re: CrossFit HQ/Glassman getting hammered

I mean good damn man, how much harm can you do to your own damn business? Is he that self absorbed?

No doubt Floyd was a POS, but no man in handcuffs on the ground should be killed by the police like that and as the owner of a business like that, you have to know too just shut the frick up.

If he had said it's not CrossFit's place to comment on it, would have been fine and many would have understood considering the amount of police and first responders that are crossfitters.

Always heard stories about how self absorbed a-hole he was, but never knew he was that tone deaf.

Castro is just a new face

Greg still owns the company

quote:

---

Addition by subtraction, even if the addition is Castro

---

There was no subtraction. They just moved the integers.

2+3=5
To
3+2=5

From CrossFit HQ: Why did CrossFit not say anything?

quote:

---

Why Did Greg Say That?

Greg Glassman founded CrossFit and is responsible for delivering a life-changing and paradigm-altering truth. The methodology he created provides an elegant solution to the problem of chronic disease ravaging our world today. He is passionately focused on that message and its implications. He relentlessly attacks those who dilute or deny essential truths.

That does not excuse the fact that Greg’s statements were incredibly insensitive and hurtful. Please accept our deepest apology for contributing to the pain and confusion permeating our community — a community we love and respect for its vibrancy, strength of spirit, and diversity.

The Community

CrossFit is a collection of many voices. Though we have never spoken to you with this degree of candor outside the realm of fitness and health, we are taking the step to do that now.

CrossFit affiliates, trainers, athletes, and other members of this community have shouldered the burdens and reaped the benefits that come with sharing in CrossFit’s life-changing message.

Over the years, we have not always communicated with the community on time. We have not functioned like other organizations, and the affiliates have had to trust us in some impossible moments. This time we asked for too much patience from our community. And recently, when the world was already under incredible pressure, we were not there for you online. We were not there for you in our communications.

We Publish the Truth

We pride ourselves on authenticity and truth, but we got it wrong by failing to tell you we really care about black people and support the need for real change.

We weren’t sure how to get the message right, and as a result, we failed catastrophically by not effectively communicating care for the Black community, all as the online world was watching and experiencing extreme pain.

We, the members of CrossFit HQ, have failed to meet a moment when the community wanted to hear from us most. For that, we extend our deepest and sincerest apologies. We are sorry.

The online community is passionate and powerful. It reflects a collection of thoughts, ideas, moments, and interests. It forges deep connections, unity, profound division, and everything in between. We know this community comprises an active and vocal population as well as an equally silent but vigilant cohort that has been waiting patiently. It is a great responsibility and honor to serve as its stewards and defenders.

The Truth

The Black community is hurting around the globe. The community called upon us to speak, and we improperly answered. That was a mistake. We heard you and got in our own way while trying to figure out how to convey our message truthfully without following a trend, shaming, or creating division.

We Support Diversity and Inclusion

It is rare for us to speak on these types of issues. We struggled the past few weeks because we allowed our desire to get it right to paralyze us. Tackling social justice issues of this magnitude is not our strength as a company, because our varied points of view sometimes devolve into dysfunction. But we can agree on two things: We are a team dedicated to fitness and health. This team is anti-racist. Therefore, we are committed to scrutinizing ourselves internally, continuing to listen to the community, and taking actions in support of change.

Greg believes in equality. Greg made a mistake. His communications will have to be reconciled with the person we know. He is being put on trial online, and we challenge you to be thorough in your review of a man who is imperfect but sincere in his love of helping others to become better while creating opportunities for others to do the same. He does make mistakes, but he has done more than anyone for this community and created unimagined opportunities for others. If you measure Greg Glassman, do it thoroughly.

But none of this has any bearing on the need for reform, reconciliation, and change.

Why Were We Silent?

As a team, we do not see eye to eye on every issue. We have internal disagreements on the nuances of everything you see published online. We aim for the truth. We are highly critical of ourselves, at times to our detriment.

We struggled to speak to the Black community because we overly complicated the need to care and respond. The same scrutiny we bring to assembling an article on CrossFit.com is not needed for telling the Black community we love them and we support them. We have not properly done the work to make it clear that you are welcome and wanted in this community.

The Black Community Is Strong

We care about black lives in every respect and in every aspect of society. That means we support the black police officer who upholds justice, like retired officer David Dorn, as strongly as we cannot stand for the injustice George Floyd faced two weeks ago. Both truths are possible and can coexist.

Speaking Outside of Fitness

How do you speak effectively, accurately, and authentically to a community you love so much when what’s at stake is the possibility of irreparable division?

We still do not know.

But this team will continue to pour its heart out in service of the community. We are flawed, we make mistakes, but we are pure in our intentions, and we will continue to engage in rigorous self-examination and self-betterment, because we owe you that much and so much more.

Social Media Has Incredible Potential

Social platforms are powerful, and the activity on them can amplify unity and contribute to meaningful change. Or it can polarize and divide. That power should be respected. The platform provides a permanent record of momentary thoughts and evolving beliefs as well as grave mistakes and wrongdoings — often while offering no clues that would allow one to distinguish between the two. Human interaction allows for more context and candor. Both types of interaction should be properly respected and valued. We must respect our responsibility to both forms of communication and be accountable to those who trust us.

We Are Strong Together

Despite our many disagreements, we are unified in the most important areas. We stand against racism. The valuing and antagonism of another human based on race is abhorrent and wrong. It is not welcome here. We stand against injustice. We were collectively traumatized as we witnessed the murder of George Floyd. His murder was inhuman and wrong.

This Message Is Late, Long, and Imperfect

This is the message we should have sent to the community we love. We know we are too late, but here we stand. Please review this apology and take a moment to pause, reflect, and digest what we have said. Our team sees the decisions being made in reaction to our founder’s actions as part of the healing process that is much needed for many around the world. However, we want to reach out to all who may be willing to forgive us as we work through an internal acknowledgement of our faults and find a way forward that allows for true healing and repair. For some, the break may be irreparable. We understand and wish you well regardless. We’re going to do what we can to be better with the hope of building a better world on the other side of this.

---

The idiots running this brand have torpedoed it

No wonder so many people at HQ left in the last week

They had been working with idiots

Bunch of the top athletes are now saying they won’t be competing in CrossFit branded events until Greg is out

Apparently Andy Stumpf talked about the toxic culture at HQ on his podcast

He’s got a really good weekly podcast

I had no idea he was in that circle but it makes sense being a SEAL with Castro

Good read on what is happening...

quote:

---

“I don’t think the 1,000 or so affiliates who’ve left are buying the changes in place, and I don’t think a single one of them will come back,” says LoFranco. “They left because they were fed up.”

---

quote:

---

Saenz, who’s Mexican-American, always maintained a wary eye about his partnership with CrossFit, in part because it’s “unfortunately, in general, a white-person sport,” and the community of gym members in Oak Cliff is far more diverse than other affiliates

---

quote:

---

Many gyms have built up strong ties with their members—some of whom originally joined because of the CrossFit brand, but will now have no issue keeping their functional fitness routines under a different banner or name.

---

CrossFit's Brand Was Everything. Now That It's Toxic, What's Left?

quote:

---

Most people bitched about it. So how else will you diversify it?

---

He was just trying to expand the reach WW by adding in National Champs. He knew that 95% of these athletes would be cut after event 1.

It had nothing to do with diversity and everything to do with $$.

I agree it was about money. But it brought people to compete in the games from all over the world which did diversify the competition.

I'll ask again. How do you diversify crossfit? The workouts, weights, rower, bike, etc. aren't favorable to one skin color over another. You can't allocate "x" number of spots based on ethnicity if you are truly looking to find the fittest person on Earth.

Margaux Alvarez had a blog post where she says she had been trying to get investors together to buy CrossFit from Glassman prior to this shite hitting the fan.

quote:

---

I was trying to BUY CF. Before I talk about how I was raising money to purchase the company, this would have been my first move if successful

Break up the company into three different companies.

CrossFit HQ

CrossFit Games

Media

With the recent article released by the NYT "CrossFit Owner Fostered Sexist Company Culture workers say," it looks like we are barely scratching the surface on the owner's past ways.

I hoped to buy the company because I was ready to implement several strategies that would drive cash flow through a variety of revenue streams.

The strategic plan would start first by earning the trust of the community. The doors would be wide open for any gyms ready to come back with an understanding they would be buying into a franchise model. I would work with the media team to produce content upon content that features members of the community along with daily workouts like those I offer on my youtube channel.

The goal of the 4-hour media channel would air Mon-Fri and would cover the need for fitness and nutrition more intently. The channel would showcase the hard work and amazing stories of the community daily. We have seen how engaged our community is, so our goal would be to provide that media. We would have also included coverage on fitness competitions on Saturday and Sunday in an attempt to increase viewership and potentially find more advertisement money.

We would have also created our own advertisement campaigns to drive more foot traffic to local boxes to help the affiliates get more memberships. If we are interested in improving the health initiative, our badly bruised image needs help, which will take a lot of national visibility. This campaign will consume a lot of money, but necessary to help earn the trust of the affiliates and mend our image.

All affiliate fees would have been placed on hold to give our boxes some space during the plague to recoup some money, and all expired Level 1's would find an extension of two years.

A franchise model would move us forward, where our payment model would place a 2.0% charge on all credit card transactions, which would compensate for the payment of franchise fees. The franchise plan would still allow the gyms to run how they choose as long as they met the highest standards of our organization, but we would control merchandise creation. Purchasing accessory merchandise and supplements in bulk would allow us to decrease our production cost and help cover the franchise fees and media coverage.

For struggling gyms who are over-leveraged on credit, we would provide loans with 6% interest to give some room for any projects requiring capital, such as equipment or construction design. The payment plan would also be paid back through the POS we created, and the loans would be based on gym memberships instead of credit. We would work with the affiliate to run a more efficient business strategy, and failure to pay or keep up with loan payments would require mentorship from a local gym that could buy that brand if they fall behind and are unable to repay.

Community centers would be a huge goal that would serve at-risk youths who live in underprivileged regions. We would start with Oakland, Las Vegas, Baltimore, and Chicago and create a system that would not only teach these kids the world of fitness, entrepreneurship, business, budgeting taxes, and nutrition and farming. These community centers would also allow for working-age kids to make an income on the ideas and companies and brands they create. This real time understanding would show them how margins are formed and what is left when all your costs and taxes are paid.

We would also look at yearly incentive bonuses to the community as a whole from 2-5 % depending of our success that year.

This strategy is the first part of my vision, and I will discuss the ideas I have in the next blog about the Media and the Games. In my plans for the Games, I feel that Dave Castro and the athletes should be rewarded for all they have done for this space, especially Dave. He, in my opinion, challenged us as hard as we were, and he is why we kept pushing our boundaries yearly. I'm lucky to call him a friend, and I would love to see him as the owner of the Games at one point.

I felt last year the owner of CF might have felt threatened the Games were outgrowing HQ, and in my mind, this is a big reason why the Media team was fired and why we heard him referencing us as the kid's table. I always felt these decisions were coming from the ego, more so than the health initiative he spoke of. Primarily, because it never made sense in today's time where visibility is king, how you can fire a media company creating such great content when you are about to go to war with such big industries like big Pharma and Sugar. I didn't understand it, but I digress.

I woke up today after a fun day wine tasting yesterday in Paso Robles and read the NYT article. The article mentioned an offer of 50 million dollars placed by his ex-wife, who is interested in buying the company. I knew at that moment, all the conversations with investment firms in Dallas, Boston, and New York and all the conversations with friends who are still invested heavily with information hit a roadblock. In my mind, there are now two interested parties who are going to drive the price up, and I am sure there are more than two interested parties. I'm sure there are talks right now in Tennessee, San Diego, Florida, and Boston. There are investment firms that understand the potential of CF, IF it is run right.

After hearing all the egregious stories of his alleged behavior, I would have a hard time paying him more than 25 million dollars. While he was a great salesman, the truth is, we all created this. Every box owner, staff member, employee, media crew, lawyer, and athlete were all responsible for this. I understand there are times you have to sever your arm to keep the body alive in certain situations, and this could be the point many of you reading would balk at me at paying him at all or stating how he deserves all he gets. I just couldn't see myself paying him more than 25 million dollars if the community didn't somehow get something as well.

The investors were intrigued, and this wasn't a bring me a business plan situation, as my wine business gets; this was a direct call with people that could write a check. Conversations with people that understood the niche is attractive and also cheap the more he speaks out.

Still, I would have met my limit at 25 million dollars to him, if an additional 25 million dollars went to the community. I know there is a better chance of the Mayan calendar being correct on its prediction than that man ever agreeing to something like that. So I knew it was time for me to get back to my wine business and raising money for the community centers I want to create.

I saw this day coming last year, which is why I distanced myself as far as I could from him to protect my brand and wine company. I grieved in 2019, I cried and said goodbye. I didn't coach the seminars for the money. I worked the seminars because I got to meet such amazing people, and I heard amazing stories of why CF was essential to them.

---