Dear UP Community,
The last few months have been rife with seemingly endless challenges and changes, and we appreciate how you've all been on board with helping us continue to make UP a place for fitness, fun and community.
We wanted to give you an update with where we stand with CrossFit HQ and with the name of our gym.
When we opened CF UP in 2013, it was to create a place for people to come together to improve health, fitness and connection, and felt CrossFit was the perfect medium to help us reach this goal. Fast forward to 2020 and we continued to be steadfast in our commitment to our members and still believing CF Methodology to be the best route to help people continue to reach their goals. We'd be lying if we said that the last few years of being an affiliate owner have been easy, with all the changes CF HQ had gone through, with many dear friends losing their jobs, communication with affiliates non-existent, and the messaging becoming less clear about what CF really is. Simply put, it was changing from the inside out into something that was different from what we signed up for in 2013. Our belief in what CF was hadn't changed. How important we felt our connection to the local and global CF hadn't changed. But, we feared CF was changing at the hands of Coach Glassman towards something that maybe wasn't representing, or always honoring, the hard work going on inside affiliates on a daily basis, and that maybe CF couldn't survive as a result of the lack of leadership from Glassman and the lack of transparency and communication from CF HQ.
Then came Glassman's email response to the affiliate owner, and the next day the insensitive comment about BLM, and we decided we had had enough. And so did many, many others. From the inside looking further in, Glassman was not one to appease anyone, and we didn't think there was a capacity to truly change, let alone "right the ship," with him in change. We made our declaration to dis-affiliate because we wanted to distance ourselves, and shield our community, from what seemed like was going to happen; that Glassman was going to take the CF name down with him. This was a tough decision, but supported, or at least understood, by you all, and we're grateful that you trusted us during this transitional time.
To our surprise (well, more like shock, really), Glassman stepped down as a result of this situation. Never in a million years did we see this happening, and for those who have been around CF for a while, I expect you didn't either. Due to over 1000 affiliates pledging their disaffiliation, loss of sponsorships, and phone calls from their staff and seminar trainers asking him to step down, he actually did, and is stepping away. A deal has been in the works for a month to name a new CEO and owner, Eric Roza (CrossFitter and tech entrepreneur), with many expected changes to the operations of CF. Being a little guarded and not wanting to be wishy-washy, we decided to wait and see to make the best decision and see if they deserved our trust and affiliation moving forward. Talk is cheap, and actions truly speak louder.
Last week, Eric Roza signed a deal to purchase 100% of CrossFit and take over as it's new CEO. I can't tell you how excited we are about this, and I feel like we are getting "our" CrossFit back; the one we signed up for, the one with a unified local and world-wide community of amazing people, the one that is focused on becoming "the world's leading platform for health, happiness and performance," a direct quote from Roza's release about the signed deal (read it here). Not to mention they (Roza and HQ) have listened to affiliate owners and are already advocating and galvanizing the affiliates and athletes in the community and are demonstrating incredible leadership to bring about real change in the CF community, internal (HQ) culture, the affiliate and athlete experience and championing inclusivity at all levels. Transparency and communication have been the best, and most clear, since we affiliated. We've concluded these are changes, values, ideals, and leadership principles we can get behind, and we're excited to announce we will continue our affiliation as CrossFit UP.
What does that mean for you? Well, that hoodie you bought a few months ago not only looks good but is incredibly current:). Seriously though, our commitment to our members hasn't changed, and wouldn't no matter what our name was. Being a CF gym definitely gives us an identity as a community, but also binds us to a global community, unified to crusade for better health, better fitness, and to live better lives. Our affiliation means we believe in and support CF as an organization, believe CF can change the world for the better, and that we believe in giving this new leadership the opportunity to have a greater positive impact through the collective CF Community. Ultimately, we want to feel good about supporting an organization in order to bring about change, and we want our members to feel a sense of pride for aligning themselves with CrossFit as well through our gym. 8 weeks ago I know we didn't feel good about it, and I'm sure many of you didn't either. I hope with the changes that I've mentioned, the trust we are putting back into CF, and any information you look into on your own, that you, too, can feel good about being a part of CF, and CF UP.
Again, thank you to all of you for being a part of our community and trusting us with your health, happiness and performance.
With love and gratitude,
Ryan, Sonja and your CrossFit UP Team