Crunch Fitness

Crunch Fitness
Franchise
Industry Health club
Founded 1989
Founder Doug Levine
Website www.crunch.com/ Edit this on Wikidata

Crunch Fitness is a chain of over 265 franchised fitness clubs located in the United States, Canada and most recently Australia.

History

Crunch was founded in 1989 as a fitness studio by Doug Levine, a former stockbroker.[1][2] The clubs became popular by appealing to young upscale members and featuring heavy promotions and marketing with some humorous and sexual connotations. They were initially profitable in large part due to successful promotion of logo merchandise sales within the clubs.[3] They featured some unusual classes such as pole dancing, bicycle-based yoga, coed wrestling, an "Abs, Thighs and Gossip" class run by a drag queen, and Capoeira.[2] Although the classes were later standardized across various locations, some popular offbeat classes remained, such as dodgeball and karaoke bicycling.[1]

Bally Total Fitness bought Crunch in 2001 for $90 million in cash and stock.[4] Initially intending to double the size to 40 gyms, Bally found the business unprofitable and was unable to get out of long-term leases in poorly performing locations. In 2005 Bally's sold Crunch to Angelo, Gordon & Co., a private equity firm, for $45 million. In May, 2009 the chain filed for bankruptcy,[5] as part of a reorganization by which it was acquired by New Evolution Fitness Company ("NEFC"),[6][7] a company founded by Mark Mastrov (co-founder of 24 hour fitness), Jim Rowley and some of the Angelo, Gordon principals. NEFC was developing plans in 2009 to open a series of UFC-related gyms.[7] The first of the UFC gyms opened in November, 2009 in Concord, California, with other gyms planned for Canada and Hawaii.[8] With recent developments into the introduction into the Australian fitness industry, Crunch is continuing its international expansion by opening gyms in larger areas such as Sydney CBD cascaded with a bright orange fist to represent the organisation.

References

  1. 1 2 Wendy A. Lee (2009-07-29). "The Trapeze, the Catwalk, the Gym". New York Times.
  2. 1 2 Edward Lewine (1997-11-30). "The Fitness Gurus". New York Times.
  3. ↑ Constance C. R. White (1996-06-16). "Crunch Inc.: Marketing a Gym, as Well as a Way of Life". New York Times.
  4. ↑ "Bally Plans to Purchase Crunch for $90 million". New York Times. 2001-10-16.
  5. ↑ Tiffany Kary (2009-05-11). "Crunch Fitness Files for Bankruptcy in New York". Bloomberg.
  6. ↑ Stuart Goldman (2009-05-07). "Crunch Files For Bankruptcy, Seeks Sale". Club Industry.
  7. 1 2 Stuart Goldman (2009-05-01). "Crunch Files For Bankruptcy, Seeks Sale to Mastrov's Company". Club Industry.
  8. ↑ Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera (2009-11-28). "Martial arts firms targets families for new gym". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2017-11-26.
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