Parents New trend in gym ownership? (The Business Side Of Gymnastics / Powers Gymnastics)

[Aussie_coach]

The big factor for recreational clubs is finding the right way to build longevity into your programs.

For some kids learning cool skills will keep them in the gym for years. But the advantage of team is that there are more long term goals built it.

Such as hitting higher levels, winning competitions, going to states or regionals or nationals, College scholarships, elite etc.

Also being in the gym so much they get very close to their teammates. Not wanting to leave friends that become like family also keeps them in the gym.

To make a rec program successful you need to find your own way to create long term goals.

 

[PippenMom]

They bought our gym, and another local gym almost a year ago. They kept the gym names, and also formed a new LLC as the owners. So it would be hard to track which gyms they own now.

Everything I’ve heard and read about them has been… not good. My daughter is training 9, and we had 10+ level 10s this year. Doesn’t seem to be their business model to keep DP programs around… however so far we’ve seen no big changes to our program. Hoping it stays that way, but I’ve had a lot of anxiety around it lately. We love our coaches, so I don’t want to look elsewhere unless I have to, but also don’t want to end up without a gym. The other gyms in the area with upper level optional programs do not have the capacity to absorb all our athletes.

Fingers crossed for you! Such a strange situation for all of us parents who have kids that love the sport of gymnastics to be dealing with when we have so little information about this Powers Group’s plans and goals.

Do you know if they had the coaches sign non compete agreements? Apparently, at several gyms they purchased, one of their first actions was to have the coaches sign non competes. However, these gyms were also the gyms where they eventually dismantled the entire competitive program.

 

[RTT2]

Fingers crossed for you! Such a strange situation for all of us parents who have kids that love the sport of gymnastics to be dealing with when we have so little information about this Powers Group’s plans and goals.

Do you know if they had the coaches sign non compete agreements? Apparently, at several gyms they purchased, one of their first actions was to have the coaches sign non competes. However, these gyms were also the gyms where they eventually dismantled the entire competitive program.

They had them sign non competes and then eliminated their jobs? In that case can they enforce the non compete??

 

[PippenMom]

Here it is in a different spot...

Powers Gymnastics raises nearly $17M in Series A funding round

www.sportsbusinessjournal.com

Same as the Powers that are doing this?

Link Removed

MAG Foundation USA

Empowering the gymnastics community through our Non-Profit Organization. Discover our mission to promote gymnastics excellence in the USA and more.

www.magfoundationusa.org

The ‘about us’ video on the site highlights the significant investment from Powers Group. Happy to see the men’s program get some funding but really sad to hear all of the stories from the gymnasts in the JO program who have lost their competitive programs. If the trend continues where they are buying gyms and shutting down competitive programs to fund their special interests, I’m not so sure the benefits will outweigh the costs in the long run.

Our Story

www.magfoundationusa.org

 

[PippenMom]

They had them sign non competes and then eliminated their jobs? In that case can they enforce the non compete??

The non compete agreements expired after 6 months to a year, which is precisely the amount of time that the competitive programs survived under their new leadership.

 

[GymnastMomX2]

Does anyone have a list of gyms they’ve taken over? These are the ones I’ve heard of so far.

Rolland Ballard TX
First in Flight NC
Evo FL
Capital TX
Platinum TX
Oasis AZ
Tricounty NC

 

[PippenMom]

Does anyone have a list of gyms they’ve taken over? These are the ones I’ve heard of so far.

Rolland Ballard TX
First in Flight NC
Evo FL
Capital TX
Platinum TX
Oasis AZ
Tricounty NC

Estrella AZ

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Does anyone have a list of gyms they’ve taken over? These are the ones I’ve heard of so far.

Rolland Ballard TX
First in Flight NC
Evo FL
Capital TX
Platinum TX
Oasis AZ
Tricounty NC

Did not realize they were the ones who bought Tricounty, but that makes perfect sense with what I heard about it.

The previous owner was a former teammate of mine; he was not happy with what they did with it after he sold it to them.

 

[TheXcelMom]

I am not out here trying to argue with gym owners about starting a non-profit gym, but when our daughter's gym cut Xcel, a few parents (me+others) did a little light research into it before deciding it wouldn't be good for our girls for moms to be so involved. Also, we have jobs.

This is one page on the subject. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong or misunderstanding, but I believe it's possible (and a pain in the butt).

A Successful Gymnastics Non-Profit Organization - Gymnastics Zone

A well run gymnastics non-profit organization can provide gymnasts with valuable life experiences or contribute to the destruction of a gym if done run. Continue reading →

gymnasticszone.com

This gym (below) didn't make it out of the pandemic, but my bookmarked page is still there. They had a team as I remember.

LA Gymnastics Training School Los Angeles Gymnastics Instruction - A Non-Profit 501(c)(3) Organization

LA Gymnastics training School is a non-profit organization; an educational institution offers gymnastics instruction classes for everyone who has passion for health & fitness.

lagymnastics.com

This one. No team tho. Not sure if that matters.

About

Established in 2009, High Flyers Gymnastics is a non-profit organization created to provide fun, high-quality gymnastics educational opportunities to children of all ages and abilities in a safe,...

www.lahighflyers.com

This one has a team...
Link Removed

Non-profits still have to be great businesses to succeed.
Are these great businesses?
No clue.

 

[JBS]

@TheXcelMom I guess I'm confused what you are saying?

Here is the largest nonprofit that I know of...

YMCA of the USA - A Leading Nonprofit Organization

YMCA is the leading nonprofit committed to strengthening individuals and communities across the country. Learn how you can get involved, donate and advocate.

www.ymca.org

 

[TheXcelMom]

No, this would be rare or impossible in the US. We don’t really have community funding for sports or activities, and grants come from private foundations and are very different in size and purpose from grants than in the UK, Canada and Australia. There are some non-profit gyms and also ones run by city rec centers and YMCAs (a non-profit), but those are usually more focused on rec, AAU, and only sometimes Xcel and DP. Because of the expense, the non-profit or community gyms with competitive programs are usually located in very wealthy communities that would be able to support private gyms- I can think of some in CT, the north shore suburbs of Chicago, and central Ohio.

The big limitation in the US is liability insurance for gyms and lack of government sports funding.

I was responding to the rare and impossible part.
This seems like a lot of non-profit gyms, but maybe these are considered wealthy communities because they're in/around LA?
Using the quote-reply function would have really helped.

 

[JBS]

I was responding to the rare and impossible part.

Nonprofit is a joke... for example... just look at the San Diego Y. Just look at the 2019 filing... $645,000 to the CEO.

Link Removed

Just scroll through that to see all the top salaries.

 

[TheXcelMom]

Nonprofit is a joke... for example... just look at the San Diego Y. Just look at the 2019 filing... $645,000 to the CEO.

Schedule J is also really informative, and doesn't exactly jibe with the compensation list (prob because of bonuses, and the lawyer took all his money via bonus so... IDK what that's about)
I'm sure a lot of this is depreciation scheduling, but the income lines are pretty eye-popping as well. Kept looking for a decimal point and not finding it. Why even have fundraisers at that point? Are they just to keep people busy?

Anyway, this isn't the point of the thread. Carry on.

 

[CoachPow]

My wife and I ran an all recreational club for years. It was one of the largest clubs in the city.

I coach HS, and we have expanded our community ed program to the point that you could consider it a rec club. We have more kids than all of the nearby competitive clubs combined. We've actually started to draw some of the kids from those teams for extra lessons too. Our HS team is fairly successful, but most is just word of mouth and/or advertising.

PS- as a public school district, we are also a non-profit. Maybe partnering with a local school could be a feasible model? I know MN has a very healthy HS gymnastics program-I guess I don't know much about other states.

 

[3rd_time_around]

Its a VC-funded endeavor. They are hoping that they can buy up enough distressed gyms or gyms that are interested in selling to give it some critical mass, package the ninja set-up and structured program and sell it to a life-style type corporation for 100mill+ in a couple of years. While they are somewhat in the gymnastics realm, I would not consider them competitors or a threat to the standard competitive gymnastics gym. They really are going for different segments. Is there some possibility of cannibalization of clients that would normally go to the standard USAG gym? In a couple of years they will either be another O2B Kids or an afterthought.

You don’t really know what’s going on becaus it’s not happening near you yet. They have acquired about 5 gyms in NC. First in Flight was an amazing, high-caliber gym. They immediately cut their optional and elite programs, and started doing all Xcel. Because Xcel is a money-maker. With Bronze and silver, just about anyone can do Xcel, so there ya go, it’s all about the money. The other gyms have had a similar fate. Your daughter trains elite, how would that go down with you if your gym was bought by a corporation who didn’t care that she had that talent, and cut her program and turned it into an xcel-only team?
Corporate ownership has benefits, like insurance and 401k, and other things, but it lacks the personal relationship that builds a great team program. It also takes good coaches from independent gyms where benefits aren’t as available, and leaves the good programs without good coaches. That in turn causes gymnasts to leave to seek a program with good coaching, but all the good coaches are now doing Xcel at these corporate-run gyms.
It’s not a good thing for corporations to buy up these gyms and cut the optional and elite programs. It leads to monopoly, which is never a good thing, and waters down the sport to basically an assembly line, churning out Xcel gymnasts for profit.

 

[3rd_time_around]

It sounds like many of these gyms, that are bought, would have gone out of business if not bought up so these team gymnasts would have lost their teams anyway.

But this is the way our western world works. If businesses struggle, they go under. Employees who worked in those businesses all their lives may lose their livelihood, and have to start again.

A new owner may purchase the business, and they going to have to make changes in order to ensure their purchase is profitable. In the perfect world the business owner could put everyone’s individual needs as the priority, but they can’t.

This isn’t what’s actually happening. They are buying up successful gyms and cutting their programs down to what they see on paper as making the most money. Some may have been struggling, but not all.

 

[3rd_time_around]

Sonshine is 3hrs away from FIF, so that is doubtful. Even bull city is 2+hrs away. And that's just from FIF. If the families are coming from further west (there are no well known high level gyms west of FIF), it would be even longer. For elites, Everest and Bull City (which has only recently gone into elite) would be the only reasonable options. College recruiting gymnasts would have more options in the Charlotte area and KPAC as well, further north. But again, these are all highly competitive programs that may not have space on their established teams. I really feel for the families involved.

Some even relocated to Georgia

 

[3rd_time_around]

It does explain why these programs are shutting down the Elite and higher level competitive side of their programs.

A decentralised, totally user pays system.

Most countries fund elite sports and have centralised training venues for their elite gymnasts.

But the US dominates internationally, so your system is working.

But in a private gymnastics environment you need a lot of passion for gymnastics to run an elite program. The time, money, space and expertise it takes, means a lot less room for recreational gymnasts, paying top dollar per hour.

No, they use the same space and equipment in many cases. They just have Rec classes at night and weekends while higher team training can move to mornings so they have more space. Our gym was in a tiny building before, sharing space with team and classes at the same time. The new building has two sides, a Rec side and a team side, and they do train at the same times.

 

[Jenny]

That is a shame about First in Flight. They were a really good gym. The coaches and kids must be devastated.

 

[rjb123]

I had heard that they also bought Bull City and moved the FIF coaches there. Is that the case? I had also heard that one of the former owners of Bull City (the wife) works for the powers group