S05E140 - Current State of CrossFit Media and BTS David's Appearance on the Sevan Podcast

The episode traverses the landscape of CrossFit's current state of news coverage under new stewardship, delving into the nuances of independent media's role in sculpting the business' discourse and evolution.

Join hosts David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic as they discuss CrossFit HQ's renewed efforts to empower affiliates and coaches. We dissect the strategic interplay of brand loyalty and the savvy marketing required to welcome new enthusiasts into the fold, evaluating the impact of CrossFit's media engagements on our flourishing community.

Speaking about the authenticity of media portrayals and the weight of genuine connections, we look behind the scenes about David's guest appearance on the Sevan Podcast @therealsevanpodcast, framing the CrossFit's future through the lens of community and dedication. Whether dreaming of nurturing a Games competitor or fostering a nurturing space for all, this episode is a testament to the boundless potential for all athletes and gym owners.

@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness

00:00:05 CrossFit's Growth and Media Influence

00:13:42 CrossFit HQ Efforts and Media Influence

00:21:29 Sevan's Interview and Media Discussion

00:24:40 CrossFit Affiliates and Authenticity in Media

00:31:00 Gym Reputation and CrossFit Training

David Syvertsen

Host

00:05

Hey everybody, welcome to the Herdfit Podcast with Dr Sam Rhee and myself, coach David Syvertsen. His podcast is aimed at helping anyone and everyone looking to enhance their healthy lifestyle through fitness, nutrition and, most importantly, mindset. Alright, welcome back to the Herdfit Podcast. I am Coach David Syvertsen. I'm here with my co-host, dr and Coach Sam Rhee. We are currently sitting in here while Open Gym is going on, just a few weeks away from the CrossFit Open. You ever noticed this time in your Open Gym, there's a little bit extra juice in there.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

00:37

Absolutely. People are practicing so many different movements right now.

David Syvertsen

Host

00:41

Yeah, I think I just saw Amy's daughter practicing pullovers. That reminded me that I've never tried one my entire life. Are you going to? I probably will at some point, but I will not have the gym do them unless I feel they're ultra safe. I just feel there's going to be some really bad things happening if we have a lot of people try them. I'm going to tell you, if you make me try it, I will kill myself.

01:01

That's one of those things I think every now and then you pull a hard no on. Are we here for fitness? Are we here for fitness? Okay, yes, we are. We're not doing pullovers, but if it's something that you want to learn, that's awesome. I could definitely probably work with you or put in some sort of skill class or something about bringing into bison at some point. But now this is a great time of year. Early February into mid-February, into the open, is always there's like an extra buzz, a little bit of extra energy, extra adrenaline coming into the gym. I kind of want to correlate this to the state of CrossFit. That's where this episode is going to start and it's going to end with my experience on the Savon podcast, which was last Sunday. I heard I'm going to have my balls busted by Sam, by Sam.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

01:49

Well, you are the most famous person at bison right now. So there you go.

David Syvertsen

Host

01:52

So that will, and part of Savon state of CrossFit, state of bison even, is just. I think they're all intertwined. As CrossFit grows under this new leadership, there have been some significant changes and the way we find out about these significant changes is from the media types and it's that media outside of CrossFit, not those that are actually being paid by CrossFit to do it. So that market is, I would even say, rapidly growing between Savon, hiller, Coffee Pods and Wads, caterbells and Cocktails, herdfit podcast coming up from the rear talking Lee Fitness, the CrossFit Games podcast I mean we can keep going on. Buttery bros, all these guys, the media. This is the sign of a growing business.

02:39

Take CrossFit out of it, any business or sport where you start to see a lot of different media types and personalities coming in with a lot of followers, and it creates a lot of extra opinion and information, maybe even debate on how things should be done. And I remember Dave Cash was saying this years ago when someone asked you, like Hiller, like do you guys get along with each other? And he says it's necessary for the sport, is it necessary for the business, for the brand to grow? I'm not sure. But let's get into talking about where the business is quickly. We don't have to dive too deep. I have been listening to a lot of Don Follies. He's doing a very good job as the CEO, getting out on a lot of different podcasts. I was thinking about reaching out to him to have him come back on here.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

03:26

Yeah, I saw him at the health summit and I talked to him briefly and he actually had some thoughts that I was going to share on the other episode, but I'll share it right now. He recognized me. I mean, as part of CrossFit Bison we talked briefly. I always buttonhole him about the app, right, because I'm like, hey, we need a CrossFit app. That's the way we're going to grow the business. And it's funny that you said that, because I said everything that CrossFit does, every effort, every marketing outreach media. I filter that through the lens of my family. So it was funny.

04:08

Nicole Carroll was the keynote speaker. She said her mother's, a three-time cancer survivor, doesn't exercise. Don Foll parents remember he was on our podcast never tried CrossFit. Your parents, I don't think they've ever tried CrossFit. Your brother does, but not all your brothers, my brothers, my parents, don't do CrossFit.

04:30

And for me, I look at it as if I could have something that I could pin to CrossFit that my family might be like oh, this might be interesting. I would say that's a win, whether it's a celebrity endorser, whether it's some sort of mass marketing media, some viral thing, I don't know, an app that is easy to get into. So I told him I feel like for CrossFit to grow, if we ourselves cannot get the people closest to us to join CrossFit, then we have issues. The media is great, buttery bros savon us, but we're preaching to the faithful and so it's like outreach, how I mean, it's kind of like a religion. It's kind of weird, like how do you go and increase the outreach? We're sermonizing and we're preaching to all the different denominations within CrossFit, but how are we reaching out to others and making it more appealing?

05:27

And he said, funny enough, he did take his parents for the first time to a CrossFit box at Lake Tahoe and they were on vacation. And I said how did it go? And he said awful, it was terrible. He said they did a 24 minute email and it ground them into the ground. It was so hard. And he said, oh, it was. It was not a bad workout, but obviously for someone who's never done it, it was terrible. And they were very polite and they said to him you know there's thank you, but they would like, probably, if asked, would never want to step foot in a box again. And so he said I got to work on it and it's going to happen. But he also had some insight into, like some of the obstacles and challenges that we have. It's not easy stuff and that's really and so that was enlightening to me, when Don Faw tells you that his parents did not have necessarily the best initial experience what we have to work on.

David Syvertsen

Host

06:24

That is really interesting because, as you're talking about this, I'm trying to tie this to my parents. Right, my parents are going to come over today for the Super Bowl. I forget when we're in this, it's going to be a few weeks later, but they are coming over this afternoon for the Super Bowl. And it's funny, the Super Bowl Sundays in my family we usually don't eat very well some chicken, wings and some other chips and dips and all this stuff. And I'm thinking maybe, as they're getting older, right, my dad's going to turn 70 soon.

06:47

You know, I would have a hard time sending him to any box If I'm there, I'll feel better about it. And he has asked me we've got him a rower, we got him some dumbbells. He is doing different kinds of workouts than he ever has, because he was just a runner, elliptical guy for a long time and he has. I could tell he's into fitness or he's always worked out. Why haven't I, as his son right, pushed him towards more CrossFit style training? I mean, no, not gonna have him go do Fran the second day. He does CrossFit, but why not air squats and ring roads Like, why wouldn't you do some sort of that? And it is, I actually think CrossFit affiliate owners myself included and coaches it's easier when someone comes to the gym that wants to come there and has it, like whenever someone joins our gym from another gym that has two years of experience. We just had someone that came over from Linnhurst, moved out here from Linnhurst and she's formerly from Florida and she comes in, she knows how to squat, it's easy and she wants to be here and I love working with that. It's challenging to get someone that doesn't really want to come but will come because I asked them, and to really kind of guide them from step one.

08:01

But as an owner and as someone that does want to see the brand grow and prosper and affect more lives which that 25 to 30 million number is still stuck in my head from what Don Falk told us when he was here it should start with our families, like if you had every single one of our members try to get one family member here could we double the size of this gym. Think about that Easily, yeah, yeah, you know. And I mean take the business side out of it and I'm like immediately thinking, oh my God, we're gonna have 60 person classes. Take that out of it. I mean create another gym, get a bigger gym, all that stuff right? That is a really interesting. Can you put the pressure on us as Crossfitters not just coaches, owners, everyone. Can you get one person in your family to do Crossfit? That's a really next step. I think that is when he talks about the number of people that he wants to do it, both with us and on the podcast I have recently listened to. The numbers seem unrealistic. Until you go down that path, can every Crossfitter get a family member in? And I bet it could be more than that. I hope their marketing efforts are geared toward that as well.

09:04

So recently, so we're now sitting here in February. Last month was the install of raising affiliate prices. It went from three grand a year to 4,500 per year, which, just so you know, all things considered, is very cheap compared to Orange Theory, f-45, Goldstream, all that stuff. Absolutely, it's not even close. But the problem is two things. They made that a flat rate for everyone 4,500 bucks, no matter if you're paying three grand or a grandfathered rate from 2008 where you're paying 500 bucks a month. So if you're talking about percentage of spending, some people did see a 900% increase. Most people saw a 50% increase, if you wanna relate that? For those that are paying a gym membership right now CrossFit Bison January we increase our membership for the first time in five years and we got everyone, for the most part, to a flat rate and to some people that was a 5% increase. To some people that was a 30% increase. Still, none of them was 50%. But act like this if you wanna try to put this perspective into your head if we increased everyone's price 50%, so we took half of what you used to be paying and we said we're gonna add half of that to your current price, what would your reaction be? And naturally, a lot of affiliate owners were very unhappy about that news.

10:35

And he did explain why. He was really transparent on the Kettlebells and Cocktails podcast and he said that private equity owns over half of CrossFit and which is basically a fancy way of saying a group of investors own it and they are doing it to make money, to make a profit. That is why they did it. It wasn't to help the community, it was to make money. They're gonna sell it out off at some point. He threw out the number five to seven years. They're in year four right now, prior to 2022, they were break even. Crossfit as a business was break even, so they were not profitable. And to try to reverse this ship, they said they had to do two things, which is pretty common. All right, if you wanna dumb this down, you have to cut costs and raise revenue.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

11:22

That's what every PE firm does. Yeah, mfers, they are MFers. I'm sorry, they are MFers.

David Syvertsen

Host

11:27

That's fine, we can get into that, because I do.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

11:28

I wanna get your opinion on that they might have destroyed healthcare in a huge way.

David Syvertsen

Host

11:31

so far as well their involvement, but whatever go on and so basically what they do is they did cut a lot of costs, they laid off a lot of staff, which was a big story by Morning Chalk Up and Savanna and Hiller right. He just announced that they're going to take a significant amount of funding out of the CrossFit Games, out of sport. He said Moving from Madison to Fort Worth was part of that. It's a lot cheaper down there. They are getting the masters teens adaptive away from the games and we're gonna get into that at some point, maybe in this episode, but we have Joe Linton coming on.

12:04

Well, by the time this episode my chronological right now is all thrown off. We had Joe on a few weeks ago, so you can hear about that, but basically and now they have so they cut all these costs and now they have to raise revenue, and raising revenue, he said, was transparent Part of the plan is to make the affiliates pay more money. So you're not an affiliate owner, sam, but you're very involved here. I would even say like there's a lot of stock and an emotional stock that you have in Bison, where what was your reaction when you saw that price increase come?

Sam Rhee

Co-host

12:39

It was measured, it depended on what they were gonna use it for, and right now it's unclear what PE is going to use that for. Is it to raise their number so they look like a profitable business, so they can present better to a buyer? Because if that's all they're doing, that's an awful reason to raise prices. If they're going to reinvest that into CrossFit on some level, then I'm all for it. I'm a little afraid it's the former, not the latter. They wanna present a rosier financial picture, and that because they wanna sell it. Yeah. So they wanna say look, we've just increased profit by 25% over the past year and we project to do it again. There's only so much blood you can squeeze from a stone. That's a one-off. So I don't know Now if they actually care about the long-term health and growth of CrossFit, which I really doubt now. Okay, let's do it.

David Syvertsen

Host

13:34

Yeah, yeah, and so I mean there's two sides to what the direction of CrossFit is right now. I personally do think I've been an owner for 10 years now there is more effort from HQ than there ever has been when it comes to making it a more sophisticated professional environment for our parents to go work out in, to get 20 to 30 million people in, to make the coaches better and more informed. Now the other half of it is those actual coaches and affiliate owners need to take advantage of the tools that have been given to us right. There's an affiliate owner kit that is very well put together. I wouldn't say that when I read it, especially about running classes and programming, that I learn a lot because I already know it. But you'll still read it and I'll tell you what. And our gym, like to be blunt, is not struggling. But if I was an affiliate owner, that felt stuck and struggling and I can't get over this next hump, which I'm sure we will be at some point. There are enough resources coming down from CrossFit HQ that do increase the value of them to us, because that is always the common question from affiliate owners on a part of a lot of chats, group chats and Facebook groups of affiliate owners.

14:53

What are we getting out of this? Right, we're paying extra money. What are we getting out of this? Which is, you know, typical of our society? Now, what am I getting? What am I getting? What am I getting Right? And I do think now, are you using them? Is it actually helping you? That's up for debate. Um, I want to tie this to bison.

15:08

We increase prices, um, and it wasn't because I want a Lamborghini and a new house and go on fancy vacations. Um, our expenses have gone up a lot over the past five years and we want to make the gym better. How do we make the gym better? There are some things that cost money, including making our space bigger. Um, we haven't really finalized these plans yet, but I can say that I could tell you that we're locked into this space now for a long time, with increased rent, and we are getting more square footage in this building, and it's going to give us some opportunities. We have to narrow them down and really decide what we're going to do, and we're going to do that in the next few months probably three, four months of what we're going to do with this entire building, starting in January 2025. And that is going to provide a better gym. It can help us update equipment. It can also help it update our funding for our staff, right? Our coaches, our part-time coaches, are already making more money per class. We want to increase salaries of all of our employees. So and all this comes back to we want to make things better here.

16:07

So it's funny and ironic that at Bison, our prices are increasing at the same time as CrossFit HQ is increasing their pricing, and I'm kind of empathizing with them a little bit, because if someone from Bison is like, bro, I don't want to pay another 30 bucks a month, what am I getting more out of it? Well, I'll have a list of things. Whether you use them or not, is is not really I don't really care. And or whether you agree with them or not, I don't really care. Just like an affiliate owner from you know Missouri that's complaining about CrossFit HQ not helping them out, it's really a matter of are you maximizing what they're providing for you and, if not, don't really care what the opinion is. What do you think about that?

Sam Rhee

Co-host

16:44

Yes, what do you use that they have provided for you? Because, honestly, you've homegrown most of the stuff that you do. You don't use cap programming. You don't use most of the tools that they have because you don't need them. You don't need it, you're already established. It's usually for growing gyms, yeah. So, honestly, you're not actually using anything CrossFit HQ uses and a lot of established gyms, I think, would have that attitude these are tools I do not need. I could do just fine and many have, especially after the whole glassman thing, disaffiliated and done perfectly fine, right? So I would say, unless you're a starting gym, why would you take advantage of that stuff?

David Syvertsen

Host

17:24

Yeah, it's more that the fact that their effort is there, the opportunity is there. If we ever do hit a snag, we need a resource to try and find where our holes are in our business. I now know that it's there. I am also loyal to CrossFit. I actually think that you gotta be careful here, but paying $4,500 a year to be a part of CrossFit to me is still on the cheap side and I feel like we're not being taken advantage of, because no paying consumer wants to feel like the producer is taking advantage of them and I don't feel like CrossFit is taking advantage of us. I do think they provide and put a lot into the CrossFit Open, which is a huge part of our business, and if they just stopped doing that I would be like crap. That's a big part of us and they run it and they do, in my opinion, a pretty good job of running it and we saw how big a production that announcement was last year. There's a lot of funding that goes into things and elements and variables that make the Open what it is. So that's part one. I do think they're making a better effort at communicating. Me. Communicating with them as an athlete, as an owner, has been a lot better in recent years. Since Don Falls has been involved. I do see them making more effort in media production.

18:43

I don't have the solution for what should media be within CrossFit to get people to walk in our door? Because there's too many variables. I just don't have the answer. I listen to people talk about what their commercials need to be Like. Do I want to see a CrossFit commercial in the Super Bowl tonight? I would love it, but it's like millions and millions of dollars, and would it get people to actually walk in our door? Depends on what the commercial is about. And then what do you do once they're in your door? Again, that's the issue.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

19:12

I don't think we're ready for an onslaught of my dad to a CrossFit gym. That would be a disaster right now.

David Syvertsen

Host

19:20

And I heard I actually heard a really cool idea of his that they're starting to implement. It's not their main focus right now. It's like they're trying to make the at-home workout experience better, Like a 90-day plan where you do CrossFit on your own at your house and then that gets you a little bit more confidence to walk into a gym. Because they have done studies again, something that you might not see, but this is a big deal. They've done studies on what have prevent people from coming to the gyms and they say most of them feel like they're not fit enough to go in.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

19:46

And guess how you're going to get them to do that 90-day workout? An app, an app. I think we're going to see one. I do think so. And he said wait, have patience. But he said that last year, so I'm still waiting. But listen, you have a bigger platform now. I don't know, I was going to transition to your.

David Syvertsen

Host

20:02

Sivan, yeah, I'll transition to media, because now we can sit here and talk boring business, talk back and forth, and I do think media plays a big part. That's kind of where I want to take that conversation was. Media plays a huge part in the growth of CrossFit, and that might be CrossFit CrossFit media or it might be these guys, these independent media sources that really do feed off of negative news and so they can put their spin on it and get a ton of reactions. Hiller has made a I don't know how well he does financially, but he's made a career out of, you know, stuff that is debated and can even come across as combative and can create two different camps within the same team. Like, I still think there's old school CrossFit and new school CrossFit and for the most part, they don't get along with each other, and I think a lot of these people in media are from old school CrossFit and things are not the way they used to be, just like they're not the way they used to be here at Bison either, by the way. Right, it is very different than it was in 2016 and 17. But you have to evolve and hopefully the leadership in place can keep the ship moving In the right direction and CrossFit leadership has been all over the place. I do trust and believe in Don Fall, but the media, to me, has more influence than CrossFit HQ staff and that can lead us to being on Savon last week.

21:29

Sam, did you watch it? What yours? The interview with Savon, yours, yeah.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

21:35

How often do you watch Savon? Not too often. He is a great guy. I watch certain topics but his sort of flavor of his take is sort of off color, like sometimes very off color. I won't put some examples, but even when he was talking to you I was like what, why would you even throw that in there? And you kept rolling with it a couple of times but I was just like I don't know where this guy's mind is. Sometimes he is definitely marching to the beat of a different drummer and I do know there are a lot of people at our gym who like him and that's totally cool. I understand that. For me I take him in very small doses.

David Syvertsen

Host

22:17

Yeah, yeah, he's got a. I would say I don't know if Cruz is the right work, but he's got a very interesting in-your-face sense of humor, like nothing is off limits when you talk to him. Oh, and that kind of humor to me it attracts a lot of people and I think you always have to know that If you're going to be a big deal media, you kind of have to have like that perception of having a screw loose. But here's what I love about Savon I think he loves, loves affiliates.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

22:46

Yep.

David Syvertsen

Host

22:47

He loves the brand of CrossFit Yep, and I think that he has a lot of experience pull influence that can help CrossFit gets to its peak. Does he capitalize on it? Does he actually use it? Can he stay humble about it? That remains to be seen. We'll see, but I do think that there is a lot of good in him and what he produces.

23:14

Producing media every day is hard. That is a really hard thing to do, but we can get into what we talked about. Bust on me a little bit. Yeah, what was your experience like? Yeah, I mean, he contacted me on social media and this is all open driven. I know it's not. I need to talk to Dave. It's like all right, who has the most people signed up? All right, let's reach out to this guy.

23:36

I guess he talked to a few different people. He said that on his podcast too, and he found me on Instagram and then got my cell phone number and we chatted and at first I did think it was a joke, because I went to the profile that messaged me and he's got like 4,000 followers. So I'm like I thought he would have more than that. What on Instagram? Yeah, I thought he would have like in the tens of thousands. So I was like, all right, someone's trying to pull a joke on me. So I just like respectfully said, sure you know I'll come on. And then I got a text from Matt Souza, who's the producer of the Savan podcast, who comes on with him sometimes. He's an affiliate owner in California and they gave me two dates and I gave him the one that worked for Ash and I the best and the entire week I still didn't know if this was real or not, which is why I think you told no one.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

24:25

I found out by seeing your Instagram posts and I was like wait, I'm your podcast host and I'm finding out on your Instagram that you are going on another podcast, the Savan podcast. Thank you.

David Syvertsen

Host

24:37

I will tell you. I did not tell anyone. The only person I had to mention it as a possibility to was Kayla, because I might. If I couldn't do it Sunday, I was gonna have to do it Tuesday and I was gonna ask her to change my classes with me. So we had to trade classes but nobody knew about it until that time I put on a scrambles. I honestly I was like 70% sure that it was gonna happen and the other 30% I was like this has gotta be a joke. But then I saw it on his YouTube the day before. He's got preview of shows that are coming. I'm like all right, I guess this is happening. It's really happening.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

25:11

Yeah, he's pretty famous. I mean, he has 26.3,000 subscribers on YouTube and, as of yesterday, the podcast, your podcast had 3,300 views and, in comparison, we have 183 subscribers on YouTube and our last episode that I saw, the Dark Week episode, had 69 views. It's early. It's early, we're gonna get more. So you had a very big platform and you used it.

25:41

You spoke for an hour and 43 minutes. An hour and 43 minutes. And last time we talked you said, hey, our podcast should last 20 minutes. And I'm like this dude, what the you talk about being a service mindset for your members, and I was like, how about serving me and my time by not taking up an hour and 43 minutes? I could only take about 20 to 30 minutes at a time. And then and I've known you for 10 years, and then I was like, okay, I gotta take a break before I listen to more Dave's side of the time. And now I will tell you, though, I thought it was great in the sense that you were very authentic. You're all you. You unloaded more in an hour and 43.

26:22

Then I did not know half the crap that you. He told him. It's like I thought we were friends and yet you go to some dude who, like you've never met before and you're telling him, like your deepest, darkest secret, the avocado story. Yeah, well, no, I've heard that a couple times. I was like the fourth time I've heard that story but it's such a vivid memory in my head. But anyway, it was great advice for affiliates in terms of approaching your clients at your gym or members approaching the CrossFit Open, and I thought the take home message for me was listen, you can focus on revenue, financial strategies, profit, expenses, which is helpful as a business owner, but ultimately, as a CrossFit gym owner, they have to see that you care, that you are in service to them. And, of course, savan makes it all weird and he's like, yeah, like waiters and baristas and like the guy who pisses me off at Starbucks, and I'm like, okay, yeah, sort of. But yeah, you pull out all the stories that I've heard about the avocado, the coaches, liz and Adam leaving to start their own gym. Like you know, you got pissed off at me that one time. I told them the first time about that. You're like you were not supposed to say that and then it became a thing like, yeah, because they would never do that anyway. But you never know. Yeah, I would say.

27:47

The other thing which I think I hope they take and run with it is the people who are former elite athletes not doing the open, like Matt Frazier you called them out, I did, and I feel like that is very important. I think that's important for the masters Especially, Especially. I think it's star driven and I feel like these guys and we talked about it off air, about him being on, what was that guy? Tennyson the YouTuber, oh, yeah, yeah, about how he really does CrossFit at disservice, by the way he sort of approaches his media, his platform. Yeah, and it really bothers me a lot. A man who is the the Joe Rogan podcast Joe Rogan podcast, my time fit, his man on earth built his life and reputation on CrossFit and he's not really like in my mind, helping CrossFit and it's not that he has an obligation, but I think in gratitude, just gratitude.

David Syvertsen

Host

28:44

Yeah, and he's gotten a lot from CrossFit.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

28:47

Yeah. So I would say, if you listen to the Savon podcast, first of all it is long, you may wanna like watch it at 1.25 speed or 1.5 speed, but I will say and don't watch the stuff after, come off, cause it is some really weird ass. I didn't. Oh, dude, don't listen to it. Yeah, and I won't even mention it. I was gonna mention it. And then Susan's like no, don't say anything about it, but let's read some of the comments that they said about you. Let's do it and then you can go ahead.

David Syvertsen

Host

29:16

I did not read these, by the way, so this is gonna be the first I've heard of that.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

29:19

All right. So Anthony Adams said David is a righteous dude. Love hearing his point of view on CrossFit, be open and owning an affiliate. And, yes, bts was the reason I started CrossFit. I don't know what BTS was.

David Syvertsen

Host

29:30

Behind the scenes. Okay, I mentioned that to Savan, you know, I think someone said he's like you were like really nice to him. At the end I'm like well, like that's just who I'm gonna be in general, I'm not gonna be mean to someone, but I did want him to know because I don't know if he gets enough of this like, of this like support, because I feel like sometimes I feel like he's an ally of Dave Castro but an enemy of CrossFit HQ. He, his impact on the growth was pretty big. I think Savan was a huge part of CrossFit's growth because of those behind the scenes. Yeah, all the other stuff that he did with CrossFit Media, very true.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

30:06

I like Ken Walters, I like this dude. Time Stamp 134 to 137 shows throughout the interview why this young man has 300 members and some junk gems in here. Just order a beer. Oh, that was when you're a bartender and you can't make up all the fancy drinks, so you're like, just order a beer and then they I take my shopping cart back, which is when you know Savon asks like how, how are you have service outside the gym? And you're sitting there like bring I bring, like shopping cart back, like Joel Trello was just busting out that one in class the other day and Then also the other. Why we say, probably doesn't do it, dude, that guy would bring four shopping carts back, not just one, all right. And then the avocado store, where you're sitting in the In the grocery store wondering if you had enough money to buy the four avocados or whatever it was, yeah, yeah. And then, jessica Rivera, you replied to this one.

31:00

Actually, I've heard of this gym great reputation, never tried it. Because I want to coach, to coach me, and I feel like I remember that that was right away. Yeah, 30 athletes per class. There's no way. Coach and give me the proper attention I need. I want to be coached. Ps. This guy can talk.

David Syvertsen

Host

31:15

That is true. Yeah, I actually noticed in the first half hour Because I knew this was like a unique opportunity to speak my mind and explain things, and I do. I feel like the more we do here, even on this podcast, I really want to explain the why behind a lot like I don't. I actually and I want to hear that more of that from others Hmm, like when I get, when we have guests on or when I have conversations in the gym, or even when I talk to some coaches, like I want to know why behind you, know the way they are, because I think that's where you learn, that that's and that's where you can Really project a certain way that you want to be.

31:50

But I did notice Matt Malone Texting me bad, and he was like oh, someone, the comments I didn't read with alive comments. I think there was a live comment section and someone said man, this guy can talk and and now and he's like well, two things. It's an effing podcast. Of course the guy's gonna talk and be like. That's how I've always been, that we talk about that with my social media. Sometimes you just, you just want to like, explain and make sure that there's no Gray area.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

32:17

That's, that's the reason behind that to I assume they're women, I'm not sure came insider and Emma, we in said is that Woody Harrelson? He reminds me so much of Woody Harrelson. And then someone else said oh, you like his blue eyes. And they're like yes, I do, I like those blue eyes, you're. You could become a little bit of a celeb if you wanted to. You could just kind of lean into that a little bit.

David Syvertsen

Host

32:40

Julia. Julia Asked me who's Woody Harrelson. I was like oh god.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

32:44

So, yeah, depends on which phase of Woody Harrelson you you want to look at. That's true. I think they're talking about the cheers bartender Woody Harrelson, not the Like weird, the Twilight of his career. Yeah, true, detective Woody Harrelson. Yeah, whatever HQ should waive his affiliate fee for a year. Good dude, oh wow, I didn't see that. Yeah, done, I don't know if he's part of HQ. And then Jeremy world David's about to convert Seve. I guess you talked about faith and I did talk about faith. He was a little intrigued by that was.

David Syvertsen

Host

33:16

Yeah, I think I actually enjoyed that. The irony behind that is I Actually talked to my brothers about this. I feel like they're the people to talk to about faith and because I and I still struggle with my consistency there, but it is my foundation. Like I do, the older I get the real and see the difference between people. I think that foundation is always there and I did like talking about that.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

33:39

Hmm. And then, yeah, someone said he's arguably doing as much good as the church, maybe more, and I don't know if that's true, but that was interesting comment. And then Joe Pierro, obviously with the water sploosh emojis, daddy Dave, he says thoughts about a second CrossFit bison location.

David Syvertsen

Host

34:01

Yeah, that's, it's always, it's always in the back of our minds. We do talk about it. So I think, I think Joey wants to have a gym where he can do his thing, you know, and be, and it's, it's. It would be hard for him here, you know we've talked about in the past. It's just we, just our classes are too big and we can't provide him the open gym stuff that he needs.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

34:20

So yeah, he's a pretty elite athlete. He needs space and you know, that was actually one of the reasons why proven left he's Nashville. Yeah, did you listen to that? I listened to what you told me. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, elite athletes need space. They need, they need places to work out.

David Syvertsen

Host

34:37

There was a comment I saw. I'm sure you'll bring this up because when you're on the on, the thing you could see when he I guess he selects a comment, that shows up, yeah, on the feed, yeah, and one of them was I guess you'll never have a CrossFit Games athlete from bison.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

34:50

Yes, and so what'd you say? What'd you think about that? I'm offended by that.

David Syvertsen

Host

34:55

I am. But here's two things I don't think it's true, like because of the way we run things. I don't think that's why we won't have a games athlete to say that we're I'm right or wrong about that, because you don't have a games athlete yet. It's so freaking hard to make the games. I mean, there's such a few amount of people that make it, but it is. I think someone can get to the games from this gym with our programming as the main programming, with extra work, you do have to do more than a lot of things, not masters. I'm talking individual, yeah, not teams, yeah, like so in open division, I was hoping you're gonna give me the masters out.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

35:32

I mean masters, we got people who are People that physically capable, with some people that can make semi-finals physically, yeah, and then with a couple lucky I mean they're opening up a little bit, you never know but elite individuals, it's such, it's so specialized now and professional.

David Syvertsen

Host

35:52

Yes, like, let's take the athlete that we know them the Closest to us personally, that has a shot. I guess you could say right is Joe Piero right? Would Joe go backwards if by some of this program you know five days a week and then he did an extra session every day? Yes, I don't know if we did, if we did the level system every day, like we're doing it once or twice a week right now. We did a podcast on that. If you want to go back and look at, there's no more like that.

36:19

We could get rid of Rx and scaled and make level three Really hard, like to the point where, like, joe was the only one that could do it, you know, on a day-to-day basis. But I do think he would need a lot of extra accessory lifting tension. But you To me, I question now, at this stage in Joe's competitive career, the fact that he's by himself a lot slash borderline always, is it holding him back? From what I see as a coach, where are Joe's holes in his game? He doesn't have that next gear in workouts. He's just he's very strong.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

37:03

Well, I think you would be bucking the trend in terms of what most pro CrossFit athletes are doing. This whole camp system has taken over completely, and so they have multiple coaches. You have one dedicated coach, you have additional coaches part of the camp. You are doing a lot of your training on your own, but you're also getting together as a group to sort of push and to work on weaknesses and so forth, and so you might be right, but it is certainly not what everyone else currently in CrossFit is thinking.

David Syvertsen

Host

37:35

I think the camps are. We're not sure if they're working yet Because I feel like these guys it's like fractured a lot, Like proven loses. A lot of athletes hard work pays off has lost the athletes Like mayhem is, I feel like there's constant bodies in and out there. I don't know if that's going to be a long term thing. I just don't know if there's enough money in it, you know. And the future, sport is another fascinating topic. I mean, CrossFit is starting to pull out a little bit. So yeah, I don't want to get too sidetracked on that, but you know well we could talk about Savon podcast for like another five, 10 minutes on the little wrap, yeah, so final thoughts about the experience. I enjoyed it and he actually said that he would like me to come back on if we want at some point, you know, to talk about faith and then maybe we get back into, you know, if there's ever like another state of CrossFit type conversation. I do like the platform, but I also know there's people that listen to him because they want to listen to his sense of humor and they don't like CrossFit as much as they used to. They are the old school crowd. But I want to like one thing I want to be a part of bison, to be a part of as well if, for those that want to, I do want to be part of the solution of marrying old school, new school CrossFit together.

38:50

I still think there's a fracture between the people that were doing this from 2008 to 2015, and things are to change. Regionals left, the media team left, Greg Glassman left, and now you have private equity involved. You have all these chief marketing officers and different ways of doing things. Now that's going to bring new people into your gyms, people that are maybe not the same demographic or same type of person that came in 10 years ago. I think there needs to be a group of people in the middle that are marrying them together, Just like I mean, I think that's the way our world works right now is, you know, like in politics, we need to find someone that's like, that can bring the right and left together.

39:31

You know there's, with a lot of these debatable issues that we have, like I don't think the solution is, you know, go all in on one side.

39:38

Like I think there needs to be someone that's really good at brokering the two sides, and if I can do that, or if anyone from bison could do that on a bigger platform like Savan's podcast, and just say like we really are the same people. You just don't really always realize it because you don't always agree with each other, but I think there's someone that needs to give these people the notion that there's a responsibility that you have, that you can't just keep throwing your ideas and your thoughts and your beliefs into the, you know, into the conversation, and not take any others in. That was the one thing that I was glad I got out is that we should all be trying to give out more than we receive and we could talk about that in debate is you can't just like? You should be listening more than talking and then try to reflect and look at different perspectives, because if you do that, I do think that's where Crosset gets to speak. So if you truly want Crosset to get to speak, that's the solution. How you get there can be debated.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

40:35

Make sure you keep your baby blue eyes wide open. You might have to just be like oh, I just finished a workout and make sure you don't have a shirt on and just stand there. I think you'll get more viewers on the next episode. Sam, do you have any?

David Syvertsen

Host

40:47

open appointments on plastic surgery. We're getting rid of some trouble areas on my body.

Sam Rhee

Co-host

40:51

Woody Harrelson does not need any work, you got it already, daddy Dave.

David Syvertsen

Host

40:59

So, yeah, that's kind of like State of CrossFit, state of Media, the Savon podcast, kind of all wrapped up into one. But I do think that to sum everything up and to tie it all together, the State of CrossFit will have a lot to do with media personalities trying to not be too selfish with their work and trying to, if you truly want the brand to grow like. I love that Savon's doing the open and that he's going to put his scores out there I'm glad you held him to it and he's putting on hashtags and groups and he's getting people involved and I do think he does an affiliate series. If you guys go on and look at his channel, he interviews different gym owners, I think every week and he likes to get different stories and different perspectives out there. So I mean he is doing a big part in that and then, with CrossFit leadership, get the freaking app going. So I have to listen to Sam talk about this anymore.

41:51

But there's going to be, I think, some significant changes with this whole private equity group in the next two years, because I think they're at the four-year mark now, which is crazy how fast that's gone that originally they own over 50% of CrossFit and they said, usually five to seven years is when they will sell out, looking for 20 to 25% profit. So that's coming up and Greg Glassman's not compete ends in August. That's also coming up and there's some rumors swirling there about potentially him starting a new competitor at CrossFit. Dave Cascio shot that down, but I don't think Dave Cascio would tell us what he really thought about that in general. So I'm really interested to see what happens in the next two years. Media plays a big part in it, bison plays a big part in it and I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks guys. Thank you everybody for taking the time out of your day to listen to the Herdfit podcast. Be on the lookout for next week's episode.