The Sevan Podcast - Leadership, Sky Scrapers & Caretakers of a Forest

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

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What's up, everybody? How you doing? I got a question for you guys. How do you feel about... Oh, by the way, guys, if you didn't know, Forrest is spelled with a one R, not two. One, one R, not two. I got a question for you.

What do you think, K? I was sitting around and I was like, man, you know what would really kick it up a little bit is if there was some sort of really punchy intro music or something like that. Like this one, I don't know why, but for some reason, the saxophone sound just got me. It's an older song, but I think it's more popular now. You know what I mean? So just something where it just hits and you get a little skyscraper action in here. Skyscraper. Saxophone. We're starting off great. I think I'll end up getting all the...

I think I got some copyright problems with this. Does that blow all your speakers at home? Welcome, everybody. We're starting off with a punch today. Hello. What's up? Copyright, probably. Sussing with Sousa.

Damn right. And we got more speculation on the books today. Don't you worry, you guys. More cowbell. I agree. Maybe some more cowbell. I was playing with different ones, just like little snippets of songs that just kind of give you a little bit of energy. Like I said, I get all fired up for this. And then I'm just

sitting here alone in my office at my house. So you kind of get all fired up. And then when you click go and you go live, you're just like, man, now it's quiet. Cotton Eye Joe violence. Here we go. That's what I'm talking about, Kenneth. That is the best value you have brought to the show. Jake Chapman sounds like the music at the club in a gay porno. Ooh, Jake's got some stories. Do tell my friend. Do tell. Uh, Captain Rogers is reigning man. Yup. That's right. Um, to YouTube jail, you go, Susie. I know I was like, I definitely think there's going to be some sort of copyright issue with that. I could also just not monetize this particular show. And I think that maybe gets us around any copyright issues.

I got some good stuff on the menu for you guys today. I want to briefly talk a little bit about the post that Andrew posted up last week um andrew hiller instagram he's his oh man his instagram it's wilding huh it's wilding hi judy how you doing good afternoon yeah i think yeah i think uh hiller, um, I think Hillary's declaring a little bit of war here. Huh? So you guys, uh, wait, not that one. Dang. He posts so much.

This is like the second post on mine and, uh, on my Instagram and he, I'm already down like seven of them on his. So this one here, this one here, in case you haven't seen a few, do you like a drink? We are writing to let you know that your affiliate account, CrossFit Livermore, is out of compliance and is now in bad standing. By the way, that was a new automation system. Apparently, they're testing out. So if you are not in compliance or there is some sort of issue on their end,

it just automatically sent you an email saying you were in bad standings. So they're testing out some sort of new automation. I'm sorry. Additionally, your affiliate has been removed from the CrossFit map. That all you got? And you have limited access to the affiliate toolkit. Your CrossFit trainer credential has expired.

Is that what you think? You think? Your CrossFit trainer credential has expired. Is that what you think? You think? As a reminder, starting in 2024, all affiliate owners, existing and new, will have 12 months following their affiliate license agreement effective date to enroll in a Level 2 certificate course. Please complete the above requirements to return your account to good standing. Best, the CrossFit team.

I'm done trying to convince you. You are an embarrassment to him. Look at little Goblin Jr. Gonna cry? I don't know how he thinks of these, like, reels with these. It's pretty funny. So, apparently, they claimed an email back to me. I emailed them and I said, this isn't right. Here's the information on my L2. I took it back in December before my other L2 had expired. And then they said, hey, when you took the assessment, you must have clicked the wrong link. For some reason, we don't have a DocuSign signature for you. So then they sent me back the DocuSign thing. I went through, I clicked it, I signed it, I sent it back.

And then the next day, I got another email saying that I'm still in bad standings because my credential had expired. So clearly, they were working through some sort of tech issue. I originally thought that that came the next day after I had done the show from last week on Tuesday, which did surprisingly well. I'm glad everybody enjoyed my unfolding or my theories on where CrossFit is going. But it was just like the timing of it was so strange that I was like, they really fucking watched that show. It like booted me out.

So that's why it would initially sent the reaction to me that I like sent the screenshot into the group, the text thread, you know, the text thread. And I was like, can you guys believe this? And within like two seconds, Hiller like sent back that reel. And I was like, holy shit, that's the fastest thing. And he's like, fuck that. real. And I was like, holy shit, that's the fastest thing. And he's like, fuck that. So anyways, I definitely thought that that had more to do with the show from last week than it did with some sort of automation error. The timing was just really weird. But I just thought it was interesting because they sent back another email saying,

I still had a compliance. Then to CrossFit to give them a little bit of a benefit of the doubt, they did send a third email the next day saying, hey, we screwed up not only once, but twice. We apologize. We're working out some new systems and whatever that ended up happening. So there you have it. That's the stories. Matt Reynolds, coincidence don't exist. I know. It's kind of... Travis, you think about it too. I know. I know. But I'm just letting you guys know the full story on it there. It was... Somebody said, of course

it's not their fault. Sevan, six shooter. Yeah. It's... Oh, wow. Look at that photo. That's so aggressive. Did he do that? Or did you Photoshop that? Did Sevan actually do that in one of the shows? I hope that's Photoshopped because you could clearly see he has no trigger discipline with his finger in the trigger. That is not appropriate. Yeah, which was funny because a couple people from the inside were like, what was your fault? You knew it. And I was like, no, I wasn't aware. And on top of that, prior to that email saying that I was in bad standings, I had never received anything else. There was never like a, you know, hey, you're out of

compliance. Hey, there's some there was an error. You didn't follow this all the way through. Hey, we don't have this from you. Like I never had anything prior to that. I just got hit with the email saying that I was in bad standings. I was off the map. I wasn't on the trainer thing anymore. So I definitely thought that that had more to do with the show and my opinions of where CrossFit is going and less to do with the fact of like some sort of new system automation on their end. But it's just interesting. The thing that I think about it right away

is just like if you're going to be treating affiliates as stakeholders, if you're going to be treating affiliates as stakeholders, if you're going to be treating them as your main entity, as far as who your customer is and where your source of revenue is and saying, Hey, you guys are stakeholders here. We take everything that you have seriously. You're a part of this with us. You think that there would be some sort of liaison between the affiliate reps saying, Hey, this is coming down the pipeline. Or, Hey, we ran this test and yours dinged here.

Can we get this sorted out? Hey, we just want to let you know. Or some sort of more human touch or forewarning before it. To the affiliate reps point... Not point, but to their benefit here. I know that Katie Hogan, who's the affiliate rep out on the West Coast for the massive amount of affiliates she has to keep up with and everything else, she does a great job. And she always does so much to help me out. So Katie, if that came back negatively on you in

any way, I do apologize. By no means do I think that what you are doing over there or anybody else that you're directly working with has anything... It has no negative effect. I do not think that you guys are idiots. But unfortunately, I do wholeheartedly agree with the leadership that is at CrossFit. I disagree with their ideologies. I disagree with the direction that they're taking the company. And I disagree with their hiring practices in terms of that upper, the board in the C-suite level leadership that's there. So please, there is no way that I would want any of that to negatively come to you or any of the

other affiliate reps or the people that are really pulling hard to uh keep everybody happy and to do the best they can over there so thank you for that um but in terms of uh crossfit they're like the ideology of where everything is going like dude you guys saw the most recent thing that hillar posted up with their human resources person or um chief people's officer or whatever the fuck label you want to give that individual. I don't agree with those hiring practices. And I think that witnessing it from where I am in terms of working with the fire service and stuff like that, they have some serious problems when it comes to the DEI stuff. I've been working with a couple of departments locally here and some other ones. And I will tell you that that becomes a serious hazard. There's been in the past individuals that I've watched go through academies that have panicked during certain drills, pulled off their masks, left people alone, weren't able to do the job in a training situation. And yet those individuals were not let go because they're what the administration deems a protected class. Meaning they're fitting the quota of the DEI

and we're not going to let them go. We need to book them through even though they have shown that they're incompetent and taking on these tasks that will be required of them on the job. that they're incompetent in taking on these tasks that will be required of them on the job. But yet they're basically saying, that doesn't matter. We just need these people to go through to fill some sort of quota on our end from administrative. And that shit is fucking dangerous. And this type of mentality of hiring people based on aesthetics, based on look, based on skin color and ethnicity, which I don't even... Whatever. Ethnicity. I don't even know what that means. But they're hiring based on those things rather than based on the character of the person in

their ability to do the job and do the job really well. If you ever noticed too, nobody's really worried when it comes to DEI on jobs that are shitty. Nobody's like, Oh, we need some more people to clean out the plumbing. We want to make sure we have enough of each category in here. Or, Oh, we don't have enough people that are bricklayers of this category. So we got to make sure we have enough category. No, if you pay attention to it, it's only in positions of power. It's only when it comes to, oh, we need this CEO or this C-suite or this executive to look a certain way. Or, oh, we don't want to change any things for the people that are getting promoted in these

other jobs or that are getting hired on to help with the city here because they're not meeting a quota. That shit is crazy. That shit is crazy. And I don't agree with those practices. And the part that gets me is back in 2018, 2019, when I was going to the DDCs and I was just sneaking into the side, if you were to see CrossFit HQ at that time, it looked like a freaking DEI hire. You had people all walks of life that worked at CrossFit HQ at that time, it looked like a freaking DEI hire. I mean, you had people all walks of life that worked at CrossFit HQ, all walks of life. And they were all disciples in understanding what CrossFit could do to transform people's lives. And they were all direct carriers of that message. And it showed forth in all the work that they did. So they weren't hired based

on which category they fill, but they were yet hired based on the work that they did. So they weren't hired based on which category they fill, but they were yet hired based on the fact that they're, they live and breathe CrossFit and they know, and they're excited to spread that message. Um, Travis, uh, sucking up to the man.

Don't go pulling a Craig Howard now. I don't, was that sucking up? No, that was basically just saying, um, you know, Katie and some of the ones that I know for a fact that I've had personal conversations with that I'm not going to share in here that are trying really hard to do right by other people. And they're just being completely snuffed by the leadership or lack thereof. Bernie Gannon, Susan, Susan starting soft, reveal them in the strong. Yeah, he knows the technique. He knows the technique.

him in then it's strong yeah he knows the technique he knows the technique and um it's just crazy it's crazy to think when you uh are are hiring based off different categories and us based off the character and the merit of um of the individual it's just it makes no sense to me uh i will address a little bit a couple of people had reached out, a few in direct message, and then a couple of you guys just on the comments or on the comments of the last podcast. And they said, Hey, have you seen Craig Howard's show, his last PRs All Day podcast with Tim Dimmel and Jamie Lee? I think it was in response to your show. So I checked it out. And as you guys know, Hila did too and made that video on it. But when I originally watched or listened to it, rather, when I listened to it, I didn't really feel of what you would, you know, the way I look at CrossFit, the company or what I want CrossFit, the company to do for me in particular. Now,

whether you agree with it or not, that's totally fine. But for me, the direction of CrossFit, it needs to be completely based on what CrossFit does It unapologetically being CrossFit, unapologetically being different, and fighting the big fight of pushing back against a lot of the mainstream narratives that we see coming out of the health institutions and mainstream media surrounding health. I think that

by the way, Travis, when I saw Hiller's video and I saw him use the South Park character, I was like, oh no. Because those type of nicknames and shit, like when Hiller does them, they stick so much to people. I'm lucky I didn't get some random nickname. Jump Ship.

What's up, Seth? Just was watching a little bit of your show a minute ago. Two female cops were hired over me all the way back in 2007. I was told they straight up wanted to hire me based on performances, but they needed more female cops. Exactly. There's just certain jobs. Do you ever notice too,

like nobody's crying for more white people in the NBA. It's not like, Oh, look at all of our athletes. They all look in certain types. They're all really tall and athletic and muscular. You know what? Let's,

let's switch it out for people of different color and different body types. That way everybody feels included at this level. The franchises and the owners would be like, fuck you. We need to win. We need these people on the court based off of their performance, not based off of what category they fit in. And so I think when it comes to CrossFit the company, And so I think when it comes to CrossFit the company, when it comes to CrossFit the company, I like what Greg talked about all the way back in his discussion at the speech that he did at the State Policy Network's 20th annual meeting in Florida. This was done, I think it was done back in 2011. And maybe, I don't know if it was recorded in 2011 and posted in January of 13, or if it was recorded in 2012 and posted in January of 2013. But we're going to look a

little bit about that. Because one of the things that the MBA types, when they would come see Greg, and they knew this crazy explosion that was crossfit is he had this completely different outlook on business than all of the mbas that were coming across his plate like they couldn't understand um what greg meant in a lot of the uh phrases that he used and i'm going to pull a quote directly from um the talk that we'll listen to a little bit here but but he basically was saying that as CrossFit grows, CrossFit, the company is going to start to recede, right? And let me find the quote. Oh my gosh, Matt, it would be so better if you highlighted this. Yeah. The quote he uses, CrossFit HQ is the caretaker of a forest rather than the architect of a skyscraper. CrossFit spread as a cultural phenomenon.

The company would take a smaller portion of a growing pie. As CrossFit grew, HQ would recede. And basically what he was suggesting is that as the ecosystem of CrossFit, as everybody who participated in CrossFit, as that pie continued to grow, CrossFit was not going to try to put its hands in every single one of those things. And listed in that was clothing and apparel. Listed in that was barbells and equipments.

Listed in what Greg was not going to touch was software, was gym applications, like business mentorships. We've seen all these different businesses that have sprouted up within the CrossFit ecosystem and have become extremely successful. I mean, look at Two Brain Business. Chris Cooper's mentorship has taken off. You could look at Rogue. Rogue's probably a billion-dollar company now built in the ecosystem of CrossFit. RX Bar is another example of that. I think they ended up selling to Kellogg's for like $400 million or $600 million. So there was plenty of these businesses and small businesses and opportunities

that were growing outside of the ecosystem of CrossFit. And what CrossFit HQ and what Greg's mission was to do was to never to try to put its hand in the pockets of those different things, whether they were acquiring certain equipment for it to be at the gyms that if you were a CrossFit affiliate, or whether they just stamped CrossFit on a bunch of stuff and tried to sold it to CrossFitters, or whether they tried to get into the mentorship space, or they tried to get into the gym software space, or the direct-to-consumer space. Greg's vision on it was always that as that continued to grow and grow and grow, he was just going to go ahead and CrossFit would just shrink, shrink, shrink, shrink, shrink. So the pie would grow, but CrossFit's slice of the pie wouldn't necessarily grow. So we're going to jump around a little bit in this and listen to what we can of his talks.

I wish I could just pull a Seth from the old media and just let it play and give my opinions over it. But I think they'll probably end up digging us quite a bit. But I really loved this quote here at the end. By the way, this was filmed by Haley Matosian, Haley Parlin at the time. I have a real problem with any business activity that isn't about value creation. Money is essential to run a business, but it is not why you run a business. It is not what makes a business grow. Businesses grow on dreams. Trying to make money is no way to run a business. Now, if some of you guys remembered from when Craig Howard was talking about it, I thought that he was really coming from the position of an affiliate owner. And the affiliate owner mindset and the way they run their business has to have a lot of similarities in terms of CrossFit HQ,

meaning the pursuit of excellence, the mission of contribution to your local community, the mission of changing lives. But it's a little bit different in terms of the way that you're structuring that framework as in to make money. A CrossFit affiliate needs to have systems in place, similar to what Craig was saying, to where it can operate somewhat on its own without the owner. Not meaning I'm packaging that business to sell, but meaning I want to have somewhat of automation and systems in place. So that way, if I go to semifinals for the next two weeks, and I'm only at home for two days out of the week, my gym CFL still is running and operating as normally as if I were there. So that's important. It doesn't necessarily mean

that you need to position your business to sell. But that's also a different outlook and a different strategy, in my opinion, than CrossFit HQ should be having. If CrossFit HQ is operating at the same kind of capacity and framework and mindset that an affiliate is, we're in a little bit of trouble here, according to my opinions. I need a sip of coffee. Paper Street coffee. What's this jump ship? CrossFit allows use of their content on youtube you can still monetize and all that no shit really you swear um and so i just want to bring back up kind of the ethos of of excellence in the pursuit of excellence in creating value. One of the other quotes that I love that Greg put in here, which by the way, if you want to, I mean, he has the receipts on this, right?

Because he put in this quote here, this is all in the talk too. So you guys can go check this out in its entirety. I'm going to be jumping around a lot. I believe that business is the art and science of providing uniquely attractive opportunities for other people. That's what we've done. That's it. Nothing else. And there's been a ton of opportunities and a ton of unique opportunities that have grown out of CrossFit, that have grown out of the ecosystem of CrossFit. And Greg's whole thing was the pursuit of excellence and the pursuit of value creation. So we'll listen to a little bit of the intro.

Are you sure I can play this, Seth? You're going to get me dinged. That's all right. I wish we had a thing just to turn down the volume on it. I got a story to tell you. I had moved to Santa Cruz, California, and I got thrown out of the last commercial gym. And there were only three or four in Santa Cruz.

And over a period of about two years, I'd earned my removal to the last commercial gym. Okay. I just already think that's pretty funny because Greg's literally talking about going to all these traditional, which are what I kept referring to as the Me Too fitness brands, where everything looks alike. Planet Fitness is a variation of 24-hour fitness, which is a variation of Equidox, which is a variation of Lifetime Fitness. And that was all that existed back then, like the corporate gyms. And now we just have spinoffs of those, which is, again, something that I see that is coming out of the ecosystem of CrossFit, which is these smaller group-led classes.

In Santa Cruz. And it's a very natural process. All you have to do as a trainer is dominate the local culture, the local environment within a gym, and take the clients from all the other trainers, and your days are numbered. You're about done. What happens? And you do that because you provide a really awesome and good service for them. I wanted

just to point out that first portion because in the show last week, I reminded everybody that that was it. We were the rebels. We were the ones that were changing the way that people thought about health and fitness. We were the ones that were completely busting wide open the whole entire nutrition talk and that there's more different alternatives out there that weren't just coming from the institutions of this high-carb, low-fat diet that made so many people sick. Seth, I played 300 videos from the CrossFit and the CrossFit Games accounts. They all say the content is allowed to be used on YouTube.

I made a whopping $12 last month. All right, fair enough, dude. Fair enough. And so this next quote here, or this next section of it, is him talking specifically about the... Is this assemblage, this crew of 5,000 affiliates, 50,000 trainers, and we've gotten pretty good penetration. We've got some of you in here now some of us are you the least rents model this is the important portion do 12 bucks rubbing in our face is that the CrossFit ecosystem is about a billion dollars. That is the total financial take of all the trainers, of all the gyms. And so if you think about that, what Greg is saying, because I know so many people jumped on it and was like, a billion dollars, this guy got out of his mind.

What Greg is talking about is the fact that the whole ecosystem, all the money that the gyms were taking in, the personal training client dollars that the trainers were taking in, the different companies, everything else around it, not just CrossFit HQ. And our chunk of this is about 24 degrees of 360 or about 50 mil. or about 50 mil. And as this grows, what we're going to do is we're going to have this arc section diminish. When I was the only CrossFit trainer, I was taking 100%. When CrossFit North opened up, I lost some of the market share.

And in fact, this slice of the pie that is with our control is narrowing and by design. And so if you think about it, right there at the very first CrossFit gym, as what Greg was explaining, is he owned 100% of CrossFit. Like he was the only CrossFit trainer. He was the only CrossFit affiliate at the time or the crossfit the crossfit gym he was a hundred percent of that market share in the second that he affiliated it and let go of that control by the way this could have been a franchise he could have controlled all of it he could have owned the majority of that pie anything that had that crossfit name or was associated with it he could have had his hand in. The circle is growing and it's growing rapidly. They're about 50% a year currently. They're about 50% a year. We call this the least rents model.

I am not interested in the activity that sits out here. It doesn't belong to us. It belongs to other people. Our job is to force these boundaries out to make the circle bigger for everyone. That part is really important. I want to force the boundaries out while our section continuously gets smaller. And we have to do that. We have legal authority. We own the name, but we have moral authority in that we speak for the affiliates and we will defend them to the end of the world. The private equity and the venture capital, they've approached us and they do. We deal all day long currently with private equity and venture capital. What they want to see me do

is this. They want us to take a bigger chunk. Now, this is the problem that I have with the current private equity situation at CrossFit HQ. And again, this is why we cannot compare individual affiliates and how those affiliates should be operating and then take that model and base it to CrossFit HQ. Because for me inside my personal market here within Livermore, I would love to just eat up everything. If everybody was doing anything that had to do with a squat or a row or a run, if they were coming to my gym and they were a member of my gym to be doing it, good. I like that. I like that shit. I am arrogant. I think that at my gym, we're going to give you the best training. At my gym, you're going to meet the most awesome people.

At my gym, we're going to make the biggest contribution to Livermore. At my gym, you can meet a bunch of your firefighters and cops. You can know them on a personal level. At my gym, you could see those firefighters be trained as they make their way through the academy. I'm arrogant. I think that we could serve you better than 24-hour fitness. I think that we could serve you better than the local Orange Theory. I think that we could serve you better. Well, there's not an F45 here,

but if there was an F45, fuck them too. I know that at my gym, I want to expand as much as I can and I want to take everything. You mean, I think you mean my gym, Sousa. Yeah, or Corey's gym. Corey's gym too.

He wants it as well. If you're in that local department or area over there, Corey wants all you people too. We do. And that can't be the mentality or the framework of CrossFit HQ. Because what happens is, as they start to cannibalize everything else that we have, it starts to turn into an issue where now CrossFit wants its hand in this, they want their hand in this, they want their hand in this, and they just keep wanting to boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, make it bigger and bigger and bigger. And there's a problem with that, though.

There's a problem with that because once you start entering into everybody else's pockets here, and you start going in as the lead. You're no longer expanding the pie, but you're just growing your slice of the pie. And unfortunately, those two things are kind of in opposition of each other in terms of decision-making. I posted on my Instagram, I put,

there's two types, there's mercenaries and there's missionaries. Of course, somebody put the comment, I was like, I love missionary. I was like, God damn it. I knew somebody was going to do that. But if you have the mindset of short-term thinking, I need to extract dollars. I need to grow that bottom line. And we have to do it on a short time horizon. That is going to be the framework for your decision making. And everything that comes up that's a little bit tough or you're going back and forth, should we do this? Should we not?

Is going to be held up against that. Is it going to make a short-term value? Is it going to create more short-term enterprise value, which means make the company more valuable? It might not necessarily be dollars in, but more valuable on paper, then I'm going to take those opportunities. As opposed to a missionary, which is long-term focused, long-term decision-making, and more around contribution and vision than it is around the bottom line. Now, both of those entities still need to think about capital or cash and the way that they're allocating it and making sure that there's enough to come in to survive and everybody's being fed and compensated

for their work. But outside of that, you're focused on the long term. You're not making decisions solely based off of a mercenary perspective. Daniel Nguyen, mercenary versus missionary. Do you have a position on that? I hope I was answering that. And there's two different hats that you're wearing. So again, if I'm the CrossFit affiliate, I might be thinking more in terms of, okay, I do need some more cash flow. I'm going to make a couple of decisions that will affect our bottom line because we need money in right now to survive. But you still have that long-term vision as an affiliate owner too. But that should be completely different than the way that CrossFit HQ is thinking. And I'll tell you this, as far as where I personally stand on this,

it's been missionary. I have given up so much in terms of contribution and long-term thought that I often almost get chastised about it because I will continuously not take money from different things that I help and just continue to build or continue to add value before I extract. And if you're along the line of that missionary thinking, you're going to continue to think that way. You'll continue to grow that way. And what ends up happening is the dollars come in. People want to contribute back. The vision starts to work. It just takes a lot longer. You have to be able to willing to sacrifice a lot on the front end. Years, in my case, and what I'm trying to do. Years of sacrificing, not really being paid, not a ton of recognition for the work that you're doing. But you're focused on the long

term outcome of your vision. So for me personally, that's where I stand on anything that I do. But I just want to make the clarifying difference between the way that if affiliate owners are thinking and the way that CrossFit HQ needs to think. Because conflation of the two isn't really going to help necessarily determine the way that what CrossFit HQ I want to attach myself to. Dang it. How do I mercenary? You don't want to. I don't, I think that people, Sleeka, I think that people are that think that way.

It ends, it's being, it's like a slippery slope. Like you think more of that way, everything becomes an extraction opportunity. Nothing becomes a slippery slope. You think more of that way, everything becomes an extraction opportunity. Nothing becomes a contribution opportunity. And some people are just... Yeah, don't even Google it. Don't even Google it. Missionary definitely takes longer.

Travis, you could be meaning that for a couple of different reasons there. But you're right. I was going to find the... Where is that? Oh, shit. There you go. That is a couple of different meanings there.

Okay, maybe you guys were talking about something else and I said Google it. Okay, my Google history is screwed because of this dumb damn podcast. No worries. Susan, don't worry about the chat. We're talking sex position. Damn it. See, I knew you guys, I knew you guys were going to take it there. And then I was going to be all fucking all over. Yeah. I do have tunnel vision. I'm trying to keep the show moving forward. I can't fucking screw around with you guys in the comment section. And so when we're thinking in terms of what are the decision-making processes that are happening inside CrossFit HQ,

you could definitely tell that it's very short-term, it's very numbers-focused, and it's very extraction-focused. And when I saw what Barbell Spin had posted about another recent trademark that they put up last week, and we're talking about the gym software and the tracking and the different things, I just can't help but think, okay, so this is just another extraction. CrossFit HQ isn't interested in growing the pie anymore.

CrossFit HQ isn't interested in growing the pie anymore. CrossFit HQ is in an extraction phase of taking or getting its hand in as many things that it can within the ecosystem so it could feed that bottom line. Again, I don't blame them. It's their legal obligation to their investors. That's the fucking deal. We'll listen to Greg here a little bit more. You guys got me all

thrown off. I'm over here thinking you're contributing to this conversation and you're just fucking talking about sex positions. And we know that that would shrink the circle. I'm going to pull that back just a hair.

Just a hair. They want us to take a bigger chunk and we know that that would shrink the circle might make me wealthy i had someone from private equity sit down with me and tell me you should be a billionaire he's got why is that says, it's all the money you're leaving on the table. I said, the money we're leaving on the table is an opportunity for other people. Let me give you one for instance. There's an outfit called Rogue. They're in Columbus, Ohio. They make CrossFit gear. They make equipment for CrossFitters. They'll probably do $60 million

this year. Now, I could help myself to some of that by requiring the affiliates use CrossFit branded gear. And then Rogue would have a real problem. I don't wanna own Rogue. I don't wanna step outside of our core competency. I don't wanna lose the moral authority. I'm not trying to make money. I'm trying to grow a community. I'm trying to grow a community.

I'm trying to support a community. This approach to widen the bandwidth, widen the art sector, get more for yourself with no regard for the community, it's rent-seeking. And I got a big issue with it. And I understand now that this, you are here in the excellence.

What we were chasing is value, wealth creation. And i have a real problem with any business activity that isn't about value creation money is essential to run a business but it's not why you run a business it's not what makes business grow businesses grow on dreams trying to make money is no way to run a business. Forging elite fitness. And I just thought that that talk was particularly important in this time because oftentimes we lose sight of what I wanted CrossFit HQ to function as, which is a media and an education company. I think that we should still be becoming the authority in exercise sciences. I think we should be essentially becoming the authority on health

in slowly dismantling and, as Greg says, correcting the public record of all the bullshit that these institutions have been putting out after all these years and making our public sicker and sicker and sicker. And I just don't believe that there's a, another alternative out there at a Hillsdale talk that Greg gave last year. Um, there was a clip and I think that it was on the broken science Instagram or, the broken sites, YouTube channel. And Greg made a statement there.

He said, uh, there's two major players in the fitness space. There's CrossFit and there's American beverage association. And that was because American beverage association was funding a ton of the research within the exercise science communities at the colleges. This is how the whole NSCA thing started to get, um,

uh, played by because the American beverage association was one of their major donors. And they knew that CrossFit was going to be a trouble with the way that they ate and with the fact that they were taking up so much market share with the L one. And so these people got together and were like, how can we slow this thing down?

And you guys can listen to a Russell burgers, whole entire breakdown of that too. If you type in fighting the good fight by CrossFit, you will get that whole entire breakdown by him on this timeline. It's a really good piece and I think you guys should go check that out. So that's the methodology of caretakers of the forest, meaning I'm not attempting as CrossFit HQ to continue to grow my slice of the pie, but I want to grow the CrossFit ecosystem in total. How do you do that? Well, you stop worrying about extraction, meaning finding all these different avenues from revenue of where I could take from the affiliates, and you find where we can uplift the community. And I think what part of that becomes is like when we started to turn the curve, especially in building the skyscraper, started with the CrossFit Games. Because a lot of training and affiliate money started to go into subsidizing the CrossFit Games

to build that out to make it bigger and better each year. games to build that out to make it bigger and better each year. And a lot of that money could have been reinvested back into either opportunities for media, for the affiliates, for training, expanding and investing in any one of those different categories with affiliateship or with training that could help make those grow. And instead, a lot of it was pushed towards the CrossFit Games. So that was a little bit of a mistake early on. And so I think the only way now, as CrossFit probably sees it, is probably letting go of the CrossFit Games

and either licensing it out to a different entity, like a loud and live type that's going to run the whole entire show, or maybe breaking it off and selling it all together, which isn't necessarily a terrible thing. If CrossFit games got sold to Dana White, I think that that would make a killer combination. You imagine Dave Castro and Dana White on the same team together, giving Dave full autonomy,

actual decision-making and allowing him to be the leader that he is. Cause right now, and you guys to be the leader that he is. Because right now, and you guys see it with the week-in-review stuff, if you guys think that Dave has ultimate authority over anything, I don't think he does. Unfortunately. I wish he did.

But I think there's a lot of senior leadership that comes from the board and the other executives that basically tie him down, most likely with a budget, and say, hey, you can't go outside of this. And anything outside of this, you can't do. You can make your decisions, but only inside this little circle.

So if Dana White bought it and had his resources and everything behind it, and you put somebody like Dave in charge and gave him the freedom to operate like a true leader that he is and that he can be, I think that that whole entire business can definitely be turned around. Dixon, Dixon Satterbox, Dave is not a businessman. Nobody's a leader and he's an operator and he knows how to execute on getting things done.

So if you take that combination with a visionary like Dana White that knows and understands how to turn it into a profitable business, and you throw those two things together, I think that that could be a very powerful combination. Patrick Clark, it would be TKO Holdings to buy it and they are interested. Okay. Break this down for me. How is TKO Holdings different than WME and IMG? Wouldn't William Morris Endeavor Group be the one? Isn't TKO just the media side of the UFC? I could be wrong here, but I thought WME was the whole entire holding company that owned all of it

and probably had a lot more resources than just TKO Holdings. But I don't know. You seem to have more information on that than I do. Jump Ship, I would be shocked if CrossFit sold the games. Licensed, sure, but selling chops off of a potential asset a future buyer might want. What happens if it looks like an asset, but it ends up being the biggest cash suck that they have on their balance sheet? So what I mean by that is like, sure, a lot of people are there. We see it being sold out at the Newark Stadium or Arena in Texas, which I think is much smaller. But if we see that being sold out, and we have all this kind of look

of success on the outside, the real question that I would have to ask is like, once we pop the hood of the car, what do the numbers look like? And then on top of that, what does the interest in sponsorship look like? Because if they're having, and it looks like they are, having real trouble creating value for their partners, then the CrossFit Games, which looks like an asset from the outside in, might be a fucking massive liability. So we really have to pop the hood of the car and look at the engines to see what happens.

It's a spinoff of WME that owns WWE in UFC. Okay, so that makes sense so like if if tko was the parent company that kind of controlled wwe and the ufc and then uh william morris endeavor kind of oversees the whole entire thing then most likely what i'm talking about is like the tko would would buy on paper you would think dave and dana would be a good match that's from patrick clark but dave has been uh critical of dana publicly and i also don't think dana's ego would mesh well with dave and dana would be a good match this from patrick clark but dave has been critical of dana publicly and i also don't think dana's ego would mesh well with dave maybe but if they were both invested in working towards the same goal um that might change i think that they could probably work really well together uh chad wise what's up man welcome glad you

remember uh enjoy the behind the scenes. Which it is. The games cost money each year. It never makes money. Exactly. Profit and loss for each part of the company would be clear. They might want to kill it or keep it. That's right. And so the better off CrossFit HQ is looking at each profit and loss statement, meaning how much money is coming in, how much money is coming out. And they have that specifically for training. They have that specifically for affiliates and they have that specifically for the games. to us? And does one hand feed the other enough? Meaning like, can you rectify the cost of the games as a marketing tool for affiliates and training? I think that in 2024, you cannot. You cannot. I think that the games is... It can be a really great marketing tool. But I don't think that the way that it's set up and the way that

it's working right now currently makes it a good marketing tool. Dick Butter, the games has a ceiling that UFC and other sports don't have. That is the spectator pool is only as big as the people who actually do CrossFit. Dana White isn't going to touch that. We have no idea what Dana White's going to touch

because you could get more people, I guess, excited about CrossFit. But I actually completely agree with your statement there, Dick Butter. I completely agree with it. And CrossFit Games matters most to the people that show up at the affiliates that are doing the workouts every day. 100. So that's why you have to print a receipt link at the top of each of the confirmation. Okay. Cool. I have no idea what that was and why I brought up that comment.

HDR CBD Athletics. Sponsor of the Kill Taylor Show that's coming up this week too. Sponsor of the Kill Taylor Show coming up this week. Why do they have such a hard time making the games profitable? Is it the venue, the equipment? Great question.

I don't know. I'd have to look at the profit and loss for that. I'd have to look at the profit and loss for that. Affiliate was number one. Training was number two as money producers for the company. Yeah, I'd imagine because the overhead on affiliates is probably a lot lower. You're not flying people out every weekend in training. The overhead in training is probably much higher

because you have personnel that is running it. So you're going to have more costs attached to that. But the one thing is, training also invests into affiliates. So that's where the one hand feeds the other. So if I grow my training and I have some expenses in training, those are easily justified because for every penny on the dollar that goes to expenses with training could feed into affiliateship and does feed into the next line of affiliate owners. Patrick Arkin, Dana wouldn't invest if he doesn't see immediate returns. I don't think anyone does. Yeah, probably not wrong. So if CrossFit were to try to start cutting its losses, we could see the games be one of those first things. Because again, if we're looking at our

three P&Ls right here and our affiliate ships are number one revenue with a low overhead, training's number two with a little bit more of an overhead. And then the third one is the games where the dollars that are being brought in here are under the amount that the overhead, the expenses essentially are exceeding the amount of revenue that the games are bringing in. Then it might be time to cut the losses because it's more of a liability than it is an asset. And we definitely know it's not going to be nearly as strong as a marketing tool as it has been in the future. Mikey, media is the most important.

UFC is a media beast. They put out constant media leading up to pay-per-views. Imagine if the UFC did that for CrossFit. Yeah, imagine. Imagine, imagine, imagine. I saw in seven um we can review with the dave we can review dave had talked about kind of like this last man standing like um you know reality show type that would be uh uh kind of building up to the crossfit games or a marketing tool for the crossfit games if you remember that's essentially what put what put the UFC on the map because before it was super niche.

It was like straight to VHS. It was like this totally brutal type sport. And once they got the ultimate fighter on, which was TV at the time, which was like mainstream, they got that season one and they had Forrest Griffin and what's his face?

Who was the other guy? Stefan Bonner? Bonner? Bonner. Fight. And it was Bonner. Fight. And it was like an incredible fight. And it ended that season one. And boom, UFC just like blew up after that. And I would argue that UFC also, much like CrossFit,

created this whole entire ecosystem with it, right? Like all of a sudden, you had tons of people doing fucking jujitsu that weren't before. Tons of them that were super into Muay Thai. All of a sudden, you had MMA gyms pop up and MMA didn't even exist before then. So there was this whole ecosystem

that kind of grew with it. And the funny thing with UFC, I heard Dana White talking about this in the Andrew Schultz podcast recently. He's like, you don't have to necessarily be a fighter to have an opinion on fighting, especially when a bunch of dudes get in the room. They all start sizing up and talking about what they would do. I think so-and-so is going

to beat them because of this or that. And it's like, everybody has this uneducated, uninformed opinion when it comes to fighting, especially guys. So I think people would have that a little bit with CrossFit too, but not nearly as much. So the audience base would definitely be a lot smaller. Dan, it's wild that with a methodology as sounded as bulletproof for CrossFit that we don't know how to sell it. It went from being fast growing chain to what do we do now?

Yeah, because they took their eye off the prize and they changed what made it great. CrossFit is made for reality TV. Dude, Patrick, I know, right? And you know, well well better than I do. Your relationships with a lot of the athletes and the ins and outs of all that drama is way more connected than what I know.

So I bet you Patrick knows some stuff. We could have him cast some people and be like, oh, just give it time. There's going to be this argument. It's going to make for a great, great TV. Wadzombie, what's up, dude? Make each athlete keep a hand on the rig. Last one to take their hand

off the rig wins the prize purse. Now you're turning it into Mr. Beast's YouTube video here. Dan, we're trying to be like F45. It's like F45 doesn't get results like CrossFit does. Why would you want to be something that doesn't work? I completely agree.

When we talk about HQ's role in terms of growing the pie in total rather than just growing its slice, that is exactly where media and what CrossFit does plays a huge role. Because we have insanely talented outside media, like people that are just crazy passionate about CrossFit, crazy passionate about the sport of CrossFit, crazy passionate about their gym and the stories that are happening

inside the affiliate that they work out at. And if we were to leverage that, we, and I'm acting as CrossFit HQ now, if we were to start to leverage that outside media, your costs would go down quite a bit because you could do stuff like what we're doing, which is running these competitions and you give out prize money for first, second, third place. And the media that you're creating is creating value and you're creating some sort of dollar amount or monetary gamified thing for the creators in and of themselves. And I would definitely try to just create my YouTube channel

as the complete hub of content for CrossFit. And I would just have a portal open to where, hey, you guys could just... If you're an outside creator and you want to send something in and you want to get it published here on CrossFit HQ, send it in. We're going to vet it. If it works for us, bam.

Now we're just going to post it up on there and just continue to grow and grow it. And by the way, some of you guys that are doing excellent work, we're going to start doing prizes. We're going to start handing out cash to you guys. We'll give you kickbacks if we publish your stuff onto our platform. And again, you would have some of the most amazing media coming out of it. Now ask yourself, Hey, how many of you creators out there are going to hop into an F45 gym and showcase your gym and tell us why people are there and tell us what the F45 has done for you? And you probably just get a bunch of crickets. It's nuts because most companies would absolutely kill for not only the talented creators that we have in the space that are doing this just out

of passion. I could tell you the majority of the media space is not like they're making big money going to these events, not like they're making big money bringing a camera into their gym. So they're just passionate about sharing not only their art, but also to showcasing it through CrossFit, which is what they love to do.

So if you were able to just utilize CrossFit as the hub, so all that content and you elevate yourself as the authority, meaning like, Oh, it's awesome. I really want to get onto the CrossFit main site. I'm going to go into the three surrounding affiliates closest to me because I'm a creator that loves CrossFit and wants to showcase my talents. And you would also create now this whole entire essentially resume for these creators. So then other people could start to utilize them in the space and everything else. But Bauer, too busy worrying about forging inclusive fitness to actually drive media where it needs to go.

And if you... Yeah, correct. And if you were able to use... Let's just call it the YouTube channel Azure Hub. The next thing that I would do there is as turn of the CrossFit Games is wherever I license it out to whatever place was running the CrossFit Games, I would make them run all of the streaming through my hub. And I would either charge the group that's licensing it to have advertisers or set up like a $9.99 a month membership or $19.99 a month membership or $39.99 a month membership to watch some of the streaming stuff when the games happens. And then you don't even have to worry too much about your partners. It almost just kind of crowdfunds itself there a little bit. The other thing too, is if you're taking a bunch of outside media and you're picking and choosing what you elevate by doing that and showcasing certain things,

you're also telling all the other creatives and people who are creating media what to do. Because they're going to go, Oh, okay. They made something that looked like that. Awesome. I'm going to do something with that same spirit or the same theme. So that way I get posted on there or I get credited or whatever. And we don't utilize the community enough. Same when it comes to the potential gym software or different stuff like that. My favorite thing was going into these gyms that have been around for 10, 15 years that have 500, gyms that have been around for 10, 15 years that have 500, 700 plus members and doing interviews with the people that run them. If you guys remember, there was an old series from CrossFit South Bronx, I think with David Orsorio, I think was his last name. He has a great gym there. It's super unique because they have two gyms, but it was across the street from each other at the time.

And literally, it was like one camera person and him with a whiteboard. And he was like, Yep, here's how I do my classes. Yep. Here's how I do this. Yep. Here's how I do that. And it was broken down into like a five video segment. If you just went to all the most successful CrossFit gyms that were doing it really well, that CrossFit HQ wanted to showcase, and you went there with one of your persons from the media media or you outsource one of these other awesome creatives to go and stick a camera in their face. And you ask them those questions. You could have this aggregate

of a bunch of successful affiliates showcasing and telling you what they do. And then for me as the affiliate owner, I could see that and go, oh man, I want to emulate Dave Asario. I want to emulate these other gym owners that do it really well. That's awesome. I'm going to use some of those ideas. And then you don't need to develop and

pay for a playbook. You could put a camera on one of the faces of people. Oh, and who'd you use? Oh, we used Two Brain Mentorship. Great. There's a link for it down at the bottom. If you guys want to do that, there you go. And then CrossFit just becomes this informational and media hub. And it's crazy to me that they wouldn't utilize more of the community. They peg it as like an us versus them. Oh no, you want access. You have to play by our rules. Or why would we give you access? Yeah, we're just going to spend more affiliate money to have 40 camera people point their lenses all at the first two people that are crossing the finish line. And we won't even see any of that produced. It makes no sense. I don't know how much they paid or if they paid or whatever they paid for that CrossFit documentary. But you remember that whole entire fucking

big group of people that were following everybody around and poor Tyson Oldroyd was trying to explain to them what CrossFit was as Oldroyd was trying to explain to them what CrossFit was as they're marching around trying to capture interviews. We haven't seen shit from that. Don't tell me you took a couple hundred grand of affiliate money and paid all these other media people.

I'm sure they're great. I'm sure they produce great work. But on your end, you guys can't execute shit. So you go and you spend that money. You get two or three things produced out of it. For what?

And you could have done that so much fucking cheaper. And it would have been better. It would have had more passion behind it because you're utilizing these awesome people that are, you know, die hard about this community and about CrossFit.

Because you're utilizing these awesome people that are, you know, die hard about this community and about CrossFit. Try to keep it even keeled. I'll balance it out. This week's less passion. Next week, we'll get all fired up again. Go and take on the world. I don't want videos from affiliate owners who aren't good standing with HQ, Sousa. There's always a member that's willing to make a video from their gym.

Always. Always, always, always. And there's always people like you, Jonathan, who are super talented, creative, that if the right contract or a couple of things were thrown your way, you would go travel to a couple of gyms within a reasonable destination from where you are and make me a handful of videos or testimony or things that we wanted to run. Lots of other people, man. And the crazy part about that too is no other... F45 and stuff like that, they don't nearly have anybody, especially not at the magnitude that we have at CrossFit. It's so unique in the testimonies and

all this other stuff that's coming out of what we do as the CrossFit community. And yet we just kind of sit on our hands. New CrossFit, F45, Orange Theory, and others outsource them to marketing firms, businesses running 101 by the numbers. Yeah, 100%, Bernie. You're absolutely right. Because if I just outsource it, I could just say, what's the budget? Oh, we got 100 bucks. Okay. Pay them 80 bucks to get it done. Oh, did it work? Then it didn't. Okay, well, whatever.

We'll just move on from that. It's nuts. Meredith, we do know that CrossFit HQ, do we know that CrossFit HQ paid for the upcoming doc? I thought it was produced independent of the mothership. I don't know. I hope they didn't. Fuck, if they did, are you kidding me?

I hope it was completely for free. Somebody spent some money to do that and nothing has been produced from it. So I hope. Patrick Carr, they grabbed the wrong outlets when they did that. Then when the purge happened, they lost contact and the relationships built.

Probably. Probably get them back though. Oh, I miss the goodge happened, they lost contact and the relationships built. Probably. Probably get them back though. Oh, I miss the good old days, Olivia. Oh, I miss the good old days of CrossFit content. Fitness Lonnie was my favorite. He made it so much fun. Also, Sivan. Yeah.

My view, my affiliate has their renewal in a few months. The price increase has yet to fully play out. Yeah, me too. Mine's not due till December. Mine's not due till December. Somebody else said something out here that was like, yeah. And we said, oh yeah, Jake. Jake said it. And here we are still paying them. Yes and no. We are still paying them. Yes and no. Yes and no. That's to be determined in December.

The answer seems pretty obvious. Create a new rebel organization. Yep. Yep. Pretty obvious. Little rebel. The rebels. The CrossFit rebels.

Couldn't use the word CrossFit. All right. That's all I got to say about that. I wanted just to share that video of Greg before you guys. I thought you would appreciate kind of, I mean, that video was filmed back in 2012 and the mindset of Greg and how he viewed the position of CrossFit HQ in the ecosystem. And it's something that I hope, uh, uh, we'll get back to at some point. Who knows? Uh, you aren't,

you tend to say it per the L one handbook. Yeah. Can't say it. We're going to, uh, get back after it next week I got some cool stuff guys here so go

over now to coffee page just got stuff hello Matt sent ya hello Matt sent ya all the hos yep yep Franco dude my L2 was Hello, Matt sent you. All the NGOs. Yep. Yep.

Franco, dude, my L2 was blind and it was both L2 at the moment. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. My signal is shit. I think it's been shitty this whole time. It showed just one bar in my Wi-Fi deal and I just tried to ignore it, although it was bothering me pretty bad. Susan, next week, can you talk on getting contracts with Fire Etc? Yeah, we could do that. Is Matt a robot? Unfortunately, I don't think so. CrossFit will become common usage like UFC does not own MMA.

CrossFit won't be able to hold the use of their name exclusively as a brand. Interesting. Interesting. Alright, guys. Go check out Coffee Pods and Wads. See you later. Sorry, my signal was shit. Adios. Goodbye.