The Sevan Podcast - Future of CrossFit Affiliates & PFAA asks Dave Castro to STEP DOWN | Souza’s Show

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

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You guys know the deal, how could you not at this point? What that comment say? You guys don't know about the Susan people time? That's right, Jeff, you know what time it is. Five minutes past the hour. Good afternoon, everybody. Hope everybody's doing well. I was always wondering, like, I was gone for two weeks.

One of the days I was traveling to the games and the other day was like the first day that I got back from the games. My thought was like, shit, if I'm off this show for two weeks, does anybody even show up? Easily forgotten, huh? Who knows, who knows? Hope you guys are doing good out there.

We're gonna have an interesting discussion today. I'm gonna talk a little bit about the vision that I had when I started CrossFit. What's the difference between passion and profits? What's the path forward for CrossFit affiliates, specifically CrossFit affiliates? I'm speaking about business here. I want to get into the semantics of everything you guys see out there on the interwebs, especially regarding the tragedy that took place last week. But at the same time, I think that that is going to, uh, create some interesting changes for us affiliate owners. So we'll discuss it here.

I'm going to talk, um, I'm going to talk a little bit about, uh, what I think is going to happen, and then I'm going to open the phone lines because I'm very curious about your guys' thoughts on there. But have some sort of like... Have something. Don't just come on a ramble for 45 minutes. This isn't Sevan's fucking live call. And so you better have something of substance or we're gonna cut you off just like that song.

I hope you guys are doing good. I like to use that... I like to use the music playing in the background Yep, it fires me up. I have to like get myself all pumped up and then I come in here and sit in this office and hit go and it's like Quiet on my end No, it's not uh, it's not james brown. Um, the song's called I need a dollar

I need a dollar. It's my private equity song By alo black I need a dollar by alo a dollar. It's my private equity song. By alo black. I need a dollar by alo black, Allison. There you go. That's the name of the, no, I have to play it low enough. I have to play it low enough so I don't get dinged. I've been kind of letting it ride. Nothing's happened so far.

Yeah, Judy Reid, in use your name when you call in. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I want to, I want to preface this conversation right off the jump. So there's no conflation. When I'm speaking about CrossFit, when I'm speaking about the business practices of CrossFit, when I'm speaking about the decisions made, when I'm speaking about the leadership of CrossFit, I am not intentionally going after any individual. That is not the purpose of this. They're all great people. I've had plenty of time with some of them individually, some of them as a group over the years, and they're all good.

They're all good people at heart with good intentions, I am sure, but they're all shackled by the chains of private equity and the decisions that they have to make, they're allowed to make, or they're kind of cornered into making. And so before we get too far into it, I just wanted to, uh, to start with that just right off the get go. Okay. Um, I got a couple clips here that I want to play for you guys. Oh, first thing I wanted to discuss. First thing I want to play for you guys. Oh first thing I wanted to discuss

First thing I want to discuss is this power versus whoops. No, we're not sharing that I almost shared the whole screen instead of just the link actually wouldn't have been that bad, but Allison well said thank you. Yeah because Because sometimes when I get discussed in this I get really passionate about it. There's no doubt that I am now. And I just like sometimes people hear shit and they spin it in their head a completely different way than its intention. So let's just get that out and open here. Coach Suher, is that how you say that?

Dude, I am. You guys thought to Vaughn was bad with names. I am way worse. No one cares about the affiliates in CrossFit, the methodology and the brand than to Vaughn and Susan. Thank you. I appreciate that. It means a whole hell of a lot to me. So this is what I want to start with here. I posted this. It was interesting in terms of like the different comments that came, but most people understood what I was saying. And this is an internal reflection because there is only one thing that we could truly recall control in this life. There's only one thing. And that is our attitude. That is our ability to respond and deal with things that happen in life. Are we perfect? No. Am I? No. Hell no. Probably more often wrong than not. But I like to use this as a practice. Okay? I suggest, because a couple

people were like questioning kind of this chart and stuff like that, go listen to the book. Read the book. It's called Power vs. Force by Dr. Hawkins. Robert Hawkins, I might say Matt do more your research. I should use Whoa I'm gonna say maybe we'll end up with Travis on this show, too. I don't know. It's like the crossover episode We'll find out. Okay. so if you guys pay attention to this The forest portion here a lot of the emotions the shame guilt empathy grief fear desire anger And then pride right as we start to break the line and do courage which is kind of this neutral Position we move into force which is new neutrality

willingness acceptance reason love joy peace and at the very top, enlightenment. And I like to think about this because sometimes when we have stuff that happened to us in life or angers us, somebody cut you off on the freeway. That's like a super quick reaction and you know that you're operating out of probably fear and probably anger. Maybe they cut you off, they scared the shit out of you, slammed on their brakes, and then now you're super angry about it. And so your ability to reason, to have logical thoughts on your next step, completely get

blunted by that emotion. And we end up in this short-term tunnel vision thought. Now you guys know that if someone cuts me off and I road rage out and I smash in the car and I jump up and I beat their ass, maybe I'll be like, yeah, I did it. And then the long-term result of that is going to be absolutely awful. Chances are you're going to be charges might get pressed against you. You might go to jail for assault. You're for sure. Your insurance is going to go up.

There's going to be a bunch of crazy stuff that happens in the long term. But in the short term, when I operate from anger, fear, I'm like, yeah, I got that guy. But really, no, you just ended up screwing yourself in the long run. So it's something that I just try to always think of in terms of when their emotions get high and things get crazy. It's like, where are my emotions sitting on this chart? And then depending on what I'm feeling, maybe it's best just to keep quiet. Maybe it's best to not have an opinion. Maybe it's best just to not have a reaction

and let those things kind of wash away until I could really make a judgment call on what's happening. And with the internet these days and everybody's like pushed to respond to something, you have to do it. If you don't do it, they think you won't care. That's the fucking stupidest thing I've ever heard.

You're basically being like bullied into making some sort of post. So that way there's people will look at it and be like, oh yeah, he cares. Look, there was a there was a post made or there was an opinion thrown out or I'm angry with the mob too. And it was almost analogous to like me being upset with my friends. Hey guys, didn't you know it was my birthday? Yeah, I shot you a text. Oh, I know you shot me a text. I know you said happy birthday when my friends. Hey guys, didn't you know it was my birthday? Yeah. I shot you a text. Oh, I know you shot me a text.

I know you said happy birthday when you saw me, but you didn't post about it. What the hell? You don't like me. You don't love me. Come on. It only matters if it's on the internet. So I kind of use that as a, just a lippness test as to where I am on that chart and what type of decisions I should be making.

And this comes very true when you're in business. The worst decisions I've made in business have been the emotional ones. The worst decisions I've made have either been when I've just been afraid of what's going to happen next. I'm operating from anxiety rather than from logic. Or I'm angry about what happened. This person didn't close right, blahaa, baa, baa, baa, baa, whatever the case may be And then there's always a long-term Problem a long-term obstacle that I've created or I put into addition to whatever else I was feeling So this helped me out a lot. Hopefully you guys gained something from that as well The book is called power versus force by dr. Hawkins. It was written in the 90s. It starts out really cool

Mostly talking about politics and politicians. But I think there's a lot to be applied to life. Old book, good book. Somebody reached out and was like, holy shit, I thought I was the only person that ever read that book. Hey symmetric ears, where is total consciousness on the scale off the top of the page? Sure. Whatever. I mean, you could probably put more emotions or different things in there, but I think this covers the basics of all of them. Right? Sorry. Your chat is too quick. Yeah. There's a bunch of you guys. I mean, I always try to like leave it rolled up at the top so I could scroll

back down and read funny stuff like Brian's, you're gonna apologize to Frank. No, not necessarily. Not necessarily. I should apologize to me. All right, so next clip here, this is gonna, actually, let's go with this one. A reflection piece and then we'll get into it. We have here Robert Greene. You guys, if you watch the show, whatever you've heard me talk about him

Fuck it. Probably one of the most prolific writers of our time making death a familiar presence. We understand how short life is And what really should matter to us I'll just leave you guys with that one. Silence at the end. Okay. Now let's dive into it, shall we? I whenever this and by this, I mean the attacking online, the black and white pictures, the hashtag, I'm out that we need change, but nothing specifically noted. They calling for people's heads.

It's just a community that eats its own. And it's crazy to me that we've seen this play out before. It did not work well, especially in terms of outcome for affiliates or training. It did not. Maybe it had some sort of effect on athletes. What I'm talking about is in 2020, when the same thing happened, we had all the I'm out people and everybody turned against Greg based off a tweet that most people didn't even understand. But tensions and shit was so weird at that time that it was just a total group think in a dog pile. I had members of mine that I have had great relationships with burn fucking CrossFit shirts that said CrossFit Livermore on it because they were part of the righteous group. Are you kidding me? I had a conversation with the president of a very well known company

that I was doing corporate fitness with that literally called and was like, Hey, well, what's your response to what's happening? My response is, what do you think is happening? They have no answer, but I need to make some sort of statement because I'm an affiliated with that company. They bring me in CrossFit Livermore is in my name and then therefore they promote it within their company and they can't promote CrossFit anymore unless I make some sort of statement. Contract cost me thousands of dollars because I would not make a statement.

I didn't think it was useful. I didn't think it was necessary. And I didn't think it offered anything to anybody except for appeasing the fucking mob. Now what happened in that time period for me on a personal level created massive opportunity. The podcast, you people watching me right now and everything that has unfolded since I hopped on board with Sevan and we started the Sevan podcast and really building on it. I created a massive opportunity out of that. And I will this as well because I'm not focused on the circular thoughts in

which I can't control. I'm not focused on the group think. I'm not focused on the mob and their demands. I'm trying to slow down, understand where I'm at on that power versus four scale and determine what's the best longterm outcome for me. What's the best long-term outcome for my affiliate, my business, which is always wrapped up in these things, but has little to fucking nothing to do with it. Okay. So we've been here before. We have been here before. And now the question is, is we've seen the changes that happened in the past. The first time we called for serious change and all this other stuff and what happened, it got sold the Berkshire partners. We were lied to immediately. Immediately we were lied to hi, my name is Eric Rosa and I'm going to sail this ship until 50 world old

Till i'm 50 the next 50 years the next 100 years Are you fucking kidding me, dude? You were a fan boy for the sport I heard you refer to it as a sport I also heard a rumor has it That during one of the very first meetings when you talked about the different stakeholders quote-unquote I'm talking about, Rosa here, the different stakeholders in the company you didn't even fucking mention

training. You kidding me? So what do you think has happened since all of the Rosa hires? Do you think all the new executives that are being brought in right now are disciples of CrossFit and saving lives. Or are they just trying to play catch up to what is this thing and how do I bring my current agenda from what I did at my last job to this and apply it here because that's what I was hired to do. To me, it seems like a lot of them, no fault to their own, don't understand what it is

that actually fires up affiliate owners, that what makes us get up at fucking 5 a.m. in the morning, unroll that bay door, turn on all the lights and start coaching our people. In order to do that on razor thin margins as the price of everything around us continues to move up, everything around us continues to move up, including the barrier to entry to become an affiliate owner. As all that starts to rise and times get tough, how do you keep going as an affiliate owner? For me, it was the vision and it was the mission that we were attached to something larger than just a workout.

That there was something more to what we were doing. And CrossFit HQ's role in that was vital. Because I didn't have to think about the mission, I didn't have to think about the vision, I knew that the messaging coming from CrossFit HQ was going to continue to push that forward. I knew that Greg was going to protect the CrossFit name and I knew that he was going to go after anybody that was trying to make what we were doing inside the affiliate illegal. And I know this crowd particularly, we don't need to stress the importance of the NASM

case. You guys are probably familiar with that. Now, what is the vision? What is the mission to me? And especially in the recent, it has seemed to be all about sport. It has seemed to be appeasing the athletes the mob Most of those athletes don't even belong to CrossFit affiliates, let alone own it let alone coach let alone intimately understand the program and the methodology in which they are using to build a livelihood off of I was lucky enough to have conversations on the semi-final East with Scott Panczek and Ben Smith. Two athletes who understood it all the way through and through and at heart were coaches,

at heart were affiliate owners. And understood what actually really mattered, what was happening inside of their affiliates. In the attention that they were gleaming from being the badass athletes that they were, they were turning that attention and pointing it inside of their affiliates in the attention that they were gleaming from being the bad-ass athletes that they were. They were turning that attention and pointing it right at their affiliates, right at their members and giving them as much as they possibly could because they knew that that was the thing that was fucking important. That was the priority. Okay. Now I'll share this clip here. Some of you guys have seen it. It's a real popular clip from Steve Jobs.

I ripped it off YouTube and I threw it on my own Instagram as well too. It's probably way too zoomed in. That stage in Apple where we went out and we thought, oh, we're going to be a big company. Let's hire professional management. We went out and hired a bunch of professional management. It didn't work at all. Most of them were bozos. They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to do anything.

And so if you're a great person, why do you want to work for somebody you can't learn anything from? And you know what's interesting? You know who the best managers are? They're the great individual contributors who never ever want to be a manager, but decide they have to be a manager, but decide they have to be a manager because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as them. If I'm going to be led, if I'm going to listen to somebody craft a vision, some sort of mission

that I'm going to get excited behind, I have to be able to learn something from that person. I have to be able to have trust in what they're saying and what they're doing and know that if I follow them, that I'm going to be learning something, I'm going to be doing something, I'm going to be contributing and I'm going to be making a larger impact on the world. If I can't learn anything from you, if you can't offer anything, then what are you doing in a position of leadership? Majority of what we have seen when it comes to affiliates, especially, is, hey, I got a great idea.

Let's reach out to all the affiliate owners, the 10-year affiliate owners, and let's get information from them. Then we're going to take that information, and then we the 10 year affiliate owners, and let's get information from them. Then we're going to take that information and then we'll get a package it. And then we're going to pretend that that's a value proposition to the next affiliate that I'm giving it to. What you guys, there has been less and less and less offered to the affiliates in the last three years than ever before. Think about it.

There's no media. There's no vision. There's no mission. There's no leadership. There's nothing to fucking show for except for the affiliate toolkit, which, and I'm gonna sound so arrogant here, ooh, he's arrogant. The last three months, I built an affiliate forum with the help of Jay Ver and a few others,

and we basically put together 10X what's inside that affiliate toolkit in three fucking months on a shoestring budget that I'm funding out of my own pocket. And you mean to tell me, Oh, well, we're, we're not really sure how to best serve the affiliates. Yeah. Because you've got your head so far up the ass of the CrossFit games. You don't even know what the fuck CrossFit is anymore. And either do any of the people that have started in the last three years or by my buy my pizza, you know I'm mad.

Ha! It's hard for me to not get worked up about this because I have dedicated my life for the last 10 years to this and more so. This is not something that I am doing to be an orange theory. I do not want CrossFit HQ to be lead generation for me I Could do that my fucking self

What I need is a mission something big I need to be contributing And you guys heard me talk about it in the last show In the and it's so grand that most people look at me and they think it's stupid when I say I want to revolutionize Fucking health care and you know how we're gonna do that We're gonna do it through professionalization Of the trainer not the fucking sport I could give two shits About a sport in professionalizing it and in fact, I think that's the worst way.

I think you go to professionalize the sport and I think you bury it. And I guarantee you the financial reports from that, the PNL would show that that is true. Trish, Susie read the goddamn comments. You guys were talking about cuddling and shit. What is that? Oh my gosh. Okay. Uh, Greg is going to give Susan the money to buy HQ. Olivia. Fuck. Do I wish, do I wish. And at this point too, if you guys know that if I was at the helm, we'd probably have 50% of the affiliates

leave and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. I think we grow by reduction. I think this is a hedge, a tree, a bush that just got crazy out of hand. And in order for it to bear the fruit, that is really meaningful. Again, we got to tuck that sucker down all the way to an unrecognizable stick so we could grow back out again and be fruitful. That's what I think. Eric Sweet, we really need Greg Glassman back. You ain't lying. Allison, Susan belongs in HQ. He's exactly the voice we need there and he's affiliate owner.

Thank you. I appreciate that. There's probably better people more qualified than me, but I have the microphone right now. So you guys are stuck with me. Susan, would you play Savan as a CEO or the CMO? I don't even think the title matters, but I do think he would be extremely valuable to getting it back on track. Probably CEO, just so he could, it could be official.

You know what I mean? And here's the deal. The reason why I started with that clip and with the leadership thing is I don't even like get the emails from HQ. I don't know why. Maybe it's my fault. I probably didn't do the thing right. I seem to get it get the emails from HQ. I don't know why maybe it's my fault I probably didn't do the thing right. I seem to get it when they fucking kicked me off But for that brief period of time, but I don't really get these updates

and I got an update from from um That was given to me and was like hey, did you get this email and I was like I did not and it was clearly written to the affiliates I'm unsure if i'm going to be able to read it verbatim to you guys, but let me see here if I could find it Yes, here it is Okay, so you mean to tell me that go back to what I was talking about about the mob We could clearly see that CrossFit is just eating its own again. They want heads on sticks. We want

serious change. Here's my black and white photo. We know. Please do not pretend it's offering anything to that poor Dukage family. Please do not pretend that it offers anything to them. It does not. So this is what we get from CrossFit HQ as affiliate owners. As promised, this is the email, as promised, we were providing updates to our affiliate owners coming out of last week's CrossFit Games in the tragic death of Lazar Dukic. Our first priority remains our athletes. Our first priority remains our athletes. Are you kidding? We have people now national headline stories about what happened in CrossFit. You got this huge media storm

that's coming in the wake of what happened. The pressure that is going to be filled by the CrossFit affiliate owners as the ones that are going to be the downstream consequence of what happened. And your first priority is the athletes. The athletes is your first priority. How does that even happen? Second CrossFit remains committed to conducting a full investigation. Peter edge, the former executive associate director of Homeland security investigates

will core a Homeland security investigations will coordinate the investigation. Mr Edge and his investigative team have over 30 years of state and federal law enforcement experience and are highly qualified in investigations and security issues. CrossFit will fully cooperate with the investigation team. No shit. You paid for them with our money. What and then you're going to boast some name as if I'm going to be appeased. Oh good. Okay. Yeah. Because my first concern about my business wasn't making sure that the CrossFit brand name kept bringing people in so I could pay my fucking coaches their livelihood and

I could have mine. It's the athletes. Yeah. That's, that's the first priority is the athletes. Yeah. That's the first priority, is the athletes. And then your second priority is to tell me who you're spending my money on so you could do an investigation. Here's the investigation. You guys have made fucking terrible and competent decisions over the last three years. When it comes to affiliates.

And this is just the nail in the coffin right there Hmm Heidi crumb they don't owe you shit start there CrossFit doesn't owe me shit CrossFit doesn't owe me shit Dude fucking call in in a few minute. We could really have that conversation CrossFit doesn't owe me shit. What call in in a few minutes we could really have that conversation crossfit doesn't owe me shit what are you talking about what are you talking about then why do you affiliate yourself with them because it's paid through december and saying i'm not an affiliate right now doesn't actually mean anything until the rubber meets the road and I got to pay the check again. They don't owe you shit.

Dude, are you kidding me? You better have basis to defend that on. Because I'm slipping down into anger, Heidi. So my conscious level is getting low and I'm not going to be able to have a rational conversation because my emotions are high. I'll take advice for myself, too. OK. They don't.

OK, fine. Fine. They don't owe us anything. They don't owe us anything. Nothing at all. That would be a terrible stand on. That'd be a terrible way to state it because then when it comes time for me to pay my $4,500 or for your gym owner to pay their four, $4,500 and you look at those rager thin profit margins and you're hoping that the CrossFit company is pushing on a message and creating media and continue to grow the brand on their end and look out For the affiliates isn't doing it then you're right. They really don't owe me shit

We're in your contract, what the fuck do you know about the licensing contract? How do you do it when you run your business Heidi fucking kidding me How do you do it when you run your business, Heidi? Fucking kidding me. But there's truth in what she's saying. They don't know no shit. They don't. They don't.

And clearly now. They've put on exactly where their priorities lie. They've showed us. Heidi's right. If I go and read that licensing agreement and look down at their obligation and deliverables is blank. Is blank. So then you look for the messaging. You look to see what's happening. I look at their actions and you try to see, okay, what do they offer and why am I going to pay this? right Heidi was a plant

She just did that so I could get fired up and then actually answer a question because there is a lot of validity in the question She is asking there's a lot of validity in the question she's asking and When I think about it and you really go through and you're like, okay, what is it? What is it that they, what is it that they are offering? What is it that they are doing? And then you get an email that is being told to me that their first priority is the athletes. Then then it's very clear, right? Heidi, I don't even have to look at my licensing agreement now

To understand that it is literally nothing. They don't owe me shit, but apparently they owe the athletes an explanation and That's where they're focused on Hmm Okay, okay So then what is the what is the path forward Matt? What is it? So let me ask you this. It's true. Susan, Venmo, me $10 to ask that. You're not supposed to tell anybody. Come on, dude. Valid point though. I mean, here's the truth. Why did I get upset about that? It was because you're right. And I'm pissed off about it.

Gosh, you're dude. You're right. You're right. And so when you look back at the actions and you say, okay, so why, why did I sign up, why was it with it before you're talking to the guy that snuck into the DDCs, you guys know this story. I emailed actually a DM, Savon multiples, finally to get me off his back. I caught him at the right time and he was like, dude, email Karin Thompson. She's the director of CrossFit Health.

She'll help you out. I emailed her. I told her, Hey, I'll set up chairs. I'll, I'll throw away trash. I'll break down tables at the end. I'll stand in the corner. I'll bring my own lunch. You don't need to count me for the head count for tacos.

I just want to be a part of it. And what does she do? She said, okay, great. Just come on in. You don't have to clean anything up. I said, no problem. They left me on a list. Next demo came. Hey, next DDC is at this. I just kept showing up until finally one day somebody was like, Danielle Hale was her name. She was like, who are you? And why do you keep showing up here? And then I quickly was like, hell, how about I do the name tags? My name is Matt. I own an affiliate. The reason why I wanted to be close to that was because the way that I saw CrossFit, when I was helping the people in my gym, when I was helping the first responder communities,

when I was working out with my mom and my coaches, my coaches family, and what it did and changed their lives, and how Greg was going further and further down the rabbit hole of corruption and health and starting to make the combination of the healthcare providers and the affiliate owners. I knew that that was the mission. That was the vision. And I would think about what my gym can become. It's in a small, at the time it was in a small warehouse. Now it's in a little bit of a bigger warehouse.

And one day I thought, okay, if I could take this out in a mainstream, the back of the gym would always look the same. It would have that gritty feel, the rubber, we'd have the rogue rig, we'd have all our setup. It would still stay true to what it was, but the front of the house would look different. You would walk in, it would look a little bit more commercialized. You'd be able to talk to a doctor. You'd be able to talk to somebody who's very knowledgeable about nutrition. You'd be able to see a physical

therapist. You would have all these healthcare practitioners in the same building. So then that way, when you went and saw your doctor, you got your blood work looked at and they said, Hey, we need you to do X, Y, Z. You weren't just handed something and say, Hey, good luck with your diet and exercise because it needs change. Cause we both know that once a doctor says that in the hands of the note and it says, good luck with your diet and exercise, you need change. They know, and you know that you're just going to be back in another five years

and you're going to get all the prescription medications that they warned you about and you're going to start going all the way down that rabbit hole of what we call in America, healthcare, when it not, it's sickness management, it's chronic disease management and institutions and the pharmaceutical companies are profiting like son of a bitches off of that. And it's just getting worse. And I knew that the only way there's going to be actual change is if we professionalize the trainer, we kept leveling up our skills as CrossFit coaches so we could offer more and more and we could build relationships with people that understand the medical side of stuff.

We could bring in the doctors, the ones that truly believed in what we were doing and we could bridge that gap between them and offer people a long term healthcare solution, one in which that gap between them and offer people a long term health care solution. One in which that creates amazing community and connection, which it doesn't take a lot of digging into research to find out that people that live the longest are usually ones that have a really great purpose in social connection to their community. This is mental health care. Those things were what drove me. Those things are what fired me up to know that, Hey, I'm coaching this

person in by one interaction at a time, by one workout at a time, I am moving toward that vision and I knew that HQ was as well because we saw the media that was coming out of there. We saw the changes that were being made. Now did I agree with the complete abruption in the 2018? I would have handled that a little bit differently, but the overarching theme of it? No, I didn't disagree with it. And so for me, that was what the most important thing was.

And then if you started putting cameras in those affiliate owners faces that were already doing this, because I know I'm not alone in this mission. And in fact, for some people, I'm far behind where they are on this journey. There's already people that are doctors that own CrossFit gyms that are already doing this. But I knew that the more that that message came from the top, the more subject matter, expert matter, people that we had speaking to educate our trainers and that group of people that Greg was bringing in the CrossFit HQ at the time was going to slowly lift everything else just like it did in the fitness industry.

Nobody did snatch and clean and jerk back in 2005. Now everybody that's deep into fitness knows about it quite a bit. So that's what CrossFit HQ did before. And that's why it didn't really matter that they didn't owe me shit because I was aligned with what they were doing. I was aligned with their mission. I was aligned with their actions. I'll go back up to the top.

Uh, Jake Chapman, what do you have to say? I'm sure something enlightening snuck into BBCs. No, they snuck into me. DDCs, DDCs. I realize I mumble quite a bit. And so sometimes the words get a little, uh, the crossfit you loved is gone. The CrossFit is not the CrossFit of 2018. So what do we do? What's, what's the decision? What does it look like? Sue's already to be triggered today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was there. Heidi through the first

rock at the car and I freaked out. We got it. We got it back together though. Let's see. In order to market CrossFit product, they need to have high end athletes. What in order to market the CrossFit product, they need to have high end athletes. Let's have that discussion real quick. I was talking to seven on the other day and obviously you know his stance on like the competition and what that does as far as market value.

He also agrees if you guys saw the clip and the thing they did at the end of the show, that it needs to be strongly attached to the affiliates. And right now that that competition has trade so far away from the affiliates, they are not even, it's, it's not even close. There is no connection anymore. And I would argue that I have defended CrossFit more that I've had people walk through the door of my gym because of the CrossFit games. Think about it. I've had to talk more people into the fact of that. What I do in my walls of my gym is not what they see on ESPN.

I had to talk to more people about it's not too hardcore. You don't have to be young. You don't have to be fit before you start. I've had to have that conversation way more times than I've had somebody walk in and be like, dude, I saw this on EMP and I'm ready to join. And in fact, I would even argue that depending on the reason the individual came in, that member most likely could end up being more of a headache than they can be a contributor.

And you affiliate owners know what I'm talking about. You have that gunhoe 20 something that doesn't really want to do the class that is there to be the competitor that needs all this extra stuff. And then they want to have their open gym time and then they want to be in the corner and then they're being disruptive. And then, Oh, by the way, they need a discount because they're young twenties and they don't got any money. I would argue that that profile of person is probably more of what the games attracts than your mid 30 to 35 to 45 group that is coming in because they know, holy shit, if I keep going down this road, I'm going to be really unhealthy really quickly.

I just want a spot where I could have community connection, a place where I could bring my family a place that I could get in and out and get the best possible workout experience in an hour. Those are the people that come in and by the way, don't really mind paying whatever it is because they have the money for it. Jake Chapman with another jab. Susan, what are your top 17 favorite things about yourself? Why don't you ask your girl dog? There you go. Louder for you, Jake. Louder for you, Jake. Louder for you, Jake.

Ryan, isn't that called active life these days? It is. That could be one of the people that are further along on the journey than I am. I've had great conversations with Sean and they got a really good thing going on. Um, most sports need successful pro leagues to inspire regular folks to spend their money and get off the couch. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. That is what I'm talking about. That is how far away we've moved from the original messaging. That is how far away we move from being an elegant solution to the world's most vexing

problem. That is how I, uh, Allison rationalize the most out of touch comment I've seen on here. And we've said some wild shit. Yeah. They were talking about cuddling earlier. I don't even know if I think I was left out of that cuddle. I think Jake said, uh, uh, I cuddle with socks on. That's true. Judy Reed. I went to an anniversary party for a gym on Friday of the games and a long-term member had no clue who rich phoning was. That's how little

the athletes are in this world. If I stand in front of my class, any one of them and say, how many of you guys watch the CrossFit games, not a lot of hands go up. You could even take somebody who's really well known like Rich Froning or Tia and say, how many of you guys are excited to watch Tia and half of Michael who who's Tia, Oh, is she the one that wanted, right? Like there's this massive disconnect between what we do in the affiliates and what happens on the play of field at the CrossFit games. Massive disconnect.

Barbell spin. Jr sent me here. I love Jr. What'd we do? By the way, thank you for letting me come on and, uh, hang on the show. When you guys did, um, the announcement that the games, that was really cool. Had a ton of fun doing that. Really appreciate that. Uh, Laila, most of my members do not know about nor care about the games. It's different than when I started in 2011, a hundred

percent. And here's the thing too. When, when Saman was doing all those behind the scenes and you guys could see this, he would walk right up to like Valerie of all world and be like, what are you doing? And she's like, I'm grading papers. And he's like, so what do you do? She's like, oh, I'm a school teacher. Goes back up, puts a camera in the face. So what do you do? Oh, I own an affiliate. Awesome. Are you members here?

Yeah. Look at all of them. And they're all cheering because they're excited to see that that gym owner. There is a connection between the two. Strong one at the beginning. And we started chasing down the, I mean, how many times have you guys all heard the puns? Well, we got to professionalize a sport the fuck we do Look at what we did over at crash crucible and Taylor verse the world

That was a celebration of what is happening inside the affiliate That is how you do that and that by way, that would probably bring you some more members because, Hey, what are you doing to the friend who is curious about CrossFit? Oh, I'm going onto the gym on Saturday. They're hosting this like cool local competition. There'll be some other stuff there. They bring their friend in, they see how cool it is. They're talking to everybody else that goes here. Oh, you go here. Oh, you go here. Oh, wow, cool. And then they bring people in. Once it started to move to this whole entire

professionalization, we need these big venues and we have to have the ESPN deal, which by the way, what, are you fucking kidding me? Who wants to get on cable TV these days? Sorry, that's a whole rant, I don't know. Heidi Taylor is not bringing, is not bringing any new members. She's just trying to give me a round up up today Heidi's trying to push my buttons Daniel

$5. Thank you very much. I could care less about the games until I heard savan and you and hiller. It's that you're talking about it It's your fault for making it interesting You should be there doing some of our board meetings. So he's a pull up the CrossFit games metric on Google search over time way down. Yep. But we're still holding onto it as the key to bringing more people into our ecosystem to create more, more members of this community Heidi and Jake need to call in after this Simone is there a calling number? Yeah, there was I was just getting my rant over first

Let's get my rant over first I want to make sure I hit all these points here Okay going back to what Heidi had said earlier about CrossFit doesn't know you shit. Look it up. It's in the contract. When you make your decisions based on data, your emotions are less likely to derail you. Yeah. You're right. And so what is the data points?

All I could do is look at what has been done. I don't watch what people say. I watch what they do. In a while back when, um, I had Tyler, uh, walk-ins on, and then I was like, we're going to go back and buy it. Then we made the joke. And I was like, call Frank Frank. And then he posted something on there and he said, uh, well, at least I'm trying. And I don't even know what your plan is. What dude, I created a affiliate for him, loaded up a ton of free stuff and gave a chance for any coaches at any members to go in there and get it all for free. And also they make contributions and I know it's not much, but

with the resources and the time I have, it's a hell of a lot more than you've offered. It's a hell of a lot more than anybody else I know has offered. So don't tell me I don't have a plan or I'm not making a contribution or I don't care. And here's the biggest difference. All of these executives, like I started the show, this has nothing to do with them. All of these executives are resume builders. Go to their LinkedIn three to five years and they're onto the next three to five years in the wrong to the next. By the time they even start to wrap their hands around what CrossFit actually is and how to actually serve these affiliate owners who know way

more about CrossFit than they could even catch up to know in the next three years, they're gone. And we're going to have the new cycle of execs in the new buyer in and around and around we go. And now what is the problem with that? Well, the problem is, is that I'm not here for three years or five years. I'm not here to turn my gym into a point of sale for clothing. I wanna make a massive contribution

to the way that people look at healthcare and provide a place that they can come in and get complete healthcare that starts with the fucking truth. And the difference between me and those other executives is that I'm willing to fucking die on this hill. I'm not going anywhere. Is that i'm willing to fucking die on this hill i'm not going anywhere I'm not building a resume so I could get hired by the next private equity company to come in and do the same playbook

I'm here to run the charge and to continue to do it. Heidi, do you think they can help me with my resume? Yes, they can. They're really good at writing them too. Really good. You'd probably get paid a shitload of money. Leila, media launch is amazing. Thank you. Okay, so I've pretty much given my portion of the ramp.

That's not the right number. That's the right number. Calm down, Frank. Don't you tell me, Brian. If any of you guys want to call in, I'm going to hook the phone up to the, to the road cast right now. 50 50 shot. It works and it works well. But if you do have an opinion on this, I'm open to it. Heidi. I promise I promise I won't um, I would never yell at you on the phone Just a little little bit to get me fired up, you know, I mean Alright, we're connected. So if any of you guys

Want to call in? Let me get that going. Okay, feel free. Go ahead in Colin Barry McCaulkin. I tried to make you a wrench, dude I searched your name. I literally spent a while trying to do it. And for whatever reason, I don't know. Maybe it's because you have a different name than what you're you. I don't know how that works, but I could not find you. I could not make you a wrench. I'm sorry. By the way, I'll be selling wrenches. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. Okay, so we're gonna move.'re going to move right along here. One of the things, wrong clip. One of the things about private equity that you guys have to understand is slowly it's rotting out the American dream.

If you look at Black Rock, Vanguard, and State Street, they pretty much have a stranglehold over all of these universities. Black Rock in particular they're talking about here. All of these universities. Not to mention those three companies, State Street, Vanguard and Black Rock own 88% of the S&P 500. That basically means they own 88% of the S&P 500. That basically means they own 88%

of every single corporation in America. And the reason why this is an important piece to go into the conversation about why being able to own an affiliate, not necessarily as an investment vehicle, meaning I'm not buying this to make money, I'm buying it because I truly believe in the mission and I'm passionate about helping others. It's being eroded by private equity companies like this because they just get more and more

massive. They have so much leverage, meaning they have so much cash that the little guys can't do anything about it. And then what they do is they push their agendas and they push their policies through all these corporations. And if you guys know, because you probably watch this show, all of these corporations own the corporate media. They pay them out tons of money in advertisement. Why?

Sure, they want their 30-second commercial, but really they want control over the narrative. That's been the function of private equity in the United States. And that's how private equity has slowly eroded the American dream. And like you've heard me and Hiller talk about it, where we think that CrossFit or the affiliate is like a microcosm of the U S of what's happening. You could see it happening here. Private equity gets involved. The barrier to entry to become an affiliate becomes really high.

Costs you a lot of money to play. It costs you a lot of money to play. And as that barrier to entry, as you increase friction, as you increase the barrier to entry for me to get into as a CrossFit affiliate, you're taking away the ability for people that are just going to work their way up through it to have an opportunity to do it. People like me, if it wasn't for the chance to own an affiliate and to be passionate about

coaching and learning business through that and learning everything that I have because of the catalyst being CrossFit, you take away that opportunity for everybody else. And that's the thing that sucks because back in the day, you could go to CrossFit.com, you could go to the journal, you could start to read and you could start to educate yourself. You could even build some of the stuff on your own for super cheap. You could save up your pennies. You could go get your L one. You could start sharing that information with your neighbors.

You could build that into a small group that meets at the park. You could bring them into your, your garage. Next thing you know, you got too many people showing up to service them in your garage. You write an essay, you send it over to CrossFit, you paid your $3,000. And at the beginning when it started, it was $500,000, right? And you were ready to rock. Now I could go take this to another location. I could start to run it as a business. And slowly by slowly, brick by brick, you could

start to build it to as grand and as large as you want or keep it as small as you need. You had that opportunity and most of which was there and available completely for free. Was there and available completely for free. And I liked the fact that there was just this blueprint and everything so I could take care of my health. Then I could learn to take care of the people around me. And then I could do that and send that to my community. And then if I'm really good, somebody would show up, put a camera on my face, I would

end up on CrossFit.com main site. And I would be able to start to spread that story even further. I'm in at 500 now. Rational Refraction. CrossFit is only an unnecessary expense for you. You have all the answers. So why do I want the brand name? Why do I want to, to keep that intact? You need to start your own independent gym and wellness brand. That's the problem. There's already this whole entire community that's here in a lot of these gym owners that have been around for a really, really long time. It keeps it tidy under one kind of umbrella. Uh, Susie, maybe you come into rogue. Dude, I wish I would love to go over there and be able to hang with you.

Be awesome. Be awesome. Um, Heidi, how many people do you think I could service in my garage? I see what you did there. I see what you did there. We will affiliate our garage. Not for $4,500 plus your L1 plus your L2 plus all the application fees and everything else that comes with it. You're not with that. And as I was thinking about how I was going to have the conversation about, um, this in this show today, I kept going back and forth because like, part of me was going to have this discussion of like, okay, so if I were Dawn, what decisions can I make with having to work within the confinements of private equity?

Um, versus if I didn't have to do it in that whole back and forth. And frankly, I just like, after a while, I just started thinking about it. I was just like, man, they can't make those decisions because if you're focused on profits, if you need to grow the bottom line to satisfy your investors, there are no, there's no way you could start down this journey of this long-term investment into revolutionizing healthcare. Like the two are at odds with each other. You have of this long-term investment into revolutionizing healthcare. Like the two are at odds with each other.

You have to have short-term cash. They need cashflow. They need to put their money in areas that it's going to grow. It literally said it. Why'd you buy CrossFit? Growth capital purchase, because we know that if we put money in, we could grow these certain things of it and make more money. And that's why it's tough. Because I've been at this position of affiliate, stay in affiliate, don't stay in affiliate,

do I affiliate? Okay, I will for one more year. Maybe next year things will change. Maybe it'll get different. Maybe they'll go back to their ways. And especially after something like this occurs. My phone doesn't work. Oh Fuck that sucks. I Just thought people were afraid to call in

Bummer let's find out if I could fix that real time Okay, hold on I think I could actually do this. Here, okay. Shit, how do I know the phone number now? Is this the number? No, don't allow. Right? That's my number. I did get a new number. Hold on. Okay, here we go. Um, what's your number? Uh, no.

Shit. Sorry, guys. I don't actually have a phone number number so I was trying to figure this out as far as... Fuck. Okay, fuck it. I'll just pay for it. You guys better fucking call in.

I just had to pay for this stupid number. I didn't get a new number. It was like a free text thing on. Why'd you get a new number? I didn't get it. I didn't mean to get a new number. Okay. All right. Try it now. Somebody want to let me make sure it's the right number. It is not the right number. Stand by. I'm going to fix this. Edit. The The phone number is 9 2 5 3 1 8 5 5 8 2 9 2 5 3 1 8 5 5 8 2 save there it is.

Okay. Somebody want to try that. Don't you curse at me. I'm not cursing at you. I'll call. Thanks Judy. It's the ticket number. Okay. Now it is. Now it is ticket number. Okay. Now it is now it is now

It is now it is now it is now it is. Oh Frank. What's up, dude How you doing won't get better undercurrent ownership or even run by others with the mission of maximizing profits Yeah Allison the only way is for Greg to come back or start something new and pick up where he left off no one else can do it I do not disagree with you Dan vote with your dollars vote with your dollars did we just go live only about an hour ago an hour to all right if any of you guys want to call in I'll hang out for a little bit longer but I think I made my point clear and I, I know I kind of sound like a broken record with some of this stuff that I talk about, but it sits heavily on my mind.

Like I've dedicated the last 10 years to this and I would love to still continue underneath the same brand underneath the same mission and everything else. Because there's already such a far global reach with that recognizable name. But the problem is, is what I want and what the current executives and owners of CrossFit want are at two conflicting odds. And so maybe if somebody just floated me a couple hundred million, I could pull together a pretty bad ass team and we could get something going. Does anybody else want to try that number?

925 is it correct? 318-552. I promise I won't yell at you. I just need to know if it works or not. I just need to know if it works or not. I just need to know if it works or not. What's up, people just joined. Well, welcome to the show. You're going to have to rewind it back an hour to really, for me to get into it. you Okay. Now I'm talking to the people.

You got to hold on. Call, are you there? Call, are you there? There you go. Okay. Now hold on. People, people in the internet. Hold on.

People in the internet. Can you guys hear me? Can you guys hear me now? I know I lost sound for a second. Like it, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like internet, hold on, people in the internet, can you guys hear me? Can you guys hear me now? I know I lost sound for a second.

Like as soon as you called, like four calls came through at one time and it completely killed the audio. Okay, stop, hold on. Okay. All right, mic was off and we couldn't hear earlier. Yeah, I know, it shut it down. Hello, okay, it's back.

All right, it's back, okay. Caller, sorry, thank you for holding on. What's your name? Where you calling from? Holy shit Seth from Hawaii one of my favorite people. How you doing, buddy? You get a you get an applause Thank Thank- thank you. Yeah. Oh, fuck. Now they can't hear you.

This is a shit show. This sucks. Hold on. Um, really? You guys can't hear me at all? We can't hear the caller. Fuck. Hold on.

All right. Give me one second. Okay. Talk now, Seth. Okay. Can they hear me now? They can because I just have to hold on the frickin' phone. All right. Give me one second. Okay. Talk now, Seth. Okay. Can they hear me now?

They can because I just have to hold on the fricking, hold on. Maybe this road caster shut itself off over here. Fucking hate this road college. Mike B. Susan has fake college. No, I swear. Seth is a real boy. Okay. All right.

How are we doing? Okay. I'm good, but I gotta say you're scared me from ever adding live call in to my channel. Yeah, no, dude. It works so good. Clearly no issues ever. No issues whatsoever. Okay. We're good now. All right. Yeah, man. Okay. Okay. It works. Yay. Obviously. Yay. We're on the same team with everything you talked about today. I just, I just, yeah, I hope that for our sake, things just smoothed out.

I almost like it these days when, when nothing's happening in CrossFit. I almost like it when they're silent these days because it's easier for me to continue to represent what we do as far as CrossFit gym owners as opposed to bouncing around whatever HQ has been putting out for the last few years where we kind of have our take on what CrossFit is and are going to kind of live our truth through it through our affiliates. And like, so it's almost better in my mind that they don't do anything except keep the brand alive and almost stay quiet. Just keep putting out movement tips on YouTube, keep posting things. But every controversial decision they make is just making things more

complicated. So the simpler, the better for me at this point. Yeah. Hey, what do you feel about the emotional attachment to the name? There was a couple people earlier, I don't know how long you watched the show for, but you feel about like, um, like the emotional attachment to the name? Like, there was a couple of people earlier, like, I don't know how long you watched the show for, but they're just like, why, like, why even bother? Like CrossFit doesn't offer you anything, you know, they don't offer you anything. Like somebody was like, why don't you start your own? Like, what's the point? Right.

Do you have an answer for that? Yeah, I mean, I do. Like the name is still very important. It's still very well recognized for people who want to get in really fucking good shape. You want to get in the best shape your life. People do realize that you're going to do CrossFit even if they have a misconception of what we actually do when we do it. Like I'm paying 22,500 a year across my gyms to just use the name.

I don't need any of the other resources. I already fully understand what I need as a methodology. I already can make my own media to support stuff. So like I do have, I pay all that money just to use the name because it's synonymous with the style of fitness that I want to have represented in my gyms. And like I was just saying, every time they do something that takes away from my,

my personal opinion stance, or even start to change kind of what the perception is. Like it almost hurts me in a way. I just wish they would just try to keep status quo what it is. And so, yeah, I have a strong emotional connection to the name. And I do think it's beneficial because it is still known as where someone would want to go to get in shape. Yeah.

I mean, that's kind of the same way that I feel about it. Right. But the problem that I see now is like how far because what you said is like just maintain the brand. Well, we know what the brand was built from. Right. We know where it came from. And we knew the media, the messaging and what it took to get it to become the brand and the fitness methodology that we all know. become the brand and the fitness methodology that we all know. And so the problem that I have is like, as that goes silent, sure. You and I are going to remember it. I mean, I mean, we're junkies for it, right? You dug digging out the CrossFit journal from its grave and started to repost a bunch of stuff online. But the problem that I have is that if that messaging completely goes away, how many years or how many quote unquote generations of CrossFitters that are

going to cycle through before that's just completely gone and we're just class pass because you could buy a CrossFit gym and orange theory and F 45 pass and do all three because there's no differentiator between them. No, you're right about that. But, but I think, uh, and I don't think they should just be, when I say stay silent, I don't mean don't post anything. I mean, don't reinvent the wheel at all. Take all the past media, consume it, and try to replicate it.

Put out new versions of what they've done in the past that grew it to what it is. Make a new version of Nasty Girls with some of the top three athletes we see in the sport today. Like redo the Iron Triathlon with Hoffer and Dalen. Like put stuff out there. Redo the movement tip videos of people that we recognize. Just keep redoing what we already know works and pulls us in. Then you have fresh media, fresh content, fresh clicks, fresh eyes. It's easily discoverable.

I'm going to watch that stuff over and over again with new people because that's what I believe in. That's what I live and breathe. You just don't need to try to reinvent anything or reinvent your, your image as a company. It already exists. Just take the blueprint and continue to, to, to put that out there. Right.

And do you think that under the current ownership that they could actually do that, or do you think that stuff like that is almost too controversial? Dude, I think the current ownership can't get out. I think anyone in any situation of the current ownership can't get out. I think anyone in any situation of the current ownership can't get out of their own way because they're so into the bureaucratic policies like they're so worried about on their own feet and upsetting somebody above them that it's just they're completely paralyzed with the way that they run company in that sense. And when you have a glass man who can say,

hey, we like this, we're putting it out like this. Hey, Sivan run crazy with this media. Here's what we need to get out there. That's very different than probably I'm assuming a media, whoever's in charge of media has to come up with some ideas. They have to run it up the chain. Who runs it up the chain? Who runs it up the chain?

Then they pass it back down with six different ways they want it done. It just, you convolute everything and make it all useless. Whereas it's already out there. It's already what it needs to be. Just redo it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's strange what, like, I just wonder why they don't, you know what I mean?

I don't know, man. It's so simple. It'd be so much less effort to just replicate what's already been done for 20 years. Why try to be fancy and make something else out of it? Like even Greg, even Greg went a little bit off court, off course, just showed the different side of things you could do. When he started videos of old people on a sitcom set,

lifting drugs in their living room. Those videos went out and people were totally pulled in by them like, oh, I get the infinitely scale part of this now. That's simple. You don't need to change the message further than that. I just... I don't know. Yeah. It seems so obvious to me. Good point. Great point, Seth. Great point.

All right. Well, thanks for the input, dude. I got other people that are jamming through calling this a bunch, so we're going to give them an opportunity. Beautiful. But I, man, I agree. And hey, don't let this debacle with my phone and audio skew, deter you from doing a live call.

They're fun. It just takes a minute to get it going. I won't. I won't. I'm glad it works. All right. We'll talk later. All right. All right. Bye Caller hello, you're live on air Caller you're live

Yes, who is this? Matthews. Yeah, that's me. I'm on the toes. Yeah, I'm on the toes. Yeah. How you doing? Yeah, that's me. I'm on the toes. Yeah, I'm on the toes. And how you doing? Good. I think that yesterday a story broke with Conor McGregor shows him at Sturgis, the big motorcycle rally, banging some door, right? There's this dwarf chick.

She's working next to him. He's ignoring her. And now some pictures have come out where there's like she's all over him and shit. Okay. And those stories come out every single day. A professional athlete, you know, like just fucking and doing crazy shit, right? DUIs, all this stuff.

And we know all the stories of our CrossFit Games athletes covering that, but we don't release them. You know why we don't release them? Because those guys can't even handle being critiqued on not squatting deep enough. They want to professionalize the sport and these fucking butterflies, these fucking Peter Pan's can't even handle the tiniest fucking bit of fucking criticism. Imagine if the PFAA was really doing its job.

Imagine they would have already put out already a list of things for athletes to use so that that doesn't happen to them at swim events. But they don't give a shit. They are strictly focused on blame, blame, blame. We already know who's to blame. We already know what happened. We already know that he wasn't retrieved from the water. Where was the document, I'm going to call for Brent Fakowski and the PFAA to step down and everyone boycott that organization because they failed the athletes. They did an event at Waterpalooza where they already knew there was a nighttime

swim that was a complete disaster. Why didn't they foresee that? Why didn't they put out a list of recommendations for athletes doing the event over at the games? Because they don't give a shit. Why wouldn't they take the first step to do anything? I'm going to repeat it again. They don't give a shit. The fucking head of the PFAA, this fucking guy, Brent Fikowski, bumped his head on a bleacher behind him because of the way his rower was

set up for his fucking, for his biggest event that he partnered with. What if he was like, we're partnering with them, we're partnering with them. And you fucking hit the back of your head doing an explosive movement. You also hit your head and Jason Hopper, I believe, hit his head doing the wall walks in a spot that was too short for tall athletes. I thought that was your jam, dude. I thought that was your jam. It is a complete joke.

And when all the details come out of how CrossFit has offered to work with the PFAA and they've rejected it, people are going to start singing a different tune. But also remember, you guys want to be treated like big boys, we'll start talking about who you fucked. We all know. We'll talk about who you fucked, who your buddy fucked, who cheated here, who cheated there, who was seen with a fucking needle in the bathroom somewhere. We'll start telling those stories. How would you like that? There is more criticism in a single video about a, some 12 year old YouTuber made about an NFL game than all the athletes combined can handle.

What are you guys gonna do when fucking, we just grow 1% and the media ratchets up like that? The other day, someone was upset because someone just said, oh, Haley has boobs now and fucking people exploded and people say that they're crying or that someone's going to fucking possibly kill themselves because of that judgment. Are you fucking kidding me? Have you seen the fucking women's fucking collegiate track team? They're fucking dressed like strippers now and they're doing it to fucking get views and our fucking people can't handle fucking us saying you don't squat low

enough. You can't even, we can't even critique you not following the rules. Right. Right. Because then it's seeing you and if you don't, yes. And if you don't think the test for the fittest comes with some serious fucking risks, then you're out of your fucking mind. Now someone's going to be like, Oh, are you, there you go. Blame the victim.

I'm not doing that. We've already accepted the fact that there should have been someone there, a lifeguard with a fucking whatever those life-saving fucking styrofoam tubes are. There should have been 20 of them out there. We got that. We all fucking agree on that. But the PFAA is doing nothing. The athletes are doing nothing. They're just complaining. Go look at the most recent morning chocolate-up post. Every post is... Even Velner. We've been complaining forever. Okay, give me one example. Give me one fucking example.

Why are you still competing? Good. We have a fix for this. We have a fix for this. I've laid it out in the video as the CEO of the fucking company. I've laid it out. The fix is in. It's not going to bring Lazar back. I can't do that. Sorry. I'm not fucking Jesus of Nazareth. Right. But the fucking fix is in. We're gonna run everything through the affiliates and people are like, Oh, we'll lose the pro athletes. We don't have pro athletes, not a one, not a fucking one. I'm

pulling the card on all of you. Let me tell you, let me tell you the first thing about a pro athlete. You're not afraid of the media. Number one, that's the very first thing. That's the very first thing you're speaking up about someone fucking drowning. When we've had our third fucking cardiac or clotting event at the CrossFit game, since the vaccine came out and you haven't said a fucking word, when the fucking majority of people have been affected by it are men between the ages of 18 and 35, you're all

a bunch of pussies. Hey, what do you think got it that way? You think it's because the community just tried to put them up too much on a pedestal? It's HQ's fault. No, it's not the community's fault. It's HQ's fault. We let it fucking get away from it. We thought that fucking Catherine David's daughter's 1. It's HQ's fault. No, it's not the community's fault. It's HQ's fault. We let it fucking get away from it. We thought that fucking Catherine David's daughter's 1.8 million followers mattered.

They do not matter. They matter zero. You guys matter none. I mean, literally none. And you can see in the comments when people are like, well, there goes the sport. You're going to go to the sport. So what? It does not matter to the affiliates in the ecosystem.

It is zero. It is zero. It is a net loss of trouble versus benefit. But I will tell you what will be a benefit when you have a fucking world-class event that the affiliates have immediate, cheap, easy access to that brings everyone together that has a brisket eating contest in it.

And also, you will not find a fitter person in the world even with the pros gone. You will not. And how do I know that? Because we had 2007, 2008, 2009, and we know who shows up and they're, and they're cool motherfuckers. And let me tell you, Ken Murray ain't quitting. Right. I'll tell you, I'll tell you 20 other CrossFit games champions who aren't quitting.

And so, so it's just, it's just a bunch of how much people are emotionally attached to the game. I know I've been there. I'm a little behind the curve of Greg Glassman, but it doesn't matter. Bury the whole fucking thing, reboot it from scratch, go straight from the open to the games. Don't worry about don't don't have any enslavement to any of the sponsors. The only person you need to worry about is rogue, rogue, rogue, rogue, rogue. That's it. Right.

And then just run it so it's a fucking, it's just one giant massive community event. Let the vendors come and peddle their fucking D balls and powders and that fun shit. Let's spin set up a podcast and that's it. And it'll be fucking cool. And it will be a complete fucking sellout. Well, hey, let me- And it will be a sellout in 11 seconds flat because there's 10,000 affiliates and those 3,000 affiliates are going to buy all the fucking tickets. Oh, but what about the

fans? There are no fans. There are no fans. Right. There's only CrossFitters, dude. Go ahead. Go ahead. So with the context of everything you had just said about the overstatement of the past of the athletes really mattering, especially overstatement of the past of the athletes really mattering, especially when it comes to the like to the CrossFit affiliates, then I mean, how do that's exactly I mean, I feel the same way. But at the same time, I'm like struggling with that email that gets sent out by HQ. I mean, you literally said

at the top of the Maybe they have maybe I'll I haven't talked to all my staff yet and I will get the message out to all of them That is that is my fault That I haven't That I haven't let all the staff know they must have sent that out prematurely. I will fire the person who sent that out Rest assured that will not happen again. I apologize deeply. It is the only thing that matters is the affiliates. I'm gonna throw the biggest and baddest party for you guys next year. It's gonna be absolutely insane.

It'll be all the evil characters there, the Chuck Carswells, the Dave Castro, the Jenny Orrs. It's gonna be amazing. Nicole Carol will be there. I'll be there. It's gonna be off the hook. I promise you and I apologize for that. That was a disaster. I'll be there. It's going to be off the hook. I promise you and I apologize for that. That was a disaster. I agree. Yeah. I agree. I'll never talk to you guys about games athletes ever

again. That was weird. That was weird. You were a little emotional. That's okay. We understand. Times are crazy. Yeah. I got to head on straight. I understand. I have a clear vision. It's going to be affiliate, affiliate, affiliate. The affiliate proposition is going to finally have some value, monetary value. All affiliates will be able to make their money back from their affiliate fees if they don't care about going to the games, you'll be able to sell your tickets. And it's going to be awesome. You guys are going to love it. Awesome. And don't listen to any of the people who say it's not going to play out

that way because it is because I've been around and I know more than anyone else in the space who's currently involved. And I'm telling you, it's exactly how it's going to play out. Agreed. Agreed. Simple supply. All right. I just wanted to get that out there, but just remember they, the athletes can't

hand there, it's all lip service. They can't, they're not saying anything. And when they do say stuff, it's meaningless. They can't even, they can't even handle being at the 10 yard line of being professional athletes. They're not emotionally mature enough. Yeah. And I think we see that play out in the public sphere a couple of times now.

Huh? Yeah. Yep. All right. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Bye bye. I know a couple, uh, we had a couple other callers. If you guys want to call in now, the line will be open. Um,

what is this? Oh, that's funny. That was just a random thing. Don't, don't scroll away. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I had some know. Don't scroll away. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I had some, some people help me out. Okay. So there were some comments real quick that I want to address. And then I saw that you guys said, Hiller just put up a post.

We'll bring that in and we'll discuss this next. Okay. We got a call here. Hold on. Hello, caller. What's your name? Where are you from? It's Corey man. Uh, down here in south Louisiana.

Corey, what's up brother? Welcome to the show. Thank you, man. Thank you. Just echoing off of what, uh, Chevy was just fucking writing about. He is not wrong. All the, everybody's sucking, uh, Fikowski's dick because he's got the receipt. He's got the receipt. What did he do exactly? He sent emails. Go look at any other professional sport that has a, an organization that has a

union, what do they do when they don't like a fucking contractor's suit, much less a safety concern, they go on strike because they are actually organized and they are actually a professional group every single time. Did that happen at any point? Did anybody say, hey, maybe we should not go to the games this year. Maybe they should let the quote unquote scrubs play the people who actually want to go because that's what happened in baseball That's what happens in football whenever they do actually go on strike is that that next next in line shows up, right? so

Double-edged that is that those people that are out I'm not coming back who by the way are 100% not out and 100% will fucking come back because they did the exact same thing Whenever they kick Greg's fucking curve. Yeah, they are going to be back and they are going to be out because they know that if they believe number one, they're well, ego is not going to be soaked, whatever the case may be, because they think that they're a professional athlete. Number two, somebody's going to step up and take their fucking place. Yeah.

Here we go. Yeah. You're a hundred percent right. As soon as that, that just creates more opportunity and other space for somebody else who's willing and the ones who aren't will step aside. And like you said, that new generation will step in and it'll all just keep moving forward. But it just it bothers me that everybody is talking.

Oh, man. Oh, because you got a receipt. You got a bunch of fucking e-mails. Right. Yeah, of course. That are one-sided, by the way, that he posted. Yeah. He posted with, they put, hey, we're having this. So you don't even know what the other side of that conversation is.

Scott was talking about it today on cloud there when he said he's been trying to remove himself from it and try to be the adult in the room because all these people are talking and have absolutely no fucking idea what actually happened. And it's just like, like y'all have been saying, which I've been in agreement with pretty much since day one is that it's an emotional response instead of sitting back and waiting for the actual facts to happen.

Yep. Yeah. Yep. I agree. I agree. And I do agree with the fact of like, if people aren't willing to participate, they'll step out and there'll be new people that will step in there in their place. I mean, that's just how it goes. I thought all of my work.

And somebody you leave and you don't like somebody else steps in. Yeah. There's five fucking people waiting for fucking to get to sit at your desk, dude. It doesn't matter what your job is. If every garbage man that fucking quit running the garbage route, there are five fucking guys sitting there waiting to be the next garbage man. So let them leave. If you really feel that passion for robotic, God bless you move on and I hope,

uh, you know, I wish you well. Exactly. I don't understand. Well, well said, Corey. Thank you. I appreciate it, brother. All right. But I mean, that is true.

Typically when you have any shakeup like this and it just creates a new opportunity for those that are standing right in line behind a Brian Clark. Go follow inside of a broken science initiative and at the CrossFit book, there'll be some interesting things happening over there. I am sure of it. Uh, David, I'm a pro brisket eater. You're going to crush it at the new games, dude. Um, Cody Baker, Hiller new post about P FAA. Yep. I see that

right here. We're going to talk about that in just a second. Um, Heidi, people are emotionally attached to paying their affiliation fee. Heidi's been poking all the sensitive spots and it's only, um, frustrating because she's correct. Uh. Cross fat. Savon wants the old days of high socks and paleo. My socks are still high. My ankles have not seen the sunlight in 10 years. David just got here.

What I miss? Nothing big, nothing crazy. Brett, what's up, man? Pull up pillars post. Yes, I will. And just a second cross fat, bring back Panda express and Alison NYC lift weightlifting videos. Hey, man, there's not enough. My, my trumpet pressure is terrible. I would have made that funnier. I apologize that you guys had to listen to this. Athena. What's up? How are you doing? No, I. Yep. Jake Chapman. Can I come? Yes. I don't know what you're talking about, but if I'm there, you always, you always invited where I am Jake, um, James Townsend. What's up, man? Thanks for hanging out. Savon. What's up? Hit me up. They go.

Someone's watching listening. Maybe he'll let you up. What's up, dude? How you doing? Uh, maybe enhanced games can collab. Um, this is a horrible Donald Trump impression. I knew we were talking about the one I just did, but you're right. The one I just did is terrible. Jake Chapman make affiliates great again. Siobhan is unburning himself from what has been burning again. And of course, with some very thoughtful comments here, uh, it's time for, get with the programming to debate this topic on an upcoming episode debate what like the future of the games, future of the games, you guys, um, you guys, uh, watched the great show. That was a real popular show. And he said like, Hey, we tried

to package that whole entire thing up referring to the CrossFit games and sell it off. In the second, the buyers realized it didn't come with affiliateship or training, they ran for the door. Because a lot of people understand that like without affiliateship, without training, you just kind of have the dog and pony show. And I think because we've just seen those events, typically at that scale, meaning like a massive venue and you invite all these pros and all this stuff and you try to really blow it up. Uh, I I've yet to see one that is self sustainable, meaning we just go and start it and it doesn't like, we actually make money off of it and can survive and grow it and do another one.

Typically all these are being subsidized. Like, you know, live and loud is a big pusher of that because like a lot of their stuff is they subsidize a lot of the potential losses or anything else that a lot of clues that comes when it comes to the CrossFit games training and affiliateship are subsidizing any potential losses that were there. And the crazy thing is too, as you guys heard in that, uh, uh, interview that Don did with Pedro when he basically said like, Oh, well, one of the metrics of success that we're using internally in the company is the number of people that signed up for the open.

What crazy. And now maybe it's because they can't fathom how to get data like from any other place other than Chris Cooper's two brain business survey, which by the way, the links will be in the show notes here as well as the other shows. If you guys own a gym, please take a second to fill out that survey. So that way, um, we could get as most accurate data as possible. Christian, Susan, are you going to, are you going on the Cooper show on Friday? I am trying so hard to, I'm trying so hard to, I want to, but it just will depend on my schedule. So

right now it looks like I can, but hopefully I can. Don't invite Jake. He doesn't even like you. Oh, he doesn't like me? That sucks. That sucks. I thought he liked me. Let's see. I like the idea of weight classes. No, Jake Chapman. No weight classes in the jungle. Yeah, that's right. Suza, have you been using the affiliate videos yet in the shows? No, I have not, but that contest will be coming to be Frank or to be honest, Frank Jake doesn't like anyone. Oh so it's not like it's not me personally or something whatever so here's what we got going on if I wait one more yeah if I work up the balls I'm calling to talk about my experience with them I see no reason for people to spend

the $4,500 on affiliate fees and not put it towards TwoBrain. You said that in the last show we talked about that. And I was like, dude, I don't even really have a comeback for that. Yeah. Or you could even... If you know how to run Facebook ads and stuff like that, yeah, then you could probably even put $4,500 to direct marketing in your local community. $375 a month on Facebook ads. If you know how to do them, could bring a lot better result than just the brand name. Odd, I'm just shit talking. Don't, don't mind me. Okay, good.

You make me feel all insecure about Jake not liking me or something. Okay, here we go. Let's bring up Hiller's post and let's see what's going on over here. Boom. Okay, what do we got? The PFFA will be releasing a statement today asking for the intro. Removing Dave is the nail in the coffin. That's a Hillers comment there. Man, I, um, I mean, you guys, we all knew this was coming, right? I mean, we all knew that they were, they wanted heads to roll. They wanted somebody else accountable to hear to what happened. They want to see somebody

be fired from this. So I like, this probably doesn't surprise any of you guys. Does it? It doesn't surprise me that they're asking for this. I think that this is a terrible mistake. I think that for me personally, Dave was pretty much one of the only, uh, strong leaders that was still attached to the CrossFit HQ and without him running the games and stuff, this might look so different that it's just one of those situations where probably the devil, you know, is better than the one you don't. You know what I mean?

I don't know if there's anybody that can replace Dave's job in the sense of like master programmer, um, and also forward facing person that's going to get up there and like hold these press conferences and talk. And I mean, especially this year, which was different than years past because he wasn't, he didn't have a strong media presence as much as he did this year. He had a real strong media presence this year, interviewed all the athletes, was claiming he was going to do more. Obviously he's been dark since the games. I have a feeling that that might not be his decision necessarily.

I don't know if there's a company-wide policy and they're basically saying like, Hey guys, we're just, we're just laying low until this investigation and everything goes so we can have some ground to stand on in terms of what we know and what we don't. Um, I don't know how the games in the way that it looks now survives because we don't know how much Dave actually does behind the scenes. And I know that he pushes for a lot of stuff that he'll probably never say like publicly because he's a really big team supporter guy, meaning like if he's on

your team, like he's loyal to his team, even if in decisions that he may not necessarily agree with, or maybe even ones that he argued against. But he will still, he will still say, okay, this is what we agree as a team, then that's it. We'll just move forward together. I think that asking for the resignation of Dave is a mistake, but I don't really care about the games either way at this point. Like it hasn't really brought anything in the recent to me that is. Whatever that is substantial enough to where I hope that it stays, stays around. What do you guys think? What do you guys think about that?

Let's go back up here. Layla phoning is right. No one on the planet cares more about the CrossFit Games than Dave. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he hosted him at his house and, you know, built him up and everything else like that. It will be standardized. High Rocks 2.0. Decent guess. Ernie. Irony made a post earlier saying no one cares more about the Games than Dave Castro. Curious if Froning heard it first. He might have information. Who knows? Jay Chapman. So what if they ask? True. They could definitely ask. That doesn't mean well, do the problem with that, though, is like if they ask and they get like the whole mob like pointed at them, you know, for a fact, like CrossFit HQ is going to bend in need of that and do that. And they'll be like, oh shit, throw an egg off the bus. Boom, there's Dave. He's gone.

OK, don't come after us now. We're all good. Right. He gave you somebody. We sacrifice somebody from the top like we fired him. Oh, rough. Heidi Crum, broken science affiliates coming at you soon. What do you know? I don't know. What do you know?

What else we got here? Um Are you going Are you going to be yelling the whole show? No, I stopped after a while. I don't know how far back here Or maybe I am gonna yell the whole show. I don't know. Fuck it. It's my show. I'll do whatever I want It's like the 50 year old woman asking me for nudes I don't have to do it Okay, jay ch Daniel, what's up? They've been passive aggressively referring to arrogance for the past week.

And arrogance is a dog whistle for the TDC. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we saw that coming, right? Who's on the phone? Hi, Cassandra. Look at that picture. That's crazy. Um, Janelle, I'm so done with these fucking edits by Felicia time to unfollow them all.

Fair enough. Andrew signed, uh, this is a mob mentality. Clyesel said it best on their PF of a has zero power. Yeah. And they're they'll exactly. If they'll, they'll start to push the narrative in the mob towards that direction. And, um, I honestly think that CrossFit CrossFit probably doesn't know how to handle Dave or doesn't know how to be led by Dave, uh, like the current, you

know, managing partners over there at Berkshire and the rest of the executives. So who knows like maybe this is a situation where they were just looking for a reason and this, this could be the reason. Fuck. I hope not. I hope not. I hope not. Dave's the type of leader that like, and I could say this pretty, pretty honestly, because it's not like it's all been sunshine and rainbows with Dave and I's

relationship, there's been stuff behind the scenes that calls he's made that have literally like cost me a few thousand dollars. I'm actually searching for one particular comment in general because will brand setter put a comment in and if we'll brand setter puts a comment in here, that shit deserves to be read and I'm just trying to find it, but I don't know if I can. So I apologize. Well, I'm sure it was profound and thought provoking. If I didn't do this one justice yet.

Oh yeah, Brian Clark, we got the 499. Thank you again. Go fall, sign up for broken science. I don't know, well, maybe I can't find your comment. What do you guys think? Do you guys think that Dave that though that's all that they'll throw Dave off? Oh, Brian Clark, 999. Thank you for that too.

You probably meant probably did that one on accident trying to type in the thing. Oh, here we go. I found Will's first comment. Okay. Second one. Okay. Well, brands there. Do you think so many affiliate owners would have stuck around for so long? Like you, Susan, if everyone wasn't kept inside the CrossFit friends as affiliates, and then he goes on to say, and I mean, stuck around as in state in the gym business. Yeah, that's a great question. The, the short answer to that is probably like, no, because like once it fragments and you feel like there's like a lot of power behind the brand and us unified under the brand of CrossFit, that's what makes us really strong.

And unfortunately, like once that dismantles and everything kind of fragments, unless there's something to fill that void that comes in, that is basically like, Hey, here's the new umbrella that we could all live under. Um, it doesn't have the same power. It doesn't have the same, uh, uh, potential that that movement would have if it was unified. You know what I mean? Like that's basically the, um, the main reason.

And that could go back to what Heidi was saying is like the emotional attachment feast piece, which is like true because I'm emotionally attached to like being unified underneath that. And then if for some reason that goes away, like I said, it feels like we fragment and there's not as much like power behind the movement operation woke from the seven podcasts. Davis are common to us. I I've never even seen that word and I know I pronounced it wrong. Meredith, if Steph Curry died at the LA, what would you do? I would be a fan of the LA. Dave is our comodus. I've never even seen that word and I know I pronounced it wrong. Meredith, if Steph Curry died at the Olympics with the players, uh, union request resonation of Steve Kerr. Damn. Wow. Wow. Frank, get rid of private equity and Dave or whoever does not have to push for things.

The person to be fired is the person who cut the safety budget. Dave should have pushed back harder. How do you know he didn't? How do you know? We don't really know. We don't really know. Chad F. Winn, the president of the PFA continues on in such an unsafe competition. Does their opinion even matter anymore?

Good point. We only protest or make a stand when it's convenient or easy. If it's hard and there's a true sacrifice behind our opinion or the stand we take. Man, maybe we don't take it as hard. David L what's your opinion on the dude they hired to run the investigation after the video Wally put up yesterday? I did not see that video and it's like a fucking dog and pony show, dude. It's like, it's like a shield that they hold up like, Oh, don't come after us guys. Look, we hired this guy and it's doing its own investigation, which we all know that they're just going to like do the investigation.

So that way when CrossFit fires people for this happening, they can point out and say, Hey, this didn't this, you know, this wasn't our decision guys. Don't blame us. We hired this third party investigation and these are the results. And this is what they told us who needs to be held accountable for it. And so we made the decisions that we made. I mean, it's an easy way for them to have decisions made that minimize the impact of affiliate owners or different people being angry at CrossFit HQ.

Because now we could just kind of like point to the third party investigation, say it was unbiased, say we're just, we're just acting off based off of what they found. Which ironically they will agree with the mob. I don't know that to be true, but, uh, Carlos CrossFit was probably already thinking about blaming it on Dave. So it may work perfectly for them to make them believe that they are working together. Could be if Dave is fired by corporate,

he may be sent off with a nice little parachute. I don't know, dude, he wasn't those executive, like what did his package look like, when they hired him back on? I don't know. I could tell you that Don and the rest of those execs probably have a golden parachute. And for those of you guys that don't know, typically when they bring CEOs in, their package

as far as what they get from it... Hey, how successful were you at your tender at... As your tender... Your tinsure at CEO at this company. Did you meet these certain quotas? If you did or if you didn't, you'll still have this to fall back on. Meaning, regardless of outcome, the CEOs and the executives will be taken care of.

We've seen CEOs completely fail companies and leave way worse off with some $10 million package upon resonation and stuff like that. It's called, they refer to it as a golden parachute. It's kind of what CrossFit CrossFats talking about here. AsymmetricGearz, PFA, zero skin in the game, complains after the fact, participates always. They have been exposed. Yeah.

Bernie, Dave is like a riveting... Is the last riveting holding... Last rivet holding OG CrossFit together. If he he leaves the last shred of credibility and the company's leadership will collapse it definitely will for me um serious question i've been waiting wanting to open an affiliate but not sure if it's worth it would you do it again would your uh would you affiliate or open a fitness collective? No, I probably wouldn't now just because I don't think my mission is aligned with the current initiatives or priorities of CrossFit HQ. That could change, but as it stands right now, I don't feel that the actions they're taking, and I'm not just referring to this last CrossFit Games or the tragedy that happened.

I'm talking about the last three years. I think that the actions that they have taken have fundamentally demonstrated that they don't really know what to do with CrossFit. And I think that their hands are going to be tied by short term return on investment. So therefore all those decisions are going to be passed through those lens. And the type of movement and revolution that I'm talking about to pick up that mission is going to cost a lot of money upfront with very little return. And if your focus is just on the return and not on the mission, um, then no, for

me, it's not it, if you're really focused on sport and you want, you know, the mothership to help potentially drive leads to your gym, then I would say yes. But like I said, for me, I have to be attached to something larger. I have to be attached to something super grand, crazy ambitious to where when you tell people about it, you know, 90% of them are just going to look at it and be like, Oh, okay. Clydesdale media. What's up, dude?

Who's officially on record? Who officially on record does the PFAA represent? That's a great question. I don't know. The athletes as a total. I don't know. I don't fuck. I don't know much about it April w too soon. No investigation of any kind is complete referring to dave's, uh, Being let go because of this Yeah, I mean you can wait for the investigation.

Sure. I, you know, I still think they're going to do what they're going to do regardless. Um, Olympic bobsled ran on a course where a practice run killed an athlete. Dude. I mean, it's just one of those situations that when you're entering a sport, especially something that tests the fittest on earth, there's just a certain inherent risk to that. And I'm not giving an excuse for what happened because of that, but I just

know that when you're, when you're testing yourself against those limits and doing it in the way that those athletes do that, there's a, there's an inherent risk that comes with that. And it's just one of those unfortunate facts. Like you want to put in as much safety measure to like limit your exposure to those risks limits the athletes exposure to those risks, of course. And I'm sure CrossFit has thought about that, but at the same time, like you're signing up to be the fittest on earth.

So there's always going to be some sort of risk. Uh, what would be worse? Having a leg bitten off by a crocodile or watch Jeremy licking a yogurt pot? What do you gotta read these a little bit more? Commodus was an Robin Empire. He played Hawkin Phoenix in the gladiator. He doesn't have a great reputation in modern culture.

Okay. I've never had a great reputation in modern culture. Okay. I've never had a tender. If you. They had at least two staff members within feet of Lazar. If they acted we may have never been talking about this. Yep. And dude if Hitler would have swallowed a gumdrop in the wrong way and choked and died to death millions of Jews would have survived. But like it's just one of those situations where like there's, you know,

you could play the what if game all the way down. And the crazy part about that is I was probably the most forward facing on that finish line as one could be with the access and permission that I had. The only person closer to that finish line and what was happening was Chuck Carswell because he was on the other side of the barrier. And I was staring and filming everything as that happened. And I didn't, I didn't notice anything. Now I'm not looking for it. I'm not a lifeguard. That's not an excuse to what had happened by all means. Please do not conf. That's not an excuse to what had happened by all means Please do not conflate that as like an excuse as to what happened

But like it's just hard to recognize like it was just fucking hard to recognize Page Smith according to wooly the investigator was a homeland security homeland security runs the border patrol border patrol is sponsor of CrossFit unbiased Holy shit. No way. Really? Oh, that's not a, that's probably not like a best, like a great, a great, um, that's not a good, good look for them. That's not a good look for them. Um, bring back Linda Evans fitness studios.

I don't know what that is. Susan is not a learned man. That's right. Dixon. I ain't learned much in my day. It uh, I was canceled when it was cool. Oh, that's so funny. She's in survive. Thanks to the support of Saman and Hiller and everybody else who jumped on that too, but they were definitely the catalysts for sure. Rory Marlowe. What's up, man? Uh, athletes hide behind the title PFA FAA.

Dave does not hide behind CrossFit. None of the athletes would straight up say to Dave what happened was your fault, but that's what this request suggests. And I'll tell you this too about Dave and what I witnessed at the games. He, every time I was down in the athlete warmup area, I saw him to some degree. In the mornings when we get there early, like as athletes were showing up or just before the athletes were showing up. From what I saw, Dave was standing right in front of the checkpoint to a right when they crossed. He was the first person that reached out, shook their hand, said, how are you doing? Had a little conversation of anyone want to have a conversation, but he was there. He was accessible and he was available. He was accessible and he was available, whether it was there to stand up in front of the firing squad and take the heat or whether he was there to have a vulnerable real conversation

with an athlete that needed it at that time. He was there. He was available. I can't say that about much of the other ones and my past of watching Dave at the games and I'm talking and referring to when I have the credentials that I do. So I get to kind of see back behind the curtain and how the sausage is made, so to speak. When I, um, when I have seen it, Dave wasn't available. He was like focused games mode,

just like driving the show a hundred percent, like is focused on his next tax. I'm going to be bothered this year's games. He looked completely different, completely different. He was accessible. He was down there. He was talking with athletes. He was very available, which is completely different than he normally is. So I watched him make that change in real time. And there is a comparison that was there. B Lewis 42 theoretically should the Duke edge family sue the P F A A. I don't think so. I don't know if they have any responsibility in that. Honestly what value does support provide to affiliate owners. Dixon predicts the games go the way of the dodo bird. Yeah, I probably right Dixon. Sorry Jake Chapman they want Dave gone because he's a man of color bloody racist. That's a stretch

Sean how many games athletes are members of the PFA and how many athletes are likely to backslash sign this? Dude, the pressure of group think in the mob will make people do crazy shit. Remember when we all wear masks and had to stand six feet apart and walk one way in the grocery store and if you didn't do it, there was going to be some person that just fucking went crazy on you because they thought that you were the enemy. People do crazy stuff, man. Uh, unknowable. What have I missed? 5 45 in the AM in Australia about to go to CrossFit for thrusters and chest

to bars. Awesome. Have a great workout. Didn't miss nothing. Nothing much. Nothing much. Bryson shirt. It's such a weird name, dude. If they fired Dave for safety in the autopsy comes back as cardiac episode.

Does this tarnish the PFAA? No, because they'll just for sure default back to, um, the other, the other issues. Caller. Hello. Welcome to the show. Hey, can you hear me? I can. How's it going?

What's your name? Where are you calling from? Right on. As Justin and calling from Washington. What's up, Justin? How are you doing today? Bad. How are you?

So good. Good. What's up? So I form it on who was on the, who's on quote unquote board or advisory board PFA. And I was, I think it was, I think it was Dara was last I checked. This was like right there. It happened. I was just, I was bored.

But I'm looking at it right now. He's not on there unless someone, someone was just, I was bored. But I'm looking at it right now. He's not on there unless someone, so I'm speaking out of my butt, but looking at who to ask are and who's on advisory on deciding to make that statement that hosted on his story, but just some rabbit hole digging. That's all I got. Yeah. Interesting.

I, I can be completely honest. I have no idea who was on that board. I know that often the names that are brought up in association with it are Brent and Pat, but I don't, I, I honestly don't know the ins and outs of that, or even like the hierarchy, like, are they the guys in charge and did they have more people on? Like, I, you know, unfortunately I don't know, but if what you're saying is true, that's, that's crazy. That's an interesting, uh, piece of information there.

I could have sworn I saw those and his brother, but I might be seeing things, but no, it's just, it's Diane and equal stars. So I'm that, um, what's your name and not try Toria Campos Royce. So they have wide varieties of athletes and 10 years in the sport or in cross obviously your advisory boards, I'm pretty well known There's whatnot so but yeah, I got interesting Thank you all you got so we're going I appreciate it. Thank you for calling in man. Thanks for your input Later but Alright, I'm gonna jam here in a minute. What did Heidi say? I'm so over it

Yeah, imagine having a gym and your money and your livelihood attached to it. Huh? I won't talk about over a set that was true about the border patrol. Damn, that's fucking crazy. Now you're speaking my language. She's a I'll take Susan with a southern accent for $200. Okay. All right. right Um the next weekend review is going to be lit. Yeah, or maybe not at all Um, what's up, Pedro? Good to see you. Uh, jake chapman suza Has it changed that over 400 people from all around the world are watching you and wondering what you look like naked? See with good comic relief like jake provides I don't care if he likes me or not. He's a good part of the show.

Tragically ironic that TDC that TDC came back. So now he can leave on his own terms. Caller you're live on the air. What's your name? Where you calling from? Susan RB for California. Hey, RB. I know that place. How you doing, man?

Uh, pretty good. I just had an idea that has been getting floated around and that I did like brainstorming how that would work. You know how I talked about going with like the Olympic format every four years. Yep. Okay. going with like the Olympic format every four years of that? Yep. Okay, well picture Paige Powell that has some questionable thing that she misses on. Mm-hmm.

That's her out from competing for eight years, right? Right. Isn't that how that would be? Because like, you know, she competes this year, uh, four years from now, she tries, she gets axed from, you know, some questionable judging. She's potentially out of her eight year. You know, I mean, it's a short window for these open athletes. Yeah, just a thought.

No, that's actually a great. That's a great point. I think that would be kind of like an unfortunate consequence to having it spanned out to every two years, every four years. Right. Like if you miss the boat, then like that's it. You're out for four years. But I mean, that's the same with the Olympics. Right. The only thing I could see them doing is having multiple ways to qualify and oppose it, just whether it be a semi and.

And for even an open format or a last chance or all these other events, that's one thing. I mean, the reason I thought of it, I had an uncle that was on the 1980 Olympic dive team. Do you remember when it was boycotted because of Russia stuff? Yep. And that was, it was a lot less of a lucrative thing with sponsors and stuff back then. And a lot of athletes have that one opportunity to make it because, you know, they're putting other things on hold. And if they don't have sponsors or money to keep stay competitive, they're gonna miss that window and it's gone. Yeah.

Anyway, just a thought. When I heard that floated, I'm like, that's almost impossible for someone like her. You're right. And that would completely change like the landscape altogether. Yeah, very interesting. Good point.

For sure. Anyway. All right, man. Thanks. Hey, stop by the gym sometime if you want to get a workout. You got it. I got your matching car. I won't release what that is. Awesome. I rather take it easy. Thanks for calling.

Sorry, guys. That wasn't the people's phones. It was it was the lovely road caster strikes again. And everybody started to cut out. Okay. I got a jam two hours. That was a lot of fun. I had a good time discussing this with you guys. I'm not going to be beating this topic up into the ground too much more.

You know, it just, it, it weighs heavy on me because obviously I'm attached to CrossFit a lot. I've dedicated a lot of my life to this. I've had a lot of good things come out of this and I've been an affiliate owner and opportunities that have opened up. And I would like to try to preserve that for others just as much while still carrying on the mission

that was set forth at the beginning. Pedro from Coffee, Pods and Wads, if they wanna make a statement, they should leave a list of signatures underneath the posts. Yeah, they're not gonna do that, dude, because that would just expose people too much would just like expose people too much. Now would expose people too much. Was it Brian Peterson? Okay, I was just clicking people that I saw and like I knew on here, we don't really need to worry about CrossFit Games

is in the toilet. I appreciate it. Jessica. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Thank you for everybody who was listening. Thank you to everybody who called in. Remember, these are just my opinions and my opinions alone. Obviously, I'm super passionate about this.

So I get fired up. Please do not take that as like attacking anybody. Please if anybody from CrossFit HQ was listening to this, I know all of you guys are great people and you're doing what you can. And I know that these situations are tough and I know that there's a divergence between profits and passion. And I'm kind of the, uh, the split between that here. And, um, I'm not really sure what the path forward goes, but all as I know is that I will be keep pushing forward. I will keep contributing to the affiliates.

I will keep trying to provide solutions for us. And of course, you know, I'm just going to keep ranting on this show because that's what I do when I get a microphone and a small audience here. Thank you guys so much. Have a great rest of your day and please, please, please, please, please be good to each other out there because if you're not, that's pretty much all we got. Bye bye.