Media Misreports CrossFit Affiliate Growth Down 2.4%

Yesterday, an Instagram post caught our attention. Heatonminded reported that CrossFit affiliates worldwide declined 1.2% and that North American boxes declined 3.2% so far this year. 

The post, which mirrors numbers reported on the CrossFit Subreddit, cites CrossFit.com’s affiliate list as the source, but CrossFit HQ says these stats are inaccurate. 

CrossFit’s CEO Jeff Cain said in a statement: 

“Year over year, worldwide CrossFit affiliate growth is strong, with the total number of CrossFit affiliates hitting a new high in July of 15,200. Social media posts claiming a decline in CrossFit affiliates are false. The truth: There are more people today increasing their work capacity across broad time and modal domains in more CrossFit affiliates in more cities and in more countries around the globe than ever before. 

“The online CrossFit affiliate map includes only commercial affiliates. While the online CrossFit affiliate list and affiliate column at CrossFit.com include commercial, military, LEO, fire, school, hospital, and non-commercial affiliates, affiliates without a serviceable website for linking are not included in the online lists. There has never been a better time to become a CrossFit affiliate.”

Twice we’ve analyzed and reported on the overall affiliate numbers and international growth specifically, a painstaking process which required reviewing tax records, information on business filings and CrossFit.com’s own reporting. Given the extent of that task, we will wait to do our analysis at the end of 2019. 

Reporting on numbers like these can also be difficult. Morning Chalk Up itself has made mistakes when analyzing Open registration figures for the March 2019 CrossFit Open.