1. The Trend Report
Two Formats, Same Raw Material, Opposite Decades
Sled pushes, rowing, burpees, real strength and conditioning work. Hyrox and CrossFit are built from almost identical ingredients, and their curves point in opposite directions. Hyrox revenue is estimated at €130 to 140 million for 2025, up roughly 87% from around €40 million two years earlier, with 2026 guidance running as high as $270 million. CrossFit's affiliate count, the actual gyms carrying the brand into communities worldwide, has fallen from a 2018 peak of over 15,000 to under 10,000 by the end of 2024, the steepest reversal in the company's history.
Neither business changed its core product much. What changed is everything wrapped around it. Hyrox monetises the participant: athlete entries and ticket sales generate 55 to 65% of revenue directly, sponsorship contributes around 15%, and merchandise adds an estimated $40 to 50 million on top. Because participants and roughly 16,000 affiliated gyms market the format organically, acquisition cost sits close to zero. Reported 2025 EBITDA of around €30 million implies a margin near 20%, a level most consumer fitness businesses never reach.
CrossFit monetises the gym. Boxes pay HQ an annual licence fee to use the name and training system, and that fee jumped from $3,000 to as much as $4,500 in early 2024, the first increase in over a decade. Within twelve months, 1,467 gyms had dropped off the affiliate map. For a marginally profitable box already competing with cheaper alternatives, an increase that size was often the deciding factor between staying licensed and simply going independent under a different name.
CrossFit built a movement and charged gyms to use the name. Hyrox built a race and charged people who wanted to prove they could cross the finish line.
2. The Numbers
1.3-1.5M
Estimated Hyrox participants this season, up from 650 racers at a single event in 2017, with management targeting 2.5 million globally in 2026
Hyrox revenue trajectory
€130 to 140 million in 2025, roughly 87% up on two years earlier, with 2026 guidance as high as $270 million.
CrossFit affiliates
Over 15,000 gyms at the 2018 peak, under 10,000 by the end of 2024.
Acquisition cost
Near zero paid marketing for Hyrox, against $100 to $300 per customer typical in consumer fitness.
Ownership
Hyrox majority-owned by Infront (Wanda Group), with L Catterton in exclusive talks. CrossFit owned by Berkshire Partners since 2020 and reportedly for sale.
CrossFit Open registrations
Down 31% year over year between 2024 and 2025, the lowest total in more than a decade.
3. The Business Model / Opportunity
The Reputational Wounds That Never Fully Healed
The fee increase was the final straw, not the original wound. Founder Greg Glassman resigned as CEO in June 2020 after a call with affiliate owners in which he reportedly dismissed mourning George Floyd, followed within days by a tweet reading "It's FLOYD-19" in response to a health institute calling racism a public health issue. Reebok ended its title sponsorship. Roughly 1,250 affiliated gyms severed ties within the week, according to Morning Chalk Up.
Then came August 2024. Serbian athlete Lazar Dukic, 28, drowned during the opening event of the CrossFit Games, an 800-metre swim following a 3.5-mile run. Fellow competitors said no lifeguards were positioned to reach him in time. CrossFit suspended the day's remaining events, then resumed the Games less than 24 hours later, drawing immediate backlash over both the decision and the safety planning behind it. Games director Dave Castro was already divisive: eight professional athletes signed a public document in 2023 calling for him to step down over event safety and athlete welfare. He remains in the role.
Neither event alone explains a 40% affiliate decline. Together they damaged the thing CrossFit sold alongside the workouts: trust that HQ had its community's back. It compounded an existing reputation problem around injury rates and cult-adjacent culture rather than creating a new one. What changed is that CrossFit no longer had the cultural momentum to shrug those critiques off.
Operator Takeaway: Gym owners who affiliated early with Hyrox are sitting on genuinely different unit economics: a format that markets itself, at the exact moment the competing model made staying licensed more expensive. Equipment suppliers in sled and ski-erg categories inherit sustained demand rather than a spike. And participants get a competition with a far lower technical barrier than Olympic lifting and gymnastics, which is most of why Hyrox converted casual gym-goers into competitors so much faster.
4. Quick Hits
The buyer
L Catterton, backed by Bernard Arnault's family office, in exclusive talks on a stake at a €700 million to €1 billion valuation.
The seller
Berkshire Partners bought CrossFit five years ago and is reportedly seeking an exit, an unusually short hold period.
The fee shock
Licence fee up from $3,000 to as much as $4,500 in early 2024. 1,467 gyms de-affiliated within twelve months.
Scale check
Hyrox management expects 2.5 million participants globally in 2026, larger than every major world marathon combined.
5. The Takeaway
A Licence Fee Versus A Finish Line
CrossFit built a movement around a training philosophy and made its money charging gyms to use the name. Hyrox built a race around a finish line and made its money from people who wanted to prove they could cross it, and a private equity firm backed by the man who owns Louis Vuitton just decided that difference is worth up to a billion euros.
