23 Jun NY Times, CrossFit & Change

Dear CrossFit Potrero Hill Community, 

Thank you to all the athletes who continue to train with us and believe in effecting change.  Many of you have participated in the Town Hall as well as many follow up discussions to follow through on our plans to effect change. 

This past Sunday, the NYT released an article about CrossFit HQ culture, which frankly highlighted circumstances within the CrossFit HQ entity that are so grossly departed from the ethos of CrossFit Potrero Hill, and we believe, are far from the values of the majority of CrossFit affiliates and deaffiliated affiliates globally.   Our beliefs are rooted in many discussions we have had directly with affiliate owners over the past two weeks after we posted about meaningful change in response to Greg Glassman’s disgraceful tweets and comments, which were a reflection of indifference, intolerance and systemic racism in America, none of which we plan to financially sponsor in any way.  The NYT article validates why we will continue to NOT financially sponsor HQ in any way in their current form.  We believe CrossFit headquarters has failed.  And a big part of us believes change is possible through failure.  We believe CrossFit HQ can be different, they can be better.  Can they be better with the same people?  Unlikely, which was why we started with a request for a change at the top.  We didn’t think CrossFit’s CEO, Greg Glassman, would step down after our call to action….he did.  His replacement was Dave Castro.  Is Dave Castro the right leader?  We don’t think we can answer that question without answering a bigger question – How do we measure the standards for the right leader, what do they need to live up to?  Who are they accountable to and how?  We are working on answering these questions right now, not only for CrossFit leadership, but for CrossFit’s broader governance.  There also remains the question of Greg Glassman’s ownership interest in CrossFit.  We believe this needs to be addressed and we intend to lay a path forward that aligns our values with meaningful action on his ownership interest in the company.  We believe we can leverage the current momentum for change and we plan to.

Since our Town Hall on June 13th, we have engaged in a concerted effort to realize some of the thoughts put forth to live up to the ideal we believe in, notwithstanding the following: 

– More accessible membership pricing to people who cannot afford CrossFit

– Engaging with underprivileged youth as an outlet not otherwise available to them;

– Formalizing our fundraising & community involvement in alignment with a singular vision to guide us;

– Internally auditing our processes to ensure no compensation, in any way, goes to HQ until our demands have been met (ie-certifications, insurance, competitions, etc);

– Setting the stage for measurable and meaningful requests to more clearly define our demands from HQ to keep CrossFit HQ specifically accountable to meeting measurable standards we need to see before we agree to pay anything to them, standards they can measure going forward;

– Joining a coalition of both affiliated and unaffiliated CrossFits to amplify our voice for meaningful change;

The details of our efforts will be forthcoming as we finalize all of the aforementioned in the coming weeks.  These efforts are just the beginning of the battle we are waging to effect change in how the CrossFit fitness methodology is delivered, managed and shared with the world.  We still believe CrossFit is a way of training that is specific, unique, identifiable and meaningful in the context of functional fitness and we believe it changes lives for the better.  We intend to actively engage in a dialogue to change the life of the entity that founded this methodology, an entity that has failed us on many counts, and for which we have no interest in financially supporting until our standards have been met.