Crossfit gains presence. The training pit chain continues to increase its footprint in Spain and aims for 15% growth to reach 730 boxes in the Spanish market before the end of 2023as Natalia Díez, general director of Crossfit in Spain, has advanced to Palco23.
Crossfit closed last year with 629 establishments in SpainTherefore, if it reaches its goal, it will open up to one hundred new boxes during this course. “Historically, we have increased each year between eighty and one hundred new affiliates and, by mid-year, we have already opened forty new centers in Spain,” Díez admitted.
Driven by the demand for high-intensity training, Spain was the third country in the world where the number of affiliates grew the most in 2022, especially in urban environments, behind Brazil and the United States. A top 3 which is being maintained in the first half of 2023.
The company has focused its presence in Madrid and Barcelona
The company has focused its presence in Madrid and Barcelona. While in the Catalan capital there are 103 boxes, in Madrid there are 99 centers open. Despite the fact that the two main cities in Spain are the ones that contribute the most boxes to the Crossfit conglomerate in the country, the general director admits that “there has been a trend in recent months of opening boxes in small cities, even in towns.”
Crossfit does not impose the map of its facilities in the country, but it is the affiliates themselves who decide. “If the interested affiliate goes through the internal process to open a center, he can do it in one place or another,” Díez admitted. “We do not have a defined strategy to go to one place or another, it is the interested affiliates themselves who analyze the regions with more or fewer centers,” he added.
The investment to start a Crossfit center is between 75,000 euros and 250,000 euros, to which is added the 3,182.3 euros that the center must pay to join. Headquartered in Colorado (United States), the company sells the license to use its brand to third parties, under the affiliation model. The company refers to someone who opens a brand box and passes a level 1 course, which allows them to maintain the contract for five years, as an affiliate.
On a global scale, Crossfit has around 14,000 boxes in 155 countries, with more than five million users. Most of the business is located in the United States, with 5,100 boxes, followed by the European market, with more than 4,200 centers. Other regions where the chain has a notable presence is Latin America, with more than 650 centers, and Australia, with more than 570 boxes.
In Spain, Crossfit has around 190,000 subscribers
In Spain, there are currently 670 boxes and, taking into account that in each center there are between 120 clients and 450 users, Crossfit adds some 190,000 subscribers in Spain.
In the sporting aspect, Crossfit continues to promote the Nobull Crossfit Games that will be held from August 1 to 6, 2023 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison (United States), with a prize pool of three million dollars, increasing the 2022 prize by 50,000 euros. Only the winner of the competition pockets $314,000.
The company was founded in 2000 by Greg Glassman, who left the company in the year of Covid-19 in the midst of a global controversy, which put the business on the ropes. Glassman made racist comments after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police.
In that same year, the company was acquired by the American investor Eric Roza, who currently holds the position of CEO. In August, the company named Don Faul, a former Facebook and Google director, CEO to replace Roza, who left the company’s management to head the shareholders’ meeting last February.
