Guest Posted November 6, 2009 Report Share Posted November 6, 2009 Hey, I've gotta say, when I first started my gym they were kind of a hole of gyms between 100 and 250 $ fees entry gym. But now it's getting f**kin crazy man. So if anyone wants to build up a new fighter, they gotta come to Montreal, I don't say they need to come to my gym, but since the competition is absolutely crazy, people are going to get great training with fee people training in the gym. To be honest, if the exponentially number of gyms brings a lot of new fighters, it's gonna be real good for the gyms founder. If it doesn't work, a lot of gym owners a going to go bankrupt, myself included. By the way, it will be interesting for new organisations too, since they're going to have plenty of fighters to choose with. As for now we have 11 gyms ranking between 100$ and 260$ that are looking for new members. This is going insane. I am really wondering how it's gonna end up. Maybe you old folks have a clue, but on my side it's a wild guess Feel free to post your comments guyz. Kyro Maia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 7, 2009 Report Share Posted November 7, 2009 No comments anyone ? Other gym founder ? New fighters ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 7, 2009 Report Share Posted November 7, 2009 It's going to be a much tougher market for you guys than when I started my gym, because I started mine just before MMA Tycoon "went public" - I.E. just before members were encouraged to actively promote the game on other forums. I think the number of managers went from something like 3000 or so to 9000 (then back down to a bit less after "multi-gate"), so I didn't really have to compete against other gyms for members. You guys don't have that explosive population growth to count on, and add to that the fact that there are several VIP's that are just starting up their own sparring gyms (or "private" cheater gyms (like Project Kcus Ti and Sverjeni Front - seriously, how are those guys still allowed to run their gyms?), and your potential market is pretty soft. In Montreal, we have only 2,300 fighters, and only 300 of those are at the Cozad right now, with over 550 "vacancies" at the legitimate gyms, so even if the Cozad were emptied out, only about half of the available spots would be filled. I hate to say it, because I don't want to discourage any fellow entrepreneurs, but I don't see how many of you are going to be able to survive. I honestly hope I'm wrong, and we'll see a sudden influx of people into Montreal, but I'm not holding my breath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimW Posted November 8, 2009 Report Share Posted November 8, 2009 The competition in Montreal is crazy. -EDIT, I just checked where my org was ranked......8TH! and the competition in this org alone is excellent, plus the 7 orgs higher ranked and I come to the conclusion, Montreal is the best city on the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 8, 2009 Report Share Posted November 8, 2009 No comments anyone ? Other gym founder ? New fighters ? I'd have to agree with you, as there have been a lot of gyms opening up in Montreal in the last month. There have also been a number of closures as well though, which is one of the reasons I decided to open DCC. Of course, I'm not really competing with those of you in the $100 - $250 range, but instead am trying to drive Cozad out of business. Seriously though, I'm certainly willing to work with other gyms, as my goal was to provide a better starter gym for new managers/fighters than is available at Cozad, with the recognition that it would mean eventually fighters would need to move on to other, more specialized, gyms as they advance in their careers. I have no intention of hiring any coaches to cover any of the skill areas, outside of the one guy I already have who simply provides what Cozad has. DCC is all about providing cheap, elite, conditioning training to the brand new fighter. Once a fighter is ready to move on to focused training in Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling or BJJ, they will have to find another gym. It seems to me that many of the new gyms are trying to provide a little bit of everything, rather than focusing on just once or two areas. To me, it would seem that in order to provide top level quality of coaches in all areas, gyms would need to have both a high price & a high cap OR they would have to be offsetting the losses from the gym out of the owners pocket. That doesn't seem like a very viable business plan for most. But perhaps if a gym concentrated on providing elite level training in one or two fighting styles, that would a way for multiple gyms to survive/thrive. I realize that this may mean fighters can't just stay in one gym forever, but isn't it actually more realistic that fighters occasionally move to a new gym to focus on training in a new area? A gym that focuses on Muay Thai, for example, could have one elite coach and break even (in terms of coach fees & upkeep) at around 33 members with a gym fee of $100. Double the membership, and you can afford two elite level coaches - either a second Muay Thai to keep class size very small, or a second style to provide a complement to the Muay Thai training. The difficulty I see when I look at many of the new gyms that have opened is that they all seem to have 4 or 5 coaches. That's a lot of salary to cover each week, even if most of those coaches aren't elite level. The only way to cover those fees is either to have a lot of members (and given how much difficulty I have getting people to leave Cozad for a gym that costs the exact same $50 and is providing an elite conditioning coach, brand new equipment, pristine conditions and sparring with wonderful level fighters, I expect it is even harder for the $100 - $250 gyms to get members) or to have high fees. Rather than trying to offer Remarkable/Superb/Strong coaches in the off-skills, I'd think a gym might have a better chance by specializing and telling members "we offer elite level training in _____; if you are looking for something else, you'll have to look elsewhere". Of course this idea would probably work best if gyms didn't all decide to concentrate on the same style(s). Right now it looks like everyone is offering elite level Boxing, then BJJ. Now, I'm sure those may be more popular styles, but obviously if all the gyms concentrate on the same things, the competition becomes even more direct and cut-throat. Then again, perhaps there aren't enough people looking for elite training in Muay Thai or Wrestling. I don't really know. I do wish everyone the best of luck, as I'd like to see a very healthy gym environment in Montreal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 8, 2009 Report Share Posted November 8, 2009 I do appreciate what you guyz are saying. As far as I'm concerned, Boxing was the stats that my guyz were asking the most about of being trained, after that came BJJ. If you looked at our training sessions, some people concentrate in wrestling, well a few of them. I have a Muay Thai coach that seems to be doing 25 fightging sessions per week. New fighters seems to go on BJJ or Boxing, which isn't that bad, but the gyms owner are kind of in a obligation to go for one of those two, which I did. But like Alex says, it would be a much more better benefit for all of us if we would talk to each other and take only one style. As for now we need a bunch of new fighters to cover our gyms fees and we are trying to compete with each other. Every gyms is trying to eat each other alive and it isn't that great. I'd like to have the impression of somes fighters in this thread so we can put somes things in another perspective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 9, 2009 Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 Looks like there's one of the gym that already closed. I don't remember who the manager was, but I think it's a very good move. Just hope everyone is gonna stay alive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 9, 2009 Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 The only gym I see that has closed in the last week is one I don't believe every really opened. It was listed on Highstreet for less than a day; vanishing so quickly that I failed to write it down, as it wasn't there when I checked back 6-8 hours later. There still is a lot of competition between the 4-5 of the gyms in the $100 - $275, and I too hope that everyone is going to be able to survive. I try to send a couple of my own fighters out to the other gyms to concentrate on specific skills each week, but all of my fighters are still pretty new and generally can't stay more than a week at a time. And of course, unless I'm willing to pay $275, I can only find elite level Boxing (pretty much every where) & BJJ (at ScientificCombatSystems) coaches. I've finally gotten DCC to the point where enough people have migrated over from Cozad so that I hope to be able to start paying down the debt this week. And I think the fact that DCC has over 120 members is a good sign for the future for all of your gyms, as eventually these new fighters will need to move on to more specialized training. I just hope everyone is set-up to survive until this begins to happen. And that I can find enough new people to continual replace my graduates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heinen Posted November 9, 2009 Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 You have a shitload of middle class gyms. You should have gone 600 with a few elites and build that up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 9, 2009 Report Share Posted November 9, 2009 You have a shitload of middle class gyms. You should have gone 600 with a few elites and build that up. That's pretty much what half the gyms which failed in the last month have been - $600 gyms with a lot of elite coaches. Apparently there just aren't the number of fighters out there who can afford $600 per week. The other failures appear to have mostly been the sparring only gyms, which obviously aren't as popular now that you can't simply spar session after session. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 10, 2009 Report Share Posted November 10, 2009 Yeah it seems like every gym trying to go over 275$ than hasn't already a lot of fighters in their rank goes bankrupt. It appears to me that we have a lot of manager that aren't going to last a very long time and on the other hand we have great managers when you look at an organisation like CFC. I can say that Alec made a very good choice by going for a 50$ gym's which were pretty rare in Montreal. I had spotted the middle class gyms since they were all full, but looks like I wasn't the only one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 11, 2009 Report Share Posted November 11, 2009 mid tier gyms, is as important as the elite gyms... preferably around the 200 range. i'm just curious how far can you really go with that price? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 I can say that Alec made a very good choice by going for a 50$ gym's which were pretty rare in Montreal. I had spotted the middle class gyms since they were all full, but looks like I wasn't the only one. I don't know about that yet. So far, I'm losing money every week, although it's just a small amount (primarily the loan repayment). I'm hoping that next week I should be able to turn a little bit of profit, although I also expect that soon I will need to upgrade my equipment. And I'm already starting to see people moving on to other gyms. Yes, this is what I expected, but it does mean I constantly need to find new people to join the gym. I'm certainly not in any danger of going out of business, but I'm also not exactly on solid footing yet either. At the moment I think I mostly just have to stay smart and not try to expand/improve the gym before it is clear that the finances are there. There current set-up should work out fine with the current number of members, but at $50 it takes quite a membership drive to get to the level where you can afford another elite coach. And the business plan requires that I stay at $50, so that's what I'm going to do! 30+ weeks from now if I haven't figured out how to make it profitable enough to at least pay off the loan and pay for itself, I guess I'll have to figure out something else to do with the gym. And I've recommend both SCS & XSF to my members looking to move on to some elite skill coaching. (Either full-time or jumping back and forth from DCC as I do with some of my own fighters.) I hope that's helping getting a couple more guys into your gyms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.