brand, he said, as many gyms had already been in the process of distancing themselves.
"This was the boiling point. People have felt this way about him for a long time, but without a catalyst, there no reason to de-affiliate because there are nice benefits [to the CrossFit brand]," Stein said.
Gyms pay a fee to use CrossFit branding, but the company doesn't control workouts or other gym policy
CrossFit is known for high-intensity sessions that include a mixture of weights, cardio, conditioning and gymnastics, but it's far from the only program to offer those elements in a fitness class.
Even so, the name denotes a particular kind of workout experience and community, which makes it a useful tool for gyms that want to recruit new members, Horsman said.
"The value of CrossFit, the reason we pay to license it, is that it means something to people who knows what CrossFit is. You have a pretty good idea of what you'll get when you walk into the gym," he said.
Gyms pay either an annual or monthly fee, according to DeNicola and other affiliates. The CrossFit affiliate model allows independent gyms and gym-owners to use the brand in their marketing. Instructors who teach CrossFit-branded classes are also required to be certified through the program.
DeNicola, who has completed this certification, said the program isn't much different from other types of personal training qualifications.
But CrossFit otherwise has little say in how independent gyms operate and train their members.
They don't have control over what we do every day within our doors. We still have freedom to charge what we want to charge, to have our own coaching style, and the workouts we do," DeNicola said.
Former CrossFit gyms may drop the name, but keep the intense workout style and sense of community
Even the workouts aren't proprietary.
"It's uncopyrightable. They don't own the workout, they just found a way to market it to people," DeNicola said.
Known elsewhere as functional fitness or high intensity interval training, the components of CrossFit have long been used in the fitness industry, although the company did streamline and popularize the workout style, according to Stein.
"Functional fitness existed before. CrossFit brought it into [the] mainstream, showed us it was repeatable and measurable, which was a good thing. But our programming is not from CrossFit Inc," he said.
As such, many members can expect the workouts to stay the same even as gyms transition away from the CrossFit brand, according to Stein.
What will change is that gyms must remove any trace of the CrossFit name and language from their operations — a process that takes time. CrossFit Stony Brook, for instance, is still working through the logistical process of figuring out how to rebrand while maintaining a thriving fitness community without the CrossFit name. That's a process that can take months.
But DeNicola said his members have expressed support for the change in emails and messages on the gym's Instagram.
"Our members don't care what we call our gym. When it comes down to CrossFit, it's not hard to just stop paying them money and marketing for them," DeNicola said.
Removing the 'CrossFit' brand from gyms creates both 'a problem and an opportunity'
Fitness enthusiasts will have to find a new banner to unite under and a way of finding one other moving forward, according to Horsman, and gyms will have to find a new way to signal to prospective members.
"When you take the word CrossFit away, you have a problem and an opportunity," Horsman said. "There's no way to easily describe the style of workout in a word that people will understand, at least not yet. But there's also no limitations from what our clients can expect from the program."
CrossFit's strong, dedicated community is part of the reason so many gyms have acted all at once to rebrand, according to Stein.
"The community is very strong, and part of what made the decision [to rebrand] so easy is other members of the community also reacted the same way we did," Stein said. "We saw [Glassman's] remarks, and knew no way we could do business with him. And the community was stronger than just being attached to CrossFit Inc. I don't foresee that changing."
Read more: