S03E109 Navigating the CrossFit Games Future In the Wake of Castro's Comeback
Does the future of CrossFit Games hinge on one man, again? Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic discuss the controversial figure of Dave Castro returning to the helm, bringing potential change and turmoil within the CrossFit community. We tackle the contentious issues head-on, discussing the impact of Castro's leadership style on the structure of the CrossFit Games and the potential effect upon sponsorships and media accessibility.
Are we seeing the dawn of a new era or a return to past controversies? Has Dave Castro grown and changed, or are we back to the old school CrossFit style of management? We analyze his past decisions and consider if they have left a permanent mark on CrossFit. We also explore the potential of adjusting to a new fiscal infrastructure under his leadership, which could drastically change the way the Games are managed and produced. From the issues surrounding broadcasted workouts and the potential demise of Open announcements at boxes, we examine all aspects of what the future might hold for CrossFit.
What new ideas could be brought to the Games? We discuss the potential of introducing new but controversial concepts to the Games, such as the larger embrace of social media, inclusion of fantasy sports, and even gambling. Join us as we break down this seemingly never-ending tumult in the world of CrossFit corporate and the Games, providing a nuanced take on the current state, potential changes, and the dynamic leadership at its helm.
@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness
00:00:00 The State of CrossFit
00:13:10 Changes in CrossFit Games and Sponsorships
00:17:58 Role and Controversy of Dave Castro
00:31:01 Concerns About Dave Castro's Leadership Style
00:37:45 Evaluating the Future of CrossFit Games
S03E109 Navigating the CrossFit Games Future In the Wake of Castro's Comeback
[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: All right. Welcome back to the Her Fit podcast. I am coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with my co-host, doctor and coach, Sam Rhee. Uh, because of our order of operations, when we're gonna be releasing things, this will be the first episode since Sam has been back from his. Family vacation overseas. And he just got done doing Karen, uh, a couple hours ago now.
And it's how you feeling soreness at all
[00:00:20] Sam Rhee: yet? Uh, very and, uh, recommendation. Don't do it like two days after you get
[00:00:27] David Syvertsen: back from a 13 hour flight. Yeah. Sitting at a plane. Yeah. So all you Thursday morning is that, are you gonna get coached by him doing Karen on Thursday? Just know that he did that workout for you.
All right? He did that so that he can coach you guys. Better through that workout and don't crap
[00:00:40] Sam Rhee: on my time. It was a really bad, I'll tell you guys what it is later, but not, not
[00:00:43] David Syvertsen: right now. We won't write it on a whiteboard, uh, but we want to kind of dive into the current state of CrossFit right now. It's something that we've done a few different times over the couple years that we've been running this podcast.
Um, a because we've had, you know, 10 different CEOs in, in that time span. Um, but we've also seen Dave Castro get fired, then he got rehired. We've done episodes on Dave Castro himself. Because he's been such a, a talking point for CrossFit, the CrossFit community being fired and being brought back. And now he just recently, um, was hired as the director of the CrossFit Games as they fired Justin Berg and.
Justin Berg is, I don't wanna say we have a personal relationship with him, but he was at Bison for the announcement. He took us out to dinner the night before the announcement and, and gave a nice little talk to everyone that was there and said some really nice things about us. I had a couple good conversations with him and, you know, a, you hate to see someone lose their job.
He worked out with us the day after too. He did, he did. He actually came and did 23.2 with the 6:00 AM class. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah. Um, very tall guy needed a very, the high pull up bar for, for that burpee pull up workout. Uh, but you know, it was, you never like to see someone lose their job and we're not gonna pretend to know all the inner workings of what happened.
Uh, we did hear that the cross of games lost a lot of money, um, over the past year, I think it was. And even with the semifinals. And we'll get into that, um, on the limited knowledge that we do have that, you know, the numbers just were not there. And it is an. Enormously expensive production. Um, even just watching what went down here for the announcement, multiply that by a million for the games and then also the semi-finals that are all over the world that they're very involved with.
So finances were part of it, uh, but bringing some life back to the games and bringing back the og, the founder Dave Castro. Sam, were you overseas when the announcement was made? Yes. Okay, so I read, I saw it. How did you find out about it? I,
[00:02:45] Sam Rhee: uh, read about
[00:02:46] David Syvertsen: it on social media. Screen. Screen time before bed.
That's right. Yes.
[00:02:50] Sam Rhee: Instead of sleeping, I was sitting there scrolling on my phone. I was like, oh, look at this morning. Chalk up, announced on their Instagram feed that Justin Berg is out and Dave Castro's in. And then I listen to a couple podcasts and. You know, this is the way we really, we'll talk about it in the future, but social media, like CrossFit and social media are just like intertwined that I get all my stuff for CrossFit from social media.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, and it's a weird way of learning about events. It is, and it's, it is special or not special, but I, it does resonate a little differently because we were part of the open announcements last, uh, this past year. Yep. And we did see upfront and personal how expensive it was. Mm-hmm. Like it was, It was really a lot of money I could see for them to have this whole event coming in.
And it just did make a lot of sense to me, unfortunately, because it, it was really expensive. I could see how maybe they didn't make. A lot of money, or like you said, the financials were really bad. Mm-hmm. Um, I really seem, I really liked Justin Berg. I thought he was a great guy. He was an OG CrossFit guy.
He's been there for a long time. Former affiliate owner. Yes. And, uh, he was part of seminar staff for a real long time. Mm-hmm. And, There is some controversy about Dave Castro coming back and also, and I know we'll talk about it, but just all the changes, like this is like, it seems like the hits just keep on coming.
[00:04:09] David Syvertsen: No, I I, I keep thinking that same thing too. I was, I can, it's funny how my memory works. I can remember where I was driving when I had this original thought. And I'm thinking is part of the CrossFit model, specifically the CrossFit games model, to just have this dramatic change every single year so that we are like, let's see how it goes.
Let's see what's different. I'm gonna be so intrigued to see if the games are different now that Castro's involved, but now he's back in for the full calendar year. Next year, maybe next year will be different. Maybe he'll go back to programming the games. I know that's not probably their thought, but. The it, you can.
There have been so many changes from taking regionals away to different ways of qualifying for the games and semi-finals and sanctional, CrossFits involved. CrossFits not involved. Same programming, different programming. Every year there's like this massive change that affects the athletes. It affects the boxes.
It affects us athletes that don't make the games, but we're still kind of in the competitive scene. It affects our programming here. I'll be honest about that. And at what point are, do you run out of changes and at what point can we, the CrossFit community, really look at CrossFit, hq, Castro, Don Fall Austin, and say, Hey, you guys gotta get your shit together.
There
[00:05:28] Sam Rhee: is so much instability. I mean, I think. Or a lack of stability that has been surrounded with CrossFit. I mean, Don Fall has been CEO for a year. Yeah. Less than a year, right around the game. Yeah. Last year. Yeah. They've had eight major executive changes. I, I count, uh, saw someone report this in two years.
I mean, think about how many different CEOs they've had. Dave Castro was CEO for literally like a month. Mm-hmm. The, like you said, all the changes with the games. I mean Okay. With the Covid and everything, they had to make changes. Right, right, right, right. But like there is no stability whatsoever and, and I'm on the outside looking in.
If I was an athlete competing in the games, I would say, What the F is going on here. Right. And I would be very frustrated and I would actually question, um, the viability of, of the games. Where's the growth going to come from? Where, how is CrossFit doing? They just laid off a bunch of people too. What is going on?
I would be scared on some level, uh, to know what, how viable is CrossFit and CrossFit
[00:06:32] David Syvertsen: sport at this point. Right. And it's funny to me, With all these changes at the top, it really, it doesn't affect the affiliate much. Not everyone agrees with that. I'm a part of a lot of different groups of affiliate owners, and a lot of them do think that they don't get enough support or their, their small business is struggling because CrossFit HQ is doing X, Y, and z.
I don't, I don't really go down that path. I just got done telling someone. I was like, it doesn't affect us if Castro's back or not. It just doesn't. It's cool. I love Castro. I'm pro Castro and all, and I'll get into why. Um, but honestly, when he left, nothing happened at Bison. When he comes back, nothing's gonna happen at bison.
So I'm not worried about us at bison. I'd be worried if I worked for CrossFit. Yes. Like if I was, if my employment was coming from CrossFit hq, I'd be worried because, like you said, the, the word is instability. It just does not exist there. So let me ask you a question. Did Justin Berg have a shot? Did he have a fair shot when Fall brought?
Uh, when Don Fall brought back Dave Castro.
[00:07:33] Sam Rhee: I think it was a numbers game, like you said. I think they looked at the money spent and they said, this is insane. Look at how much we just blew on semi-finals. Look at what we did on the open. Look what we're gonna be spending on the games. And I think Fall is under the gun.
Mm-hmm. He's there are in Invest Investors. Yes. In CrossFit. And he needs to be able to show viability. Maybe they want to take CrossFit public, uh, and you know, have an I P O or something. I, I feel like a lot of this is money related. Mm-hmm. And he had to show. I am making significant changes to make CrossFit viable.
I think that's why they laid off a crap load of people. I think that's why he fired. He lit, I believe Justin Berg was fired and I,
[00:08:16] David Syvertsen: yeah, that there is some speculation there that like, I think that wording was that. Don't think the word mutuals never, I don't think the word fire is might have been let go.
Right. Or he or he is no longer with the company. Right.
[00:08:30] Sam Rhee: He was no longer with CrossFit.
[00:08:31] David Syvertsen: Right, but But could have meant that he left on
[00:08:33] Sam Rhee: his own court? Probably not. My guess was he was fired because if this was a mutual sort of thing, like they're literally a month away from the games at this point. Mm-hmm.
Everything is in place. The sponsors are in place. Like if this was going to be a mutual thing, they would've let Berg finish out the games and then like transitioned to Castro after that. Right. So why did they do this right now? I think Fall had no choice but to show investors. I. We're making big changes right now.
We're proactive. We're
[00:09:01] David Syvertsen: very proactive. Look, we see bad numbers too, and we're gonna make a change, and we're making a, a change. Another advantage to doing this right now, the games are in six weeks or five or six weeks now. I, I'm very much looking forward to the games this year. Like I, for the past couple years, last year, I was really into it.
This year I'm gonna be really into it and. What this could do, having Castro come in now, is let him see how these, they're still testing workouts right now. Yeah, today. That's what he said on his podcast with Dan, and I think Dan Bailey is one of 'em, right? So they're going to be testing workouts. Castro's gonna see how this current team of CrossFit game staff runs the games, how they prep, how they adjust to adversity.
Then after this year's games, now he has a little bit more credibility. Not that he didn't have already, but he has more credibility to see how this group of people run the games this year. And now he probably gets to choose who sticks, who doesn't. Right. Um, with, with, with the game staff. Right. I'm, I'm assuming he's gonna have a lot of hiring and firing power with the people that are working on the
[00:10:02] Sam Rhee: games right now, as the hierarchy is.
Adrian Bosman is working under Dave
[00:10:08] David Syvertsen: Castro and he's the director of programming. So how does that. Work that I have no idea. I think Castro has always said that if he's not involved in programming, he doesn't even want to watch because he knows he's just gonna be hypercritical. And some of the videos and Instagram, uh, posts that he's made and others have made, you can tell him and Boz are looking at a whiteboard, a workout on the whiteboard.
He's like making notes. He's probably going to be making some changes. And when you program a such a big event like this, to me, Boz does understand probably as well as anyone outside of Castro how to properly do this. And you have to test fitness, you have to bring in some historical components of CrossFit.
Um, you have to try new things every single year, but you also have to make it spectator friendly. I do think they fell short a little bit last year. Okay. When at one of their primetime events that I believe was on cable television, it was on cbs, I think with the crossover workout. Yeah. Single under workout.
Yeah. And people were tripping up and you didn't really, the argument against it was not the workout. That's fine. It's, you have to make cross it look good when you have that many eyeballs. Like if you didn't know what cross it was, you kind of had a negative thought towards it. You went and watched that on CBS and you saw Tia tripping up on a single under Yeah.
Cross Danielle, Brandon yelling their judges cuz they didn't know what the, the crossover standard. Right. That was something I think there might have been like, I don't think Castro would've done that.
[00:11:42] Sam Rhee: It's a little unfair because Baz has had no time in the leadership role here. Right. Like Castro, let's face it, he screwed up too.
But he's had years and years and years Yep. Of experience. And his mistakes were not scrutinized the way Bos were.
[00:11:58] David Syvertsen: By athletes. They were, I think a lot of athletes and coaches like I, I think, you know, I'll get into some of what. Cutlers and Froning comments worry about that. I was about to ask you about that too.
They, they do, he did get criticized with the cuts. Where they used to the cuts. Mm-hmm. Um, when they did marry that one year mm-hmm. He got a lot of criticism for that. But his
[00:12:17] Sam Rhee: job was never in jeopardy because of No, I agree with that. Like he was secured no matter what he did. Or made a mistake or didn't make a mistake, like no one was gonna like ask him for it.
That's true. Uh, it was interesting, you, you, you listened to Dave Castro, right? On his podcast. Yeah. And he basically said, and I, I want to ask you about his quotes quote. As of this week, it is announced I will be running the games again. He said, I will be back in a role that I am comfortable with. And we just touched on that, what that role might be.
Hmm. And I will be back at the games and that is working and that is helping and that is staying engaged and that is overseeing the event. So what does that mean for Baz with that? Like we know, like you said, he's gonna like check and see how the staff is doing. Is he going to like, it would kind of make me sad if Baz really got shafted and was no longer programming the
[00:13:08] David Syvertsen: games anymore for this year.
I do not think that will happen. I think Baz had the games planned already. I'm sure they still have to test things and tweak things, but they're the, those workouts are. Essentially set in stone. Okay. They do like, and I've read the book that Castro wrote, uh, about pro programming, the games, what is the process like?
And in some cases in the past, he said that they would program the games, then regionals, then the open. So it's like, you know, but they would make like fine, fine tune a couple things about workouts, length, volume, um, logistics. So that's more viewer friendly. I think that Castro will make whatever changes he needs to, that are very micro level.
But I can't see him saying, Boz, you're, you gotta scrape wads to, uh, events two and four. We have to bring, you know, do this, do that next year. I could see that happening and for Bo's sake, I hope that doesn't happen either. Um, but those two have worked with each other for a very long time. Right. I don't think brought Boz in any situation will get screwed.
He might just not have the amount of say that he did last year. And this year prior to Castro coming back, um, overseeing, supporting, helping. The games are so much more than workouts. It is, it is. I mean, you've been I haven't It's a festival. Yeah. Right. It's a fitness, it's a community gathering. Yeah. This is almost like a, a general manager of a sports team.
Everyone says, oh, they, they draft players. They sign players. They trade players. A real general man, a real general manager of a pro sports team. That's about 20% of their job. They oversee like ticket sales and sponsorships and all this stuff, and I think Castro coming back. That will be a big part of his role.
Fiscal responsibility. And is that a strength of his? I don't know. I don't know either. I mean, that's been an argument against him. Some people that are a little opposed to this say he's not that kind of business guy. Berg was Berg. I had the vibe from Berg. He was very corporate. Mm-hmm. Not a bad way. And you can question some of the decisions that they made.
With sponsorships in recent years, monster Energy being one of them, you know, which is uh, has a relationship with Coca-Cola. Like that was a big talking point for a long time. But numbers are numbers, right? And you do have to be careful with who you align yourself with when it comes to sponsorships. But Castro being gone, I bet, broke some relationships with CrossFit and they probably did lose some sponsorship capabilities there.
They tried different ones this year. For this year's games. Yeah. I mean they
[00:15:40] Sam Rhee: had like Chipotle for the open and some other things. Yeah. Now they have Jockos. Um, Was it his drink or something? Like Energy drink? Yeah, energy drink. So they're, they're kind of branching out. They
[00:15:50] David Syvertsen: are, uh, pr you know, I think it was just announced this morning or yesterday.
That Proven is now an actual sponsor. The actual workout program. Proven No Way, is a, is a sponsor of the Games. That's
[00:16:00] Sam Rhee: Tia
[00:16:00] David Syvertsen: Claire. Tomi, uh, Shane or, yeah. Yeah. And Brooke Wells, even though she didn't make the games this year, uh, her si her sister did. Sydney did, yeah. Uh, I think one of the spa Pantry brothers is there.
But I bring that up because. That got announced. Maybe that's been in the worst for a long time, but I've always felt like something like that is off limits. Why wouldn't Mayhem do that? Why wouldn't mayhem? Why? Why wouldn't comp train? Right? Why wouldn't, uh, hard work pays off. That doesn't make any sense to it.
It's just, but is that a Castro thing? Does Castro have that relationship with Shane or like, that didn't come out until after he was fired? Mm. So I'm curious, is that an example of sponsorships really coming in and be like, Hey, I want to get behind Castro. Castro is the games. How much does that impact the, the, the outward look of, of a sponsor that wants to support the games?
Cause at the end of the day, that's where the money's coming from, right? It is. You have to have these guys that are willing to write those checks. Now, the media side of this is what I'm kind of intrigued by, uh, because, you know, Savon I to Savon, And, um, Hiller. Mm-hmm. And, and Souza one, I can, I definitely do not get, but when they do games coverage or big stories and cross it, I do make it a point to listen to them.
And I've never seen them so giddy once this happen. Like, like borderline, you know. Little girls at a Taylor Swift concert because they were so happy because they have an in with Castro. Castro's been on that podcast multiple times. Yeah. Huge, long lasting relationship. I mean, Savon will go to war for Glassman and Castro.
He will. And he does. Yes, he does. Um, and it seems to me they're more happy about the fact. That they're friends and now they're probably gonna get a little bit more access when it comes to media. Cause I don't think there's a great relationship between New Age, CrossFit culture mm-hmm. And Savon. Mm-hmm.
Um, I wanna get into that a little bit too. Old school versus new school. Mm-hmm. But now that cashflow's involved, I don't think he's gonna give them, you know, the right carpet and let them do whatever they want. But I could see some of these documentaries coming back that Savon was. Was really made famous for.
He did a lot of good work back in the day of doing those behind the scenes games, coverage. Also a little bit of
[00:18:08] Sam Rhee: inappropriate stuff as well. Absolutely. Yeah. But yeah, right. There was some great work that he did do.
[00:18:13] David Syvertsen: Yeah. And you would hope that he's grown, you know, with CR Cross has gotten so much bigger now you have more eyeballs on and you had to be a little bit more politically correct.
But again, if you told that Savon it probably roll his eyes. But even with Hiller, right? Hiller morning, chalk up. It's hard to tell like what side of these guys on, and I know they're all gonna say, oh, we're just pro fitness, we're pro CrossFit, but we want to exploit where some of these issues are. And some of the issues are credible.
I mean, the weight issue for 23.1 in Spain, someone there screwed that up, right? And they, they misload the barbell misload the, and they roasted cross it for it. And at the end of the day, that is CrossFit's fault. And you got like a PR answer from Berg on what happened. We need to get better, blah, blah, blah.
Right. Or I'm really interested to see if the tone of those guys changes at all. Now that Castro, you mean more forgiving to towards CrossFit? Yeah, because they don't want to piss Castro off. What do you think about that? Mm, probably
[00:19:07] Sam Rhee: a little bit. Um, I think Castro will give them a. Boundaries within which to sort of work with.
Yeah. And I think, you know, he, if you've ever seen some of what he does when he is on Avon's, he calls Savon out. Oh, he does. And he tells him he is really annoying or, you know, shut up or whatever it is. Uh,
[00:19:26] David Syvertsen: so I think he's, I think that's kind of calculated though to make sure that. I think he wants to come across in that way to make sure that no one else believes that he's in bed with Savon.
You know, like he will put him in his place. In that kind of role, how
[00:19:39] Sam Rhee: much bigger do you think Savant's
[00:19:40] David Syvertsen: role will be now? I mean, he's not gonna be hired by CrossFit, and I don't think he wants to be. I think he's got a pretty good thing going right now. Like he's got a pretty decent following. I don't know much about like, you know, finances of running a YouTube channel, like, but I do think he does a good job, um, of being consistent.
Talking about topics that people wanna listen to, getting people on that others wanna listen to. And he is not afraid to throw a few punches here and there. And I do think that it's necessary. Castro has said himself, the reason why the N B A, the N F L, major League Baseball now m l s, the reason why those companies are huge and they do a good job, is there's a lot of people out there that spend their life criticizing Stephen A.
Smith, Stephen A. Smith. Like you need those guys for a sport to grow. So, You just gotta make sure that you don't direct it at the wrong person. Right. Or if you are gonna direct criticism at someone has to be done with facts, not feelings. And that's where I think those guys fall short Sometimes you can tell there's a clear bias between who they like and who they don't.
Like when they talk about things on the cross with CrossFit, you know that they have a hardon for Dave Castro and when he screws up and he's going to screw up, he, he's human and he has screwed up in the past. Right. Will they go after him the same way that went after a guy like Justin Berg, Don, not Don Fal, um, Rosa will they, and that Rosa was, Hey, you replaced my best friend, Greg Glassman, screw you.
I'm gonna make life hell for you on my media channel. Will they do that for Castro? And if they do, I'm actually gonna have more respect for them.
[00:21:09] Sam Rhee: You have listed here that he's called the Alpha and that CrossFit needs him. Do you believe
[00:21:14] David Syvertsen: that? I do. I and I feel that way. All right. I should say this. I do think he's the alpha.
I don't think CrossFit needs him though. So I'll that that's, and I'll, I don't want to contradict myself. Alpha to me, in regard to Dave and the games, is that no matter what, a big decision, a big responsibility, it will come back to him. It doesn't come back to a staff of people. And it's that department.
This department, it's, no. There's one guy that's gonna make a final call. On an issue. There's one guy that if he comes up to you at a competition and says, stop yelling at judges, he's gonna be the one that strikes fear into you. And he's done that before. The buck stops here. Yeah. But is it important? What do you think?
Well, someone likened him to Dana White with, uh, U
[00:22:00] Sam Rhee: F C. Yeah. And in the sense that he's, he is the guy, he is the alpha little controversial. Yep. Maybe not like, so awesome in terms of interacting with. Certain aspects of things,
[00:22:12] David Syvertsen: right. Alpha's not, it's not their job. They don't really care about being your friend or being liked.
[00:22:16] Sam Rhee: Right. Or maybe Vince McMahon with wwe. Yeah. Like the polarizing, yeah. Center piece. Bosco, where did
[00:22:23] David Syvertsen: that come from, you think? Where, where did that alpha come from? Where, why do people find Castro polarizing? Because he doesn't
[00:22:31] Sam Rhee: interact well with people. Yeah. I, I feel like he deliberately is not socially.
Pleasant and
[00:22:41] David Syvertsen: something goes wrong. Hey, suck it up. Try harder. Yeah. Very
[00:22:43] Sam Rhee: intentionally. Like I and. And everyone says, like, if you know him personally, he's fine. But everything that I've ever seen with him interacting on a corporate level is he, he deals a lot of fu to people. Yeah. In a way that like, and I don't know, maybe it's cuz I just watched, I binge watched Ted Lasso on the way back.
On, on the airline, but that was a guy like that. If, if you don't know what Ted Lasso is, is a show on Apple tv and it's about a coach, um, in the Premier League in England. But it's relentlessly upbeat. It's relentlessly about people making each other better and it's relentlessly positive. And I don't know.
And, and Dave is very much. The opposite of it. I mean, we had t-shirts made up that said Dave Castro is a prick, is Arick. And he has embraced that to a certain degree and, and people have talked about him being the villain and. You know, in, in some, on some level. I, I appreciate his role and his, have appreciated his role.
And, and he's pointed out multiple times, he is the architect and the, the birther of, you know, he birthed the CrossFit games and he's shepherded it to this point. And, you know, but again, the founder effect is always concerning to me. You know, just because you started it and you built it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be the person to take it to the next level.
Um, people pointed out, he's grown, he's changed. Uh, he is under the corporate gun. Like, you know, Don Fall is very corporate. Uh, I don't know. I, I, I have very mixed feelings about Dave, uh, running the CrossFit games
[00:24:22] David Syvertsen: again. So I think about that a lot of times when it comes to bison. Sometimes also just businesses in general.
Sports teams in a lot of cases. The person that takes them, like let's say on a se uh, um, scale of one to 10, the person that takes them from zero to five or one to five is often not the person that needs to bring them from five to 10 or six to 10. And I feel I have, I, I have said that to people about bison.
I have said that to people about sports teams, like I said earlier, uh, and I do, I do strongly feel that way. There are different skill sets, there are different personality traits. That a, someone needs to have at the same time, the person that can bring a business, the games from level six to level 10 is not the person that could have done it to get them from one to five.
Again, because it's different skill sets, it's different personalities. You handle adversity and different ways, and the demands of the job change at a certain point. The demands of running the cross at games in 2008 are, this goes without saying night and day different than what they are now. You could even say that demands of running the games in 2017 are different than what they are now.
It's not just like those early days where yeah, you're at a, a backyard, you could sign up. Right. And you win 500 bucks if you win. Right. Um, and you know, you talk about CrossFit games, changing locations. They almost went to Alabama. They're, they're in Wisconsin for another year, I believe, after this one.
Mm-hmm. Don't quote me on that. I might be wrong. And, No. Rich Froning has said this when he was on with Avvo. He goes like, yeah, he does need to change. And it sounds like he has, um, if you remember, there had been controversies at the games with sled pushing, for example, on turf. The different
[00:26:07] Sam Rhee: friction, different,
[00:26:09] David Syvertsen: different lanes were simply easier to push the, the turf on the sled on than others.
Yeah. It was factual. Everyone said it. Every coach, every athlete, the judges, and the response was like, oh, suck it up. Try harder. You know, life's not fair. And I'm like, well, in a competition setting, there's, there needs to be. Some things that are as fair as possible. Like we just got done talking to John Hartman, who's gonna come at you guys with a couple episodes next week and the week after, and we talked about there are certain things you cannot control.
All right? Here's one at the games. You can't control the weather. All right, so it, last year they had to change an event that had legless rope climbs in it because the ropes were too slippery. It was raining, right? And in my eyes, I'm like, probably should have done that event inside. You know, like that, that was a huge part of that workout that people didn't have to do.
It would change. It was a game changing event. It would've changed the results for the stimulus. Like that workout turned into how heavy, uh, how well you were moving. Heavy loads in a, in a little wheelbarrow, right? And with some kettlebell stuff, that wasn't a big deal. That workout would've come down to the leg.
The Trobe climbs. So there are certain things though that you can't control, but the other things you can control. Hey, the sled pushes guys. We tested them and three of the lanes are a little bit harder. We gotta scrap the event. Or we gotta go try it on turf somewhere, right? Or find something else that you can do that can, you know, provoke the, the same stimulus of a workout of a fitness test.
Let's not just get attached to, hey, we want to hook rogue up by displaying new sleds out. Right? That was something that Castro, in my opinion, handled really poorly, um, back then was you could have easily, like, I've actually would've had more respect for him. If's like, Hey, you know what? We screwed that up, but ha we're not changing the results.
We should have probably done a better job of testing that, but he wouldn't admit that. And I think that's what pissed a lot off a lot of people, even with some of the roster cuts. Here's another example, right? Patrick Vener, who I have a lot of respect for, not just because he was here, um, but he's, he's smart.
He's one of the athletes that I feel like is very intelligent. Um, when he breaks down the games, they've started implementing cuts, right? So if you earn in the top 20, by this point, you're out. If you earn in the top 10, by this point, you're out. But then the fitness test that came after the te, the cuts, if they had simply just switched workouts six and nine, the results would've been so different that the people that made the top 10 that had an opportunity to take on those last three workouts were were completely different.
And he never got an answer on that. He's like, well, you just need to be better that then you won't get cut. Like that's something I would say to like someone in the gym that you know. On a much lesser scale where our, our workouts aren't nearly as important and they, it's not a daily competition here, right?
Like if you're in the back of the gym on a running workout, like I'm just going like, yep, you gotta run faster. You get more fitness in today. But if that was a real competition, you can't run it. You can't run the games like you would a class. Right? Do you remember the B where we had teams of three? One one, someone ran a mile.
Someone came inside, rode, uh, a thousand meters, and then you had another person do like 60 burpees over the rower. Yeah, I went outside and so I knew that at the old gym when you came in, rower one was 10 feet from the door, rower seven was a hundred feet from the door. So I went outside and whoever, based on what lane you were in, What rower you had, you start that much feet behind, like I literally was outside with a, a measuring tape.
Mm-hmm. And every runner started 10 feet behind someone else. Like a track meet. Yeah, exactly. Like a track meet. And again, much lesser scale. I know, but that was a real competition. I would never do that for a daily wad. I'd just be like, screw you. Like run faster. No,
[00:29:41] Sam Rhee: I do that all the time. I'm just like, I'm sorry.
You have to run
[00:29:43] David Syvertsen: all the way through the back. Yeah. And that just is what it is. But at a professional competition where you're trying to grow the sport and make it professional and compete with other pro sports, yeah. That can't be your response.
[00:29:52] Sam Rhee: Absolutely not. There are the, the point differential can be so close in some of these competitions.
It's an, it's an, it makes a difference. Yeah,
[00:29:59] David Syvertsen: it makes a difference. So, you know, and this is where. The next part of this that I really wanted to get into was something that we brought it to Don Fall, and I don't think he was very happy about it when we asked him, and I'm okay with that. I said, the biggest challenge of a new CEO of CrossFit, new leadership is trying to blend old school, new school.
And what I mean by that is there was a very specific culture of people that were around when CrossFit started, when it really took off. Those people deserve a ton of credit. Those were the people that took CrossFit from one to five, maybe no one else could have done that. They did a great job. Were they the same people that should have been there from level six to 10?
Is that why we haven't seen a lot of stability at the top of CrossFit? Is that those people that were the people from one steps one to five, they are not the people that should be there from six to 10. It's just a different demand now. Those people love CrossFit, and I think a lot of those people have positions either right now or during that time span because they were right place, right time.
Don Fall said there was no
[00:31:02] Sam Rhee: old school or new school. Yes. You remember his answer? Yes. Like they're just all
[00:31:06] David Syvertsen: CrossFit and I just don't, I don't agree and I, I think it's, it's more apparent with media and big personalities and, and some egos. I do feel like there are a lot of people that were around CrossFit in the early days that feel like they deserve just because they were there back then to be in a certain position of power for
[00:31:27] Sam Rhee: that reason.
Do you think Dave Castro is in that group?
[00:31:33] David Syvertsen: I don't know. I think it's, I think it's a possibility, and I think if we see some of the same issues that came from him, kinda like that polarizing figure and he hasn't changed at all. Over the next two years at the games. I think that that would be probably the example. Justin Kotler
[00:31:50] Sam Rhee: from Underdog Athletics said exactly that in his PO in that podcast.
I didn't listen to that one. He basically said he felt that Dave was very, I mean basically like a dictatorship. Mm-hmm. And that if you had an negative interaction with him, you know you are out. Like he booked no,
[00:32:08] David Syvertsen: uh, kind of held
[00:32:08] Sam Rhee: grudges type. No. He just didn't take feedback. And he said the one thing he really, I.
Thought was a positive change recently was that CrossFit actually listened to athletes. They, they, it wasn't punitive if you actually had ideas about how to change things or if there were issues that were involved. And he w was very negative about Reca, you know, recalling some of his interactions with Dave.
Castro in the past with athletes. Right. And he says it has to be about the athletes. Mm-hmm. And if you're not gonna make it, you know, if we can't come to CrossFit and, you know, interact and, you know, not be worried about being punished in some way for. Bringing up issues or, or, you know, having them listen to us.
Then that was one of his biggest concerns is that he hopes that Dave Castro has changed in this way. Yeah. And it, and he, it's kind of true. I, if you think about it, in the past, Dave Castro had athletes that he was okay with and then others that he was not okay with. Right. And, um, I think that that's something that has to change for sure.
Yeah. That's old school versus new school.
[00:33:17] David Syvertsen: Yeah. I mean, Castro has clearer friends and you know what it's like. Are we allowed to say that you're not allowed to have friends? No, but I do think if you're gonna take such a big leadership position, it could be something as big as the games could be something as big as owning a gym.
You have to be very careful with making sure there is never a perception that you favor others just because you're friends with them.
[00:33:40] Sam Rhee: You know, I, I have a problem because my management style or my preferred leadership style is different from Dave's, which doesn't mean his is wrong, right? But I keep running into the fact that.
I would want to run things with more transparency, more input from others, you know, take the best from everyone else and try to incorporate that into what I was doing. And Dave doesn't do any of that, I think in, in on a lot of levels. And I don't know if that's bad, that's just different from what, how I would do things or run things.
So I have to take it on a, on an article of faith that what he's doing is right. But when I listen to him, He does sound very old school like when he was talking in his podcast, he mentioned the fact that right in that room in 2008, he taught Annie Thor's daughter how to do g h d sit-ups before she went out and, and did the event and, and now it's great that 14 years later she's competing again and Ben Smith is competing again.
It's like, Yeah, but that was 2000. Yeah. Yeah. So a lifetime ago, like that's not what any of this is about right. Now. How important, how relevant is that to this discussion? Zero. And the, and the other thing is, is that there's some holdover. One of the things, CrossFit, I think crap, the bed on in the past was they didn't, they never embraced social media.
In fact, Greg Glassman had them withdraw from social media, and I think that really hurt them. Back in the day, if they had really fully embraced it, they would be much in a much better position right now than I think they are. Yeah.
[00:35:06] David Syvertsen: Um, I had someone that used to work for CrossFit, used to work with Castro very closely.
I will not say that person's name, but I did talk to them about this and I'm just kind of like going over those notes that, from that conversation and he said, he goes, A lot of the infrastructure. That has failed CrossFit when it comes to the games, financially especially, but just logistically and all the turmoil that we see was there before Berg took the job.
His fault was that he never really made the real changes that were needed, but who was there when that infrastructure was initially built? And that was Castro. When we had regionals, they stopped regionals because they were a huge money sucker. Right? They stopped doing the announcements. Covid was a part of that, but I think they stopped doing it the year before too.
They started letting other people do it around the globe, and finances were a part of that. And you know, my thought is that that's where I start to doubt whether or not he is the right person for that job, unless he can do a very good job of overseeing, but also now hiring people to take over that do have a skillset, a business skillset, a corporate skillset that is a part of the games.
It has to be. So now that we have, like, there are people that used to work for him that are telling me it's like, you know what the reason why this infrastructure was put in place was it was Dave back then. Mm-hmm. He was the director back then. Mm-hmm. And they tried to find someone else to come and take that job over and he did not deliver.
And the reason why they didn't deliver is they didn't make enough changes from the system that was already broken. So do you forecast any changes to the CrossFit competitive season? Now that crash show gets another turn at it because I assume he is a humble enough guy to say, Hey, changes need to be made.
It's not, I'm not gonna come in and save the day, just be by being here.
[00:36:59] Sam Rhee: I am skeptical. Yeah. Let me just put it that way. I hope they do. Yeah, but I'm just thinking, we are talking about social media in general. Yeah. Like if you follow the N F L. Could your social media feed be filled with NFL stuff? Yeah.
It, it just could be inundated. Yeah. Yeah. NBA limitless, golf limitless. Even niche sports like, uh, UFC or mma, like CrossFit is not like that. Yeah. And, and they are not facilitating this. Mm-hmm. And. Our paradigm, your paradigm, my paradigm, our generation in terms of how, how these things are going has nothing to do with how the future of sports, media and all of this is going on.
I mean, the other thing is, and I hate to, uh, you know, sort of bring up other issues, but like gambling, for example, fantasy CrossFit should be embraced and. Held up. Like that's huge Actually be
[00:37:58] David Syvertsen: actually would've be pretty cool. It'd be effing great. Like if fan, if FanDuel picked up, um, if only we knew someone that worked there fan.
Mm. But if, if, if, uh, that's actually, I, that's a great idea. And these are
[00:38:10] Sam Rhee: things that cross, like the NBA went all in on that. Yeah. The NFL fantasy football made it huge. Why are these guys not leveraging this stuff to the hilt? Because, That's not even our generation. I mean, it's kind of our, but it's really more my, my, my kids love that stuff.
Right, right. And so, I don't know, I have four
[00:38:29] David Syvertsen: fancy football teams. I know,
[00:38:31] Sam Rhee: but that's your job. Like, that's your, like, you actually get paid to. Evaluate football players. Right?
[00:38:36] David Syvertsen: Like, that's what you do. That's, but I still would do it if I did. So you're kids at me, right?
[00:38:42] Sam Rhee: So I'm just, I'm like, even Sasha has a fantasy football.
Uh, wow. Really? Really? Yes. Wow. And she like, and it. Blew my mind that that's funny. Yeah, it's crazy, right? But it's a, it's
[00:38:52] David Syvertsen: a social thing. It's a, so Yeah, exactly. It's not just a football
[00:38:55] Sam Rhee: thing. Right. I agree. And so these are the kind of things that I'm looking at the games and I'm like, is Dave Castro the one who's
[00:39:01] David Syvertsen: going to be able to do these things?
Or is he too stuck in what he's, because he keeps bringing up 2008. That's, that's my concern. Like, let's try to, I always try to apply things to my personal life to see if I can get a better perspective on it. Right. If, if we were doing some of the things, not all, but some of the things. That we've always been doing because, hey, this is how it worked in 2014.
I don't think our business would be as good. We have to, you have to evolve. You do want founding principles. You want to have something that you can stand on and be like, Hey, this is tradition for us, but what new things are you doing? Right? Small scale bison, the triple touch, you know, our next upside down complex was just coming up in a couple weeks.
Um, different ways of running the bison ball are the open. There are certain things that we do the same, but you still have to evolve. What has he evolved with other than just making it bigger, especially over the past five to six years? All right. Of course he's evolved from 2008, but let's talk about when the games went to Madison, the whole different level of complexity and attention.
What has changed since then? What has evolved? It's hard for me to think of anything. So my, my, my two things that I think. I'm going to be keeping a close eye on. I'm not gonna make a prediction. I'm just gonna keep close eye on the semi-finals this year. I watched them a lot. Um, had a fun time watching that.
I think that's partly why, partially why I'm really looking forward to the games this year. It had a regional feel to it more so than in the past. I still think there are a lot of shortcomings with their coverage. Like, no. And again, I don't know enough about it to have a real credible, um, Critical opinion about what they should not, but there were certain workouts that weren't broadcasted.
I'm like, what are we doing? Those are the ones that I would wanna watch the most. Yeah. There were some that they broadcasted that I had no interest in watching. Right.
[00:40:48] Sam Rhee: No announcement. Uh, no comments for
[00:40:51] David Syvertsen: like half the workouts. No counting the reps on the screen. Right. Like how do you watch a sport without knowing like what rest you belong?
That's not fun. Right, right. So, you know, can you imagine watching football, baseball, and never seeing a score on the or down in distance? Like you have to have that information on the screen. Why has that not changed? And I think now that he's back, we could see that coming back. But will regionals come back?
You know, I personally think this is the end of open announcements at gyms. Too expensive. If Castro came into this role last year, I do not think we would've held 23.2 here.
[00:41:24] Sam Rhee: It would've all been like at
[00:41:26] David Syvertsen: CrossFit HQ or some Yeah. Low production. Yeah. You don't need to sta I mean, there were, there were 50 employees here at one point.
Oh you, God know, like so many. And like, think about all those people. Their meals, their hotels, their flights, all the equipment. There was four different 18 wheelers. The trucks that we had in the parking lot that were there for three days straight. That never turned off the electric power. I, I mean, again, I don't know enough about it.
That shit is expensive. Effing amazing. Amazing. I'm so glad we were part of it. And I do think they open announce like open announcements at gym should be a thing forever. Yeah. Maybe it doesn't need to be as big. Right, right. It doesn't need to. The production could be probably a little smaller and I still think you're gonna get the general vibe out there, but these are the things I'm really interested to see.
Will Castro just say, Hey, no, this is the way we've always done it. Hey, no, we keep losing money on this stuff year after year. Or will he be humble enough to make the changes that are needed? That's one of the things I'm really looking forward to watching the most from my outsider perspective, Castro's,
[00:42:28] Sam Rhee: I mean, fall's made a ton of changes, not even in a year.
I feel like he's under the gun and, uh, he's gonna keep moving fast and, uh, making more and more and more changes. So Castro has to move fast with this stuff too? Yeah, because if it's, if it's not working by next games, right.
[00:42:45] David Syvertsen: Yeah, I say that's maybe be part of the reason why the timeline is what it is.
That's why he put 'em
[00:42:50] Sam Rhee: in so quickly right now. Yeah. To, he's gotta hurry up and make these changes
[00:42:53] David Syvertsen: and next year every issue needs to be solved by financially, logistically your staffing. And you know, the last thing I'll say about this and tell me what your opinion on this does cashier being back, does it affect the affiliates at all?
Nope. Not. Not even a little bit. Yeah, I agree. Um, the only thing it does do, and I, I think the games are better with cashflow involved if I'm taking out finances mm-hmm. And talking about some of the stuff that we already talked about. I just think the games are better if cashflow's there and you know, that he played a part in it.
Um, so if that makes me a little bit more excited to watch it. But again, it's one of the first things I said in this episode. You're just looking, you're just wanting to watch it because there's a change. Yeah. You know, so if, if that's the business model, just keep making these dramatic changes like what's next year?
Hey guys, we're only bringing 10 people to the game next year. Like, You'll watch everything more, but at some point you have to get rid of this. Like, Hey, we're just trying to make it better every year. Like get, get some sustainable, stable results there.
[00:43:53] Sam Rhee: I feel the games are canary in the coal mine for us as affiliates.
Like if it really crashes and burns, you better look at the rest of corporate crossman and be like, yeah, what's going on here? Right. They're, they're not doing well with that, which means everything else might be on fire too. Right, right. So, but if they're killing it on the games, then you could be like, okay.
They know what they're doing and they're gonna fix everything else that's going
[00:44:14] David Syvertsen: on. Like Froning has said that he thinks the CrossFit games and CrossFit training program, like what we do at the box should be very intertwined. And we've actually done episodes, multiple episodes in this kind of genre of separation of fitness and sport.
Yep. You know, like, are you here for performance? Are you here for health? You know, or um, should you compete? You know, if you're just trying to be fit, should you do the open If you're just here for fit fitness and exercise and. Again, I think that's another like old school versus new school. I don't think there's ever a perfect solution to it.
The games need to, but the games can, display games got me into CrossFit and I'm sure there's a lot of people that said the same thing. And it is cool to say that I'm a part of that. I'm a part of that. Those CrossFit games athletes, we all did 23.1, 23.2, 23.3. Those that make quarterfinals, you all did the same workouts.
You're a part of that, right? And it's something that's very unique. It resonates. So how, how can you make CrossFit and CrossFit games so much more intertwined? That one's success can actually feed into the other, because in my opinion, the CrossFit games, are we gonna call them successful now that we know that they're losing money and there's all this controversy and that there's these coaches and athletes that kind of hate their management, or they're constantly complaining.
Yeah. Is it successful? I don't know. And the cross it brand, how successful are they doing with all this, all the change at leadership and, you know, people like don't want the CEO job or you don't want the new leadership in there? Uh, it's tough. Like, I don't know the success numbers across it. I mean, all the changes tell me that changes need to be made and changes need to be made when things aren't going well.
So does that affect CrossFit bison? Probably not. But down the road it could. Down the road, it could like what if things are so bad that they send an email to all affiliates and say, Hey guys, we're gonna triple your affiliate fee. That's gonna be a problem. You know, and that, that might happen. And
[00:46:04] Sam Rhee: then we'll be physical
[00:46:06] David Syvertsen: fitness bison.
Yeah. CrossFit, bison, BI Bison Fitness LLC is our LLC by the way. So, uh, but yeah, those are things I'd just like to ponder. We'd like to get any feedback from you guys. If you have any opinions on does this have any impact on you? I actually would love to hear. Opinions of people that don't care about the games.
Like you don't watch him in August, like you just like might see an Instagram post here and there, but you don't really care about the games. Do you care about a story like this? Do you care about Castro being back? Do you, do you want him announcing the announce, like that's when he became the villain or the, at the announcements, you know, the way he writes the workouts on the board and he deceives you and, and tricks you and plays games with your heads and makes really hard workouts.
That's kind of where that villain came from. And I personally love this, some people don't. But love to get some of your feedback on that and uh, and that's it. All right, we'll see you guys next week.
