When the economy has a bad day or several consecutive bad days that turn into bad weeks that turn into bad months, such as it is the case in 2020, no one is left sparred. Not even the gym that created many fitness icons and modern-day bodybuilding as you and me know it, Gold’s Gym. I’m gonna assume that by clicking on this article you are well aware of what Gold’s Gym is and why is it popular, so let’s skip the history lesson. What you may not know is that over the years Gold’s Gym has turned into a multi-million dollar fitness franchise, with nearly 700 “Gold’s Gym” gyms worldwide.
Which was a great business move and an awesome bragging topic up until a few months ago when things started to go bad…very bad. Due to US governments issuing lockdowns, the gyms(among many other businesses) were forced to close until things around the world cooled down. This, unfortunately, put a significant dent into Gold’s Gym franchise and in order to prevent further permanent gym shutdowns, it was forced to permanently close around 30 of their franchise-owned gyms across the US(in Alabama, Colorado, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and South Carolina to be exact) and ultimately file for a chapter 11 bankruptcy. Since this is a fitness-related website, I will not bore you with what a “chapter 11” bankruptcy is, you can look that up yourself if you wish to do so. The fact that even after reading the above given Wikipedia article on the subject, I still couldn’t fully explain to you what “chapter 11” is, we’ll just call that pure coincidence.
That’s the bad news, but luckily for everyone that has “working out in Gold’s Gym” on their bucket list, there’s some good news to all this. In a 5 minute video aimed at the Gold’s Gym fans, employees, and members. Gold’s Gym CEO- Adam Zeitsiff, recites from an off-screen prepared statement.
The statement assures that they aim to get out of bankruptcy by early-August if not earlier and that they are NOT going out of business. Here are some quotes from Gold’s Gym CEO Adam Zeitsiff’s video statement.
“We want to be 100 percent clear that Gold’s Gym is not going out of business,” President and CEO Adam Zeitsiff said in a press release. “The brand is strong, and we’ll continue to innovate and grow our digital business, our licensing program and our global footprint as we focus on serving our millions of members across the world.”… “This has been a complete and total disruption of every one of our business norms, so we needed to take quick, decisive actions to enable us to get back on track,” via zerohedge.com
The statement puts the blame exclusively and only on the government enforced lockdowns and the extreme circumstances that lead to them being put in place. And to finally answer the burning question you have the entire time- THE Gold’s Gym, the only one that matters, the one in Venice Beach is NOT closed. The original house of gainz that gave the world Arnold Schwarzenegger is not affected by this decision.
It is also worth saying that Gold’s isn’t the only gym franchise that took a financial hit in these dark times. American based “24 Hour Fitness” franchise has hired a legal firm to help them figure out a financial plan for their enormous debt that may end up leading to bankruptcy. Even the high-end fitness franchise “Equinox” is experiencing cash flow issues and is basically telling their landlords “we ain’t paying rent, we broke“.
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