The sky is falling!

The sky is falling and CrossFit is dying. Or is it?

Social media would have you believe that CrossFit has been dying for years and 2023 was the final nail in the coffin. 

But is that what the numbers actually say?

Is CrossFit dying, or is this just hype to get the fitness industry in a tizzy over nothing?

In this article, I explore the several claims I’ve seen in the news and all over YouTube prophesying the doom of one of the most successful companies the fitness world has ever known. I’ll approach this topic from two angles – one focused on the CrossFit Games and the other on CrossFit affiliates.

Let’s start with the CrossFit Games.

CrossFit Games

Where did this idea that CrossFit is dead start?

Well for that we have to turn to one of the most popular CrossFit businesses, CrossFit Mayhem, owned by CrossFit star Rich Froning.

It seems to have all started with a letter from CrossFit Mayhem titled, “CrossFit is Over.” No doubt a pretty bleak statement for one of the most recognizable names in the business to make.

According to the letter, the basis for this assertion is the decline in Google searches for the term “CrossFit” in 2023 and the fact more CrossFit gyms are closing their doors than opening. Viewed in isolation this sounds pretty bad.

Factor in dozens of YouTube videos, mostly citing Google Trends as the primary source of CrossFit’s decline, and now everyone in the CrossFit community is talking about the death of their favorite past time.

But let’s explore.

The first issue with the Games is viewership.

To be fair CrossFit is still a fringe sport. As the Morning Chalk Up pointed out, when compared to other less established sports like professional bull riding or the WNBA (sorry ladies), viewership of the games is similar, around 600k in 2022.

It’s not really fair to directly compare the CrossFit Games to something like the Super Bowl, the largest televised event annually, or MLB, which has been known as America’s favorite past time for over a hundred years.

But what about comparing the CrossFit Games to itself? Well, that’s difficult too due to the fact CrossFit has bounced around from various levels of ESPN to CBS, to some other stuff over the years. 

Let’s assume viewership has in fact decreased.

Well, now we can compare trends in MLB, Football, and CrossFit, when not comparing them directly to each other.

According to SportsPro Media, World Series viewership dropped a whopping 23% from 2022 to 2023. According to Neilson data (reported by Vox news), the NFL has experienced a moderate but consistent decline in viewers since 2015. 

This appears to be symptomatic of a wider trend in which people just aren’t watching as much cable TV any more. 

But what about live attendance?

From 2008 – 2022 the NFL has held steady with in-person attendance numbers, even increasing to a new high in 2022, according to Statista. It will be curious to see the statistics following 2023 when most families in the U.S. started tightening the purse strings. But we’ll get more into the economic effect on sports, including CrossFit, below.

According to CrossFit.com, attendance is generally around 14,000 people each day (through 2022). However, I have not found the numbers for 2023. It will be interesting to see if the numbers have gone down.

In the absence of that data, it does not seem possible to say the CrossFit Games are dying based on a drop in viewership and unclear attendance data. The drop in remote viewing seems to correspond with the general decline in TV viewership across the board. 

But doesn’t it just feel like less people are less interested in the Games?

Here’s we get into the anecdotal, touchy/feely side of the CrossFit Games and public perception.

Yes, it does feel like fewer people are interested. There doesn’t seem to be as much reporting or social media coverage as there once was surrounding the games. It doesn’t feel like CrossFit athletes are on every other major podcast lately. 

This may or may not be accurate. But the feeling is there.

I believe this is what I’m deeming the “Tom Brady Effect.”

Dynasties are good for sports. Whether it’s individuals or teams, fans love, and love to hate, dynasties. 

Tom Brady and the Patriots are that dynasty for the NFL.

The Yankees for MLB. 

Lebron and the Lakers for NBA.

And Matt Frasier, Rich Froning, and Tia-Clair Toomey for CrossFit.

The list goes on. 

When you have someone like Tom Brady, or Matt Frasier for that matter, fans are more than ready to hop on the bandwagon with each big win. And countless others are ready to tune in just to watch these people lose.

So, when Tom Brady, Rich Froning, or Matt Frasier retire you get a lull. A big, sad, touchy/feely lull that the network desperately fills with constant coverage of a certain pop star to generate buzz (good and bad).

The CrossFit Lull

The CrossFit Games is going through something similar. They were fortunate in that immediately after Froning retired from individual competition, Matt Frasier and Tia-Clair Toomey took up the mantle. With Frasier retired and Toomey taking the last year off, CrossFit feels like it’s lacking in name recognition. If Justin Medeiros had won a third year in a row it might have generated some more interest, but that wasn’t the case.

In the absence of a dynasty, competition helps. People loved rooting for their favorite “Dóttir” on the women’s side of CrossFit. Head to head competition between two stars battling it out is great for media regardless of the sport. But with the popular Dóttirs and Toomey retiring or nearing retirement, there is a void on the ladies side as well.

There is also a generational issue at hand. CrossFit was widely adopted by millennials and the top Games competitors typically fit within that generational category. And as the millennials retire from professional sports in general, there is a vacuum occurring for Gen Z stars to emerge. But it hasn’t happened yet, at least not in CrossFit. Many industries are struggling to pull in Gen Z. From the armed forces to the trades, CrossFit is not alone in attracting a younger crowd.

That goes double for the affiliates.

From the sound of Mayhem’s letter, the youngsters aren’t knocking down the box doors.

CrossFit Affiliates

There are several circumstantial reasons the CrossFit affiliates are experiencing challenges right now.

Economy

It’s no secret that the average American’s purchasing power has suffered over the last year. Inflation and sweeping price hikes across industry has caused many to cut back on luxury items. And compared to the cost of the average globo gym like Planet Fitness, CrossFit is very much a luxury item. 

The average monthly cost of a CrossFit gym membership is around $186 a month on the East coast and upwards of $250 on the West coast. That’s a pretty penny even in good times. Spend more than a minute on social media and you’ll find no shortage of millennials and Gen Z discussing the difficulty of buying groceries or paying rent, let alone a $250 per month expense to workout. 

I was faced with the same decision several years ago. Pay for a CrossFit membership or get a cheaper gym membership and save every penny I had to pay for my student loans. Like many, I chose to save.

Rental Space

The gym ownership side of things doesn’t look much better. The cost in retail rental space is increasing like everything else.  So CrossFit, like many businesses, is forced with a decision. Maintain the current price point. Lower it to attract more customers. Or, raise the membership fees to maintain margins and cover increases in operating costs. It seems like most businesses have opted for the third option. So, it would not surprise me if we see box memberships go up in 2024.

But once again, CrossFit is not alone in this fact. What seems to be happening to CrossFit, is actually the same thing happening to many businesses right now.

“Right-Sizing”

No business in the history of business has experienced perpetual linear profit progression.

Here’s a current example from another industry. For nearly 15 years META, formally Facebook, enjoyed constant user growth year over year, which coincided with positive earnings statements quarter after quarter. Then, one day in 2022, META stock holders awoke to the biggest devaluation of a company in market history. Over $200 billion lost in a single day according to Investopedia.

Everyone said they were dying too.

A year later the stock has bounced back to over $350 per share at the time of this writing, following changes in company leadership, a rebranding, and of course, thousands of layoffs.

In corporate America, this is not so affectionately called “right-sizing.” A term used to describe the harsh reality that no one grows exponentially forever. Amazon, Twitter,  Etsy, and others also laid off large swaths of their workforces to right size as inflation crept in on profit margins. 

This is purely based on opinion, but I suspect CrossFit is going through something similar. You can’t grow forever. Eventually things will level out. Whether or not they stay level or continue past that point of right sizing straight into the tank is still to be determined.

Politics and Social Issues

I will only touch on this briefly because I am not a political commentator and this is not a political website. But politics are relevant to discussions of corporate branding in 2024.

According to a 2023 Gallup poll,

“Americans are divided about whether businesses should take a public stance on political and social issues, with 48% believing they should and 52% saying they should not.

Younger adults are more likely than older adults to believe businesses should take a stance: 59% of those aged 18 to 29 think as much, compared with 51% of those aged 30 to 44, 41% of those aged 45 to 59, and 43% of those aged 60 and older.”

As companies seek to attract a younger audience, it’s no surprise corporate leadership has felt obligated to make comments on political and social issues. What most companies haven’t realized despite numerous examples of the consequences, there is no winning in this game of political commentary. Regardless of the validity or well-intentioned (or not so well-intentioned in some cases) stance of the company, it will attract backlash from half of the population (minimum). Former CrossFit CEO Greg Glassman found that out the hard way. 

CrossFit isn’t the first company to experience a public division between its workers and its leadership over a political or social issue. And it won’t be the last. But Glassman’s comments led to a domino effect of affiliates rejecting the CEO, which resulted in Glassman resigning his position.

Internal division is never good for business. 

The memory of this situation seems to be fading. But perhaps it does seem to coincide with the timing of the perception that “CrossFit is dying.”

Competition

All good ideas drive competition. CrossFit enjoyed very few serious competitors in its sub-niche of the fitness world over the last several years. But give it enough time and more than a few competitors will pop up. And in 2024, Hyrox appears to be that competition.

According to Hyrox.com, “HYROX combines both running & functional workout stations, where participants run 1km, followed by 1 functional workout station, repeated eight times.”

Not surprisingly, one of the first groups to adopt Hyrox was CrossFitters. And just like people use both TikTok and Instagram, it seems like Hyrox and CrossFit could be mutually beneficial to one another in the long run.

Spartan’s Deka also offers a similar option directed at the OCR crowd. 

DEKA is the, “Decathlon of Functional Fitness. It consists of indoor fitness competitions and motivational training programs designed for ALL levels.”

It doesn’t seem to have taken off as much as Spartan races, but its attracted a growing community.

There’s a litany of other functional fitness brands popping up every day. GORUCK, Tactical Games, etc. all scratch the same itch for the type of person interested in CrossFit-type workouts.

Functional fitness enthusiasts and hybrid athletes of all sorts have options now. And some of those options may draw prospective CrossFit athletes to other places. 

The Good

So, is CrossFit dying?

There are still several things CrossFit has going for it.

1. Despite declining Google searches, CrossFit is still one of the most widely recognized fitness brands in the world. With over 13,000 CrossFit affiliates worldwide, there are still plenty of people who enjoy going to their local box. 

2. CrossFit offers a welcoming and supportive environment to new and existing members. The value of this can’t be understated. People enjoy doing physically challenging things together.

3. The majority of the population doesn’t want to be bodybuilders, or powerlifters, or professional athletes. Your average CrossFit enthusiast doesn’t have time to spend hours in the gym and understandably gets bored by traditional strength and conditioning routines. CrossFit offered a solution for people who didn’t have any specific goals other than improving their general fitness and sticking to some form of physical activity. Quick ever changing workouts done with a supportive group of peers appealed to so many people for that reason.

4. Just because there is a lull in Games superstars doesn’t mean it will last forever. When Jordan retired, Koby was just getting started. Its taken a few years but now Mahomes seems to be getting the Brady treatment. And CrossFit will find a replacement for Fraiser, Froning, Toomey, and all the others who have enjoyed CrossFit stardom.

5. Competition is out there now, but its not necessarily a bad thing. Competition can drive innovation. With the increase in popularity of things like Hyrox and Deka and whatever else pops up in the next few years, it will force CrossFit to adapt or go by way of the Dodo, Blockbuster, and Toys R’ Us.

The Bad

Though Google search  numbers aren’t the whole story, they are relevant in the modern era. I’m hesitant to say one factor represents the end of a popular company, but it does appear that young people are currently less interested in the workout of the day. Until CrossFit finds a Gen Z star of Frasier proportions, this trend may continue.

There is a personality factor that goes into the Tom Brady Effect. Simply winning is not enough. People like to see pure domination. They like to listen to their favorite athletes be interviewed on their favorite podcasts. They want a glimpse into their training, diets, and lifestyles. And it seems like CrossFit hasn’t found that star for the next generation…yet.

One YouTuber offers some insight into CrossFit’s struggle in this area. Amanda Hari explains how she once checked CrossFit’s YouTube page regularly to see what new content was being shared. But she has seen a notable decline in new, fresh content lately. Instead, she explains, CrossFit is re-sharing events from several years ago, perhaps in an effort to remind those of its glory days? But at least in the world of YouTube commentary it seems, at best, to annoy the longterm fans, and at worst, failed to attract new enthusiasts.

Depending where the economy goes in the next few years, it is possible that high end monthly costs like a CrossFit membership will be the first thing to go for people struggling to make ends meet. When daily life exceeds the income of the average CrossFitter, I just can’t see people continuing to pay hundreds of dollars a month for a CrossFit class. But who knows? There are always a few businesses that manage to experience record breaking profits even in the worst of times.

Conclusion

So, is it fair to say CrossFit is dying? I don’t think so. Not yet at least. CrossFit is still very much alive, but wounded. Wounded by circumstance and by its own making. Whether or not it’s current lull is in fact a death blow is TBD. 

At the end of the day, CrossFit has made a lasting impression on the fitness world. Workouts like “Murph” have transcended the CrossFit realm and entered into popular culture. People who have never done CrossFit rock NOBULLS and say the word WOD when referring to a workout. Everyday someone leaves their local gym to try their first CrossFit class. 

It may feel like CrossFit is not as prevalent as it once was, but the mark it’s left over the last twenty years won’t be erased over night.

For more CrossFit content, check out Outdoor Muscle’s CrossFit hub. Make sure to like and subscribe to the YouTube Channel for the latest in strength and conditioning and high protein nutrition.