Sevan Matossian (00:01):
Bam we’re live. Hey, good. On
Matt Souza (00:06):
Good morning
Sevan Matossian (00:09):
Kid for me.
Matt Souza (00:14):
Oh,
Sevan Matossian (00:14):
Hey liver king podcasting in a lot of good,
Matt Souza (00:16):
Um,
Sevan Matossian (00:17):
Kinda getting a lot of love.
Matt Souza (00:19):
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, that’s really cool.
Sevan Matossian (00:22):
Yeah. It’s so funny. What people care about. It’s so it’s so funny. The criticism, Hey, I, um, I’ll talk about this more tonight, but um, when I tell you to drink paper street coffee, and if you buy it by March 27th, uh, you get 20% off. If you use the code sub on, which is crazy. I don’t know how he’s doing that. I, but that you also get, um, um, inserted into a contest to win an Ohio bar from rogue. I am not suggesting any way. If you drink this fucking coffee, that you’ll be as cool as me. Not, not, not even tiniest bit. Your kids won’t be as cool as mine. You won’t walk around with as much. Happiness is mine. You won’t,
Matt Souza (01:05):
You won’t,
Sevan Matossian (01:05):
You won’t have the deep insight into, uh, the, the mechanism of the human brain as me. I earned all that without this coffee. This is like this. I, I, I just drink this. And I don’t think for a fucking second that the liver king is claiming that if you eat those, you’re gonna look like him. Not one. He’s never claiming that he’s telling you not to eat that shit. And I don’t give a fuck if he’s on steroids, or if he told you he lifted 200 pounds and it was only 180, you fucking idiots, you’re missing the fucking point. People who fucking think like that, you, you you’re, I don’t even know how to help you. You’re so fucking, self-centered arrogant and trapped in your head. And I mean, none of that with negativity, but it, but it just You’re like the person who’s standing on a fire and complaining it’s hot, dude. Just take a step off.
Matt Souza (02:00):
You’re
Sevan Matossian (02:00):
You’re complaining that. Why did I build the fire there? Hey dude, stay like, what do you care about that stuff? In regards to him take what you want from him. That’s that’s inspiring moving. And if it’s not then move on, he’s doing nothing wrong. It’s like, you’re the guy. There’s a couple kids on the, on the beach doing, practicing their back flips. Or are you the guy that walks over there and starts lecturing ’em on how dangerous it is
Matt Souza (02:24):
That
Sevan Matossian (02:24):
Fuck outta here. You are. What’s wrong with society.
Matt Souza (02:30):
You
Sevan Matossian (02:30):
Are. You really are. Kenneth den lap. DEAP Kenneth lop bang were live. Kenneth, uh, great name DAP. What made me think of that is that the president of CrossFit Inc. His name is
Matt Souza (02:44):
Jason.
Sevan Matossian (02:45):
Jason Dunlop,
Matt Souza (02:47):
Dunlop
Sevan Matossian (02:47):
Up, not done lap. Uh, guys, I am going to try to stay somewhat calm today. Uh, thank you. Uh, California, hor hormones, California hormones for your sponsorship paper street, coffee. And of course barbell jobs.com,
Matt Souza (03:04):
Maybe a cross. They could go to barbell jobs.com and find themselves a CEO,
Sevan Matossian (03:09):
Maybe, uh, all, all of these sponsors chose to be here. They weren’t solicited. They are, um, friends. They’re listeners. They’re just people like you who, um, have the means or the resources or, or, or want to be involved. Oh, I like the way you kind of sizzle in like that. Are you, are you frying something in the background, Craig?
Craig Howard (03:29):
No. Can you hear something? Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (03:31):
Bad brother. It’s bad. Craig Howard from D blue Crossway comes in with my
Craig Howard (03:34):
Noise is bad.
Sevan Matossian (03:35):
Yeah. I think it’s your mic. Something’s plugged in. That’s weird. Oh. Oh, I muted your ass. No, not better. Whatever you did made it worse. It’s like a, it’s a, it’s a cable or something. Craig. That’s plugged in something weird.
Craig Howard (03:53):
It’s probably a cable. Give me, gimme a, gimme a second.
Sevan Matossian (03:55):
Okay. Oh, oh. Uh, so I’m gonna give you guys a little, uh, backstory here. So CrossFit had an affiliate town hall, um, or at least that’s what they, I think that’s what they call it. Is that what they call it?
Matt Souza (04:09):
That’s right. Affiliate town hall.
Sevan Matossian (04:12):
And um, so I gave it a listen and this is sort of my, uh, synopsis of it. I, I I’m very, I dunno if I’m very aware, I’m aware that I have biases and, um, hangups and, um, and pre-suppositions and expectations. And um, so I, I wanted to make, we were gonna do this last night, but I wanted to make sure Suza and Craig Howard were here. I invited on a couple other affiliate owners, um, who couldn’t make it, it, uh, So, so I’m gonna try to stay calm, but I want to tell you the, the first thing is, is in all honesty,
Matt Souza (04:52):
You try,
Sevan Matossian (04:55):
I can’t unmute him. I must have not. Can you unmute him?
Matt Souza (05:00):
I tried Craig. You have to unmute yourself on
Sevan Matossian (05:02):
Your head. Unmute yourself. I think brother. Got
Craig Howard (05:04):
It. There we go. Is that better?
Sevan Matossian (05:06):
Oh, sound.
Craig Howard (05:07):
Yeah. So try to have a nice mic and have a nice mic.
Sevan Matossian (05:12):
You still sound great.
Matt Souza (05:13):
Sounds good. Sounds real good.
Craig Howard (05:18):
Gotta use my computer mic.
Sevan Matossian (05:20):
You sound great. That’s a cool hat by the way.
Craig Howard (05:24):
Hey, thanks dude. I’ll send you one. It
Sevan Matossian (05:26):
Looks, is it, is it real snake skin? Did you catch this snake?
Craig Howard (05:31):
It’s a tribal. It’s a tribal pattern.
Sevan Matossian (05:33):
Oh, that’s an environmentalist hat that’s made out of old tires. Yeah, that’s cool. Um, Craig, did you get a chance to watch the affiliate town hall yesterday?
Craig Howard (05:44):
Yeah, I did.
Sevan Matossian (05:45):
Um, and you watched the choose? Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (05:48):
Okay. I, I watched it twice. I watched, um, uh, the, the Jason Dunlap piece at the end. Um, uh, probably five times for, to be completely honest for the life of me. At least I there’s some other pieces in here that I think are just minutes and minutes of just nonsense and, and I’ll, and by nonsense, like I need, when I listen to someone talk, I need, I need to know it’s not enough to tell me that, Hey, we’re gonna bake beautiful cake aches. I need to then hear about the ingredients, how long it was in the oven. I need some tools then to how to replicate that or what the mission is or how we are going to do it. It’s not enough just to gimme a, um, I dunno, are they adjectives? And I need more than adjectives. And, and, and I, and I struggled with that in a little bit in this a little bit.
Sevan Matossian (06:38):
It, it feels like it was a cheerleading piece rather than if I, and I don’t own an affiliate rather than if I owned an affiliate, I would want to know exactly what you’re gonna do. It, it felt more like, Hey, we’re doing great things over here. We’re gonna continue the positivity. We’re gonna continue the media. We’re gonna continue. And then I just, but, but I need some like dates or how often or what the, what anymore. And I felt them. And then finally with, with the guy at the end, Jason Dunlop, I listened to his last three minutes and I have no idea what he’s saying. And I gave a lot of it to maybe it’s cause of his English accent, but I have no idea what he’s saying. And I think, I, I think he’s confusing the word mythology for methodology. I, I listen to it like five times and I think, I don’t think he knows. I don’t think I, I have some serious concerns. No one came across, um, bad, but I don’t think you need to listen past Nicole car.
Sevan Matossian (07:32):
If, if your time is of great value to you, if you don’t wanna get wound up me personally, that that’s, that’s, that’s where, where I’m at with it. Uh, and they called it a town hall and I, and I right off the bat, um, I, I felt like that’s really disingenuous. We, we have a problem here for those of us who have been around for a while. We had a leader named Greg Glassman and he had chops to stand up in front of all the entire community and answer questions. You could answer, you could ask him anything. Hey, Greg is keto good for, um, athletes. Hey Greg, are you racist? Hey Greg, why don’t you get more money to the master’s athletes? Hey, and there’s a chance. They’ll just be like, Hey, fuck off. Or he’ll go into it deeper than you anyone’s ever heard go in on, into a subject. And he owned the company. And so those of us got used to kind of having him around to, um, to do that, to just get up in front of a crowd. Now that’s clearly, there’s no one there. I, I think Nicole Carroll could do it, but there’s no one, it doesn’t seem like it’s part of the corporate ethos to be transparent. And, and this thing reeks of that starting
Matt Souza (08:36):
Value, that’s their values though. They said transparent like three times in there. So
Sevan Matossian (08:40):
That’s the tough part about what Jason MC Dunlop starts off saying, they’re gonna be transparent about their CEO search and then, but the line right before that, he lied about what happened to Eric Rosa. So it was just, have you guys ever seen this guy before? That was my first time even seeing him or knowing that there is a president, do you guys know, did you know that
Craig Howard (08:58):
I had to Google him.
Sevan Matossian (08:59):
Okay. And, and what did you find?
Craig Howard (09:02):
Uh, Nike, former Nike executive for international, uh, operations or international growth at Nike. And I, I re it made me recall when he was initially hired. I didn’t know that he was acting as the president cause he’s been in the background. Uh, I think for what a year and a half, however long he’s been on board.
Sevan Matossian (09:23):
Uh, just for those of you who don’t know, Nike is the company that recently said that they’ll fire all of their employees, that aren’t vaccinated and, and they have a long, long history. If you look at all the Kaepernick stuff, um, in my opinion of just latent racism and, and, uh, I, I, it’s a, um, it’s interesting that he comes from there. He came across, he came across nice. I just didn’t understand the word he said. Okay. Um, do you guys wanna give your thoughts, big picture and then, and then I’d like to dig in on and kind, uh, and celebrate, um, Nicole’s, uh, first 12 minutes, 13 minutes, and basically explain to the world, especially, uh, CrossFits who are new to the game, why it’s important. They listen to that.
Craig Howard (10:00):
Sure.
Matt Souza (10:01):
Go for it. Craig, dig in baby. Craig,
Sevan Matossian (10:03):
Have you had your coffee yet?
Craig Howard (10:07):
I came into the gym this morning because I didn’t wanna do this from home and wake up my family.
Sevan Matossian (10:12):
Okay. Well get drink, take a few big
Matt Souza (10:14):
At,
Sevan Matossian (10:15):
Get on that performance. Enhancing caffeine. What kinda coffee are you drinking? Paper street.
Matt Souza (10:19):
Uh,
Craig Howard (10:20):
Yeah. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (10:21):
Good answer. Good answer.
Matt Souza (10:23):
Sure.
Craig Howard (10:25):
Um, so no, you, I agree. I, I agree with what you said with, uh, Nicole car’s piece was excellent. All of them clearly were prepared for this event and it was, as you said, you know, almost over per I think it’s over prepared. I don’t know if you said that or not being intimate that, um, that it was over prepared. It was very corporate feeling. Um, it, it didn’t feel transparent. It was, it was, uh, scripted even Nicole’s part while the content was really good. It, she was clearly reading a script and that makes me as an affiliate owner, long term affiliate are a little bit uncomfortable because then I feel like it’s, like you said, it’s a sales pitch to us. It’s not relaxed. It’s. And, and, and, and I get a sense that they’re very nervous. I think the last couple years have made them very scared. And so they, and they have a real desire to make everybody happy and be inclusive. And I, you know, I think they even use that, that term. I include, um, you know, it, it seemed a little bit incongruent that they were presenting all from different locations on a, in a zoom format, by the way, I’m sick of fucking zoom. Um,
Matt Souza (11:31):
Agreed.
Craig Howard (11:33):
But it was like a zoom presentation with slides, um, from each from different locations. And all I was thinking was, you know, the, it’s not what CrossFit is, you know, couldn’t, they have all gotten together in the same room in front of a whiteboard. Maybe it’s somebody’s gym and done this, you know, with a, with a handheld, with a, with a handheld phone that would’ve been that would’ve felt more cross, but, you know, that’s just, that’s me nitpicking in terms of the content Nicole’s
Sevan Matossian (12:00):
I get it, I get it. We’re used to, we would, we would’ve liked to have seen someone announce Nicole and then her walk up and people clap. And then she say hi, and then she address and be like, Hey, I got ’em ONED over here. If I see some questions, I like I’ll answer them. Let me do dig in. Yeah. Like, like, like, like, like the L one, you wanted it to feel more like the L one or, or, or typical Greg Glassman presentation. Yeah, me too. And, and I can’t tell if that’s my bias, but man, it felt, so it feels so much more familial when, when it’s done that way, all
Craig Howard (12:28):
Of those guys are very competent. Nicole’s extremely competent. I,
Sevan Matossian (12:31):
She could get up and Gary Gaines, man, and that guy’s got speaking chops too. Like a whoa
Craig Howard (12:35):
He’s he’s, he’s a sharp guy and knows, knows what he’s doing. If he misspeaks, I don’t give a
Sevan Matossian (12:40):
Shit. Right, right, right. Cause
Craig Howard (12:41):
I, I trust the guy, he he’s earned his, he’s earned his keep over the last two and a half years. How he’s stayed on board over the last two and a half years is amazing to me. It’s
Sevan Matossian (12:49):
Been tough. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Howard (12:51):
And, and Justin Bergman us what he’s talking about, he’s been doing and participating in the games for a long time. That is what he’s talking. All of those guys, none of them need
Sevan Matossian (13:01):
Justin. Ironically, Justin has fucking crazy CrossFit pedigree. His felt the fucking most corporate and the fucking most like I I’m thinking to myself, if I was an affiliate, I wouldn’t give a fuck about any of this. And he’s lying. He comes from a fucking pedigree of fucking Dave Castro. There’s no, like don’t tell me that the open did great this year. Same with Jason Dunlop said, fucking the games did are doing great. This year. Gate did great this year compared to what I felt like Justin’s whole entire pitch was a subtle way of telling us, Hey, the game still has a heartbeat. It’s not dead. He was like a guy standing over a body being like, I got a pulse and I, and I’m just like, what I, I, I, I was, I was really, I was really disappointed with that, but sorry, go on Craig. I interrupted.
Craig Howard (13:44):
Yeah. That’s the, his portion felt like a pitch to investors or sponsors.
Sevan Matossian (13:51):
Yes. That’s what I was thinking. I felt like it was a pitch this end. Can we get on the air?
Craig Howard (13:56):
Yeah. And, and, you know, as an affiliate owner that it doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, that data as a guy that might be interested in, in a, a sponsorship relationship, it was meaningful. And it, and it was, you know, that data had been researched and yeah, there was a lot of work put into that presentation, um, that, and, and, but that made it, but, but that gave it the kind of corporate feel. Um,
Sevan Matossian (14:20):
There was a, there was a spot in there. Oh, I’ll get to it. I, I gotta play you this, this section of ju I there’s two sections. I gotta see played. And if you need anything played, let me know. I really want people to see, have access to the Jason Dunlop talk because I really don’t know what he said. And, and, and then there’s a portion there where, where, um, where Justin’s talking. I, I, I seriously can’t believe if he had someone in his life that he rehearsed that with, that were like, no. Do you think that these people rehearsed this in front of people that they love? Like, like, do you think, um, uh, Gary Gaines rehearses that in front of his wife, he’s like, Hey, I’m gonna give you my, I mean, I would, I would rehearse that shit in front of my wife. She’d be like, Hey, you sound like an arrogant douche.
Craig Howard (15:00):
I, I think they definitely dry ran it. They did, they did a dry run of it because it, uh, the transitions and everything else, the way it flowed
Sevan Matossian (15:09):
You, you think that Nicole and, and Jason Dunlop heard Justin Berg bergs before he went up.
Craig Howard (15:17):
Yes.
Sevan Matossian (15:18):
Well, fuck. They hate him. Then I, I, if I, if, if you did that, Craig, I would’ve just called Matt. If me and Matt were watching you rehearsed, I’d be like, are we gonna tell him, or did we just let him go up? Cause we, It was not, it’s not, it’s not. Um, anyway, I got no warm fuzzies from it. None is, is that, is that what we call? We want some of that. Right? The affiliate town hall, we wanna galvanize the base.
Craig Howard (15:48):
Yeah. Galvanize that there was a lot of terms there, by the way, in this whole presentation that we really just that,
Sevan Matossian (15:55):
Did you not like my word galvanized Galvan?
Craig Howard (15:57):
Yeah. I, I know how you, I, I knew where it came from. I did the only one that came and it’s actually in writing in the slide somewhere.
Sevan Matossian (16:04):
Oh, it is?
Craig Howard (16:05):
Yeah. Oh yeah. There’s uh,
Sevan Matossian (16:07):
I’m looking up your definition. What do you mean by galvanized there’s there’s sight about something to take action. Yeah.
Craig Howard (16:13):
These, the words, like, I just don’t see the, you know, ecosystem transforms,
Sevan Matossian (16:20):
You know? Yes. The
Craig Howard (16:21):
Stewardship metrics, curating stakeholders. And, and
Sevan Matossian (16:27):
That’s a, that Rosa brought that word in. It’s a shame. It’s a shame. It should not be used. I’m picky about the words too. And, and I own this, but the, um, the, uh, the lack calling it, um, home office, calling it education, calling it like, come on. I do notice something weird’s happening on the front end though. I saw the word HQ on the front end. Yes. I saw fortunately fitness on the right on the front end. Yes. Uh, something, something weird’s going on.
Craig Howard (16:54):
Well, it’s think there’s a number of people within the organization. The, some of the OGs that have been around a while that are just kind of fed up and they’re just, and they’re taking action on these things, their website guys, like, you know what, we’re, we’re putting forging elite fitness back up, you know, while we’re calling it HQ again. Um, and they, you know, those were very superficial changes that were made in an attempt to be more inclusive and less offensive.
Sevan Matossian (17:20):
Yeah.
Craig Howard (17:21):
And to, to erase our past, because you know, people were uncomfortable with some of the things that may have happened in the past. And so now, um, but it’s, it’s nice to see us come back to reality.
Sevan Matossian (17:33):
Were you ever offended by all military stuff when you first came on? When I came on, when I came on in 2006, that all that shit rubbed me the wrong way. Did it ever rub you the wrong way tree? Hugg
Craig Howard (17:45):
Not me, not me, but I could see, oh, I remember reading, remember reading the blog. Yeah. You know that anytime there’s a picture of someone with a gun there, you know, the, the, if you looked in the blog comments, there were comments about it.
Sevan Matossian (17:58):
And even after I drank the Kool-Aid, you know, there were, you know, I, and I started being around more of the military people and the first responders. And I started realizing that I, I wasn’t, I hadn’t been thinking correctly then even like, you know, 2012, then there would say happy Easter. And it would be a guy who spelt it out on the side of the hill with bunnies he killed. And I would be like, oh fuck. You know what I mean? And I would just be like, oh fuck man, we are gnarly, But you kind of go through this. Um,
Sevan Matossian (18:33):
It takes it, it takes all types. It, it, it really takes all types. And, um, even the, um, you know, one of the controversial things that Greg put up was, um, I forget, but one Bush was in office. They passed something. I think I, it could be wrong. What bear with me here, people, something called the Patriot deck where they could Snoop on you and, and the country was all for it to protect the country from terrorists. Well, one of the first things that they did with the Patriot attack is they started busting porn sites. And Craig’s like, yo, yo, what the fuck? And he started posting, like he posted a porn site up there and the community got pissed, but the, but they were missing the point, the point wasn’t about the porn site point was that our freedoms were being tread on. And so there’s, this, the site used to be really smart and edgy, but, but not for the sake of being edgy, but being like, Hey, let’s think clearly about shit. Right.
Craig Howard (19:19):
Well, that, that’s interesting because, so it’s, so it was bold, right. And, and bold forging elite fitness, right. Curing chronic disease. Yep. And then it became no, it’s a platform for health happiness. And I forget what it was,
Craig Howard (19:34):
Performance,
Craig Howard (19:35):
Performance, performance. It was a platform. It was, which was, was more inviting.
Sevan Matossian (19:40):
Yeah. The platform hurt that.
Craig Howard (19:42):
And now the mission is, although I don’t know if it’s gonna change, it’s gonna be the new tagline is, is transforming, transforming lives or something like that.
Sevan Matossian (19:51):
Yeah. Those were all byproducts, Greg didn’t like those words, like, right.
Craig Howard (19:55):
That’s
Sevan Matossian (19:55):
Those are byproducts of constantly very functional movement execute high intensity. Yeah.
Craig Howard (19:59):
And crosswalk was always courageous and, and bold. And, and I, and, and from this thing, I, you know, what’s interesting is they want to do more for us and I, and, and that, and that’s great cause they’re good people. And they do, um, they want to heal the, the wounds of the past. They want to, um, offset any damages that have been done over the last two years. They want to help people out of this, the last two years of difficulties. And what me as an affiliate owner is I look at ’em as a partner. I, all I want is I want my partner to carry their load. I don’t need them to help me. Right. I, I know how to run my gym. And there’s tons of tools out there for me to, to run my gym and run my business. What I want them to do is build up the brand, focus on the brand, continue focus on virtuosity of your, uh, of your methodology and make that. So they damn desirable that me by affiliation, people will come in the doors and, and instead they want to, they, they seem to be, um, intent upon going out and, and getting involved in my business and wanting to help in, in my business. Any of this might be just an OG. I don’t know, Matt, um, might have a different opinion, but I don’t
Sevan Matossian (21:14):
Need, I don’t like the whole what’s
Craig Howard (21:16):
I, the operations in my business.
Sevan Matossian (21:18):
Yeah. He re keep Gary references something called the APN. And I I’ll take some ownership of this, but strictly as being me and not as a, a, maybe as a logical conclusion, but I see it as, as like one of those magazine sales that they make you do when you’re in elementary school, you sell magazines for the company and they give you little stuffed animal. And it’s like, and you’re trying to sell magazines to your grandparents and everyone. And it’s like, it, it’s crazy. It’s, it’s using the emotional appeal that kids have with their family to sell shit to their parents. And it’s fucked up. Like, I don’t, if I’m an affiliate, like you’re giving me fucking discounts, you’re, you’re basically selling me stuff. But under the guise have given me discounts for it. I don’t know if this is possible, but, but if, if, if I’m CrossFit HQ and, and, and we should have done this when Greg was in charge and we tried several times, uh, uh, you know, Ruth Edwards was a huge champion of this.
Sevan Matossian (22:10):
Um, what, what CrossFit HQ should do is they should find out, okay, the average gym owner pays $2,000 a month for health insurance. If we can get health insurance for gym owners, that’s $1,700 a month. That means each gym owner would save $300 a month, times, 12 months, that’s $3,600. And now being a gym owner actually makes you $600 a year. If the affiliation fee is 3000 a year, instead of costing you 3000 a year and everyone’s hooked, yes. Now you’ve given fucking proposition. The mom and dad who have three kids, if you could lower their health insurance by 300 a month, you’ve now paid for their gym affiliation and that’s fucking value. Yes. I don’t care about the fucking discount at rogue. Me personally, like, like you, I, because I find it disingenuous that you’re, um, you’re actually trying to sell me something to help leverage your partnership with those people. Well, those,
Craig Howard (23:02):
Those, those types, those types of discounts are dangerous too. And the reason why they’re dangerous is you, it, it, they’re promoted is one thing. And then you go on the rogue side, you search and this, and you load up your cart and like, and the discount doesn’t apply to certain things or, or, you know, or it, it really doesn’t add up to a, a meaningful number or those things are outta stock. Like then, and then you have to manage all of the, like, it’s almost, it’s one of those things. Like they’re, they make it complex and then they create more work for themselves. Although those things are great, but are you following up on all of those vendors to make sure they’re still upholding it? What do their websites look like for those things? It’s, you know, and it’s, and it becomes just a
Sevan Matossian (23:40):
Big
Craig Howard (23:41):
Uncontrollable pain in the ass. I, some of those things on there are neat, you know, and I’ve, I’ve looked into ’em, but I haven’t used any of them. Um, but the exception of thorn, but I’ve known thorn many, many years. So I, you know, it was, you know, I,
Sevan Matossian (23:56):
They’re not stupid though. If they wanna give a discount to the CrossFit community, they’re gonna give a discount to the CrossFit community.
Craig Howard (24:01):
Well, here’s the other thing, if you’re in a gym, any gym can go into thorn and, and set up any fitness, uh, professional can go into thorn and set up a discounted website with them. Ah, it’s cool. It’s a cool thing that they do if you’re in the industry. So it’s not, it’s not really unique to CrossFit and, and, and that’s not to discount what thorn is doing at all. Um, or any of the others are doing
Sevan Matossian (24:23):
No, no, no. It’s not an attack. Just thinking about what would bring real value.
Craig Howard (24:26):
Shouldn’t be CrossFit. Shouldn’t be managing that or creating. I like what you say, man, let’s do this stuff. That’s meaningful health insurance.
Matt Souza (24:35):
What I got from it is CrossFit has a huge identity crisis on their hands. CrossFit has no idea who they are. I saw Nicole Carol speech. And she was the only one that looked like was able to hold it together with scotch tape. And to be honest, looking at her and watching somebody even commented and said like the coolest part was reminiscent of the Jedi speech she gave back. Yeah. Except for one thing was missing the light with inside Nicole, she looked like it was almost like she almost looked like it was at a hostage video as she’s there on
Sevan Matossian (25:04):
Zoom, because she was acting the, like the CEO, but they won’t make her, the CEO. That’s where the light’s missing. They’re someone’s not supporting her, but she took charge. I agree with you. There was the light was missing.
Matt Souza (25:14):
The light was missing, but she was the only one that actually felt like I, she was the only one when I watched that, I felt like she was speaking with what I understood. Yeah. She was trying to say like, Hey guys, we haven’t steered too far away from this. And there’s still an to, for us to get back to the methodology at its core. And she was appealing to the L one, the L ones out there, and she was appealing to the affiliate owners. And she was the only one whose language. I understood everybody. Everybody else was spinning their wheels in dirt, especially when it came to JSON, dun lap. I’m gonna read you something here. District manager, gap, Inc division, head brand of sales marks, and Spencer regional controller of the body shop, divisional manager, manager of Waterstones Nike, chief operations officer for Europe, middle east, and Africa, Starbucks, every single one, Every single one of those companies. He’d only been out for about three or so years. So Jason Dunlap, I could already tell you he will be exiting CrossFit in 2024. Now the biggest issue I had with him was he said, we’re looking for a new CEO look no further than Nicole and everybody else get the fuck out of the way. Then second piece of it, other
Sevan Matossian (26:21):
Your words, right? You’re saying that
Matt Souza (26:23):
I’m saying that. Yeah, no.
Sevan Matossian (26:25):
I mean, she gave the CEO talk in the fucking beginning. That what I do, you guys think that those people heard her say that did Jason Dunlop here know that she was gonna say all that? I mean, that was all, that was all the, that was just leadership shit she was doing.
Matt Souza (26:39):
They are probably so lost that they were like, oh yeah, that’s fine, Nicole, go ahead and say that that has nothing to do with our go forward brand strategy.
Sevan Matossian (26:46):
She’s, there’s basically a power vacuum there and she just filled it. Like they should just wa someone should have walked over to her in the middle and just like pinned a CEO tag on her. I mean, she did,
Matt Souza (26:55):
It is Jason that says whoever’s gonna be the CEO. We wanna make sure that they have CrossFit at her heart unless he was doing friends. I know, I, I don’t really know what’s going on here. And also all these, all these are all commodities. Everything that he’s worked for before were all retail.
Sevan Matossian (27:12):
What, what, and, and what’s the implication of that? What, what are you saying by saying that
Matt Souza (27:16):
I don’t know what he’s gonna do with the brand in the question with the brand CrossFit, because we don’t sell soaps or coffees or shoes. Right. So I’m confused as to far as like the choice
Sevan Matossian (27:28):
And you think it’s a big difference. What do we sell? What does CrossFit sell?
Matt Souza (27:30):
That’s what I was gonna go into. So who’s CrossFit’s customer. What is their brand strategy? And what is the long term strategy for return on investment? You’ve heard me say this a lot of times until we actually know that until Marni Marni, Ms. Payne actually speaks up and ties to give us some direction here as the far as we could connect the dots between the board to
Sevan Matossian (27:52):
The who’s that who’s Marni, Ms. Payne,
Matt Souza (27:54):
I would imagine she’s the person in control.
Sevan Matossian (27:57):
Well, you and why do you say that? Do you see her name somewhere?
Matt Souza (27:59):
Yeah. On the Berkshire partners, controlling manager. Ross face.
Sevan Matossian (28:05):
Okay. Okay.
Matt Souza (28:06):
Her George and Ross. I think it is. I gotta bring him up here. Have
Craig Howard (28:10):
You, have you good. Have you met or Sivan thought that considered, that Nicole’s been asked to be CEO and she doesn’t want it?
Sevan Matossian (28:19):
No, that is a very, that’s funny you say that one time. One of my friends, one time made fun of me that, um, my, my wife and I weren’t married and I, and I told the whole table, dude, I’ve asked her to marry me three times and made everyone feel uncomfortable. Wow. That is interesting. Do you know something?
Craig Howard (28:34):
No, I, no. I suspect, um, that that’s a possibility.
Sevan Matossian (28:40):
Wow. If they have okay. If, if they have, I apologize, that’s very, that’s, that’s very, very interesting if they have, I apologize if they have not, they are leveraging her right now to hold down the ship. Um, and they better, they better fucking increase her pay or offer it to her. Wow. That’s fascinating to me that
Craig Howard (29:04):
Job’s incredibly scary right now.
Sevan Matossian (29:06):
Sure. Yes. Yes.
Craig Howard (29:08):
Um, with the, um, turmoil within the existing affiliate groups and within the, the conflict with the games that has been created with the departure of Castro and then the, you know, and then you got a Berkshire management team that may or may not really have, have a good understanding of, of CrossFit, like being the CEO is O
Sevan Matossian (29:33):
What’s hard. It, it, it kind of reminds me of this position, Adrian Bosman and Justin are in
Craig Howard (29:37):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (29:38): Like they’re being they’re, they, they, I mean, they’re, they’re man, it’s big shoes to fill. Um, and, and if they do make her CEO and they don’t give her the power to be CEO, then she’s got another big problem. You know, I have this avocado tree in my yard and it’s, um, it gives about 500 avocados a year and it’s wounded.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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