CrossFit Athletic Group

"We don't belong to the Champions Club, the Champions Club belongs to us" - Mr. Gjon

Let's do a little post with comments/questions I've received since the money meeting last Saturday and the original Money Cup post.

Why are you doing this?

My experience with sports tells me that waiting until something goes wrong to make a change has a limited shelf life, and making a change when a vulnerability or opportunity arises usually works out in the long run. I believe we currently have both.

Vulnerability: We currently have... hang on... /counts on fingers /checks recruiting board... Jesus! 14(!) different family dynamics in here.

1. Parent + high school kid 
2. Parent + middle school kid
3. Parent + college kid + high school kid
4. Two parents + high school kid
5. Parent + Double-A kid
6. Parent + Babies session kid
7. Parent + 2 Double-A kids + 2 Babies (give you one guess who that is), 
8. Parent + two high school kids
9. Two parents + one high school kid + 1 middle school kid
10. Two parents + one high school kid + Double-A kid
11. Parent + high school kid + Double-A kid
12. Parent + high school kid + 2 Double-A kids
13. Parent + 2 Double-A kids
14. Two parents

We are not going to have 14 different pricing plans. And that doesn't include single parents, single high school/college kids, and single "college" kids, siblings, families of 8, families of 5, and so on. Flat rates are for flat environments. They're for the state of Iowa. The Champions Club is a family, and we are made of groups of families, and the Van, the Colussi, the Burton, and the Curtis families are all different. Trying to create a flat pricing plan for the Champions Club would be like trying to play every genre of music with one single instrument.

Opportunity: "Rent-seeking is a lost opportunity to create value" - Coach Glassman. There is an opportunity for the Champions Club - because of how close, connected, trusting, and diverse we are - to use money to strengthen our community in a way that can make it last if something happens to me.

That is why we're doing this.

Where did the $70,000 number come from?

Champions Club Inc. has brought in right around $70,000 per year since around 2019. There's around $50,000-$55,000 in expenses every year, so that gives me enough to cover what I owe plus save some away for myself. I figured we'd keep the number the same because I am very comfortable with the way the gym has been going.

What if we don't hit $70,000? Do you have enough of a cushion in your current bank account to keep up going if this doesn't go as planned?

Anything over $50,000(ish) goes to me, so it would just mean I don't take as much home, which I'm fine with. The Champions Club bank account has enough of a cushion to make me comfortable doing this; I would not have done this in 2016.

I don't think you're taking enough for yourself.

That's not a question.

Okay I'll rephrase that: What do you have to gain by letting people know how much money you make?

Hard to put into words, but I'd throw the question back: "what's the downside?" College and pro coaches' salaries are public for the most part, and that helps give fans some understanding about why things are the way they are at that level. Knowing how much money I make might do the same here.

What happens when the rent goes up, or you go to buy the building?

The rent will go up. Right now I'm paying $3,500 per month. Next year that will go up to $50, and the year after that it will go up another $50. If we need more from the money cannons, I'll give a reason why and then I'll ask.

Why do you insist on not charging for the Babies and Double-A?

Watch this video.

What kind of coaching am I doing here? I cannot in my right mind charge for that. But there is more than that for sure. The real reason why I insist is because the Champions Club Farm System needs to be filled for this thing to operate the best, and I have this thing about youth sports that I've wrote about repeatedly. Keeping the Babies/Double-A sessions free gives us a reputation that has already been paying off bigtime. Plus, they're just so much freaking fun!

I'll also add in this section that I get requests from people (inside the Champions Club and out) to sponsor a kid or two who can't afford it; at first glance I would think just having them contribute to the overall pot would be the most simple way of doing this, but I could be wrong there.

Would you be interested in allowing us to actually buy shares of the Champions Club? Own stock in the company?

The reason I'm against this - though I did give it thought when this idea was brought to me - is because that immediately creates a separation that is not fair. Aaron gets more say than Arthur because he's put in more work; that's fair. Aaron doesn't get to buy as much stock in the Champions Club because he's a broke college kid charging $40 per baseball lesson once-a-week; that's not fair. Plus it would also be a lot of work for a perpetual return of like 12 dollars.

Another factor to consider is owning stock in something creates a conflict of interest, and you don't want that kind of thing playing a factor when trying to recruit a New Kid to come here.

Does this mean we all get a say in the general direction the gym goes?

No more than usual.

What happens if it works at first but then doesn't after a while?

Then I'll find a different way that works or go back to the standardized monthly payments that weren't really all that standardized in the first place. I also thought about doing a Summer-Summer goal number, or school year number and Summer number. We'll see.

Instead of asking some of the younger people, why didn't you ask the parents who are more experienced with money?

Because this policy isn't about money. But one of the people I forgot to credit in the original post is Mrs. Gloria, because not only is she someone I talked to about this a while back, but she's also the first person in the gym that I operated with in a church donation-style membership. Once everything was coming together here and I was ready to pull the trigger on it, I asked her what she thought. She asked me if there anyone in the Champions Club that I thought might take advantage of this. I said not a single one, to which she replied, "Then I think you should relax and let the community learn how to take care of this place we care about so much."

I'm not interested in what policy is the best way to deal with money, I'm interested in what policy is going to make us better. Mrs. Gloria is truly a gem.

What do you expect as far as payment goes?

Hmmm... I do have some thought for sure, but I want to see where it goes without judgement. I think you guys will figure it out better than I would. On a related topic, I will say that if I was a Champions Club member who was away for some time, I would still want to add a little something to the Cup on the regular to help make sure I still have a place to come back to when the time is right. And while I think that's fair, I understand if it doesn't happen also.

Are you going to still keep track of who paid what?

That is what I'm still hung up on. Eventually I'd love to have no freaking clue; in the transition between now and eventually I might check in. Or I might not. I really don't know. The upside of knowing is - again, putting myself in your shoes - it can be gratifying to give a gift to someone. The upside of not knowing is the trust it builds.

I'll probably end up settling somewhere on the spectrum of having all the information organized but not checking it unless someone asks for confirmation if a payment went through.

Doesn't this put more on us?

Read Mrs. Gloria's quote above. Or Mr. Gjon's.