Greg Glassman Sold CrossFit for $200 Million After 2020 Backlash Over George Floyd Remarks
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Nov 8
Greg Glassman Sold CrossFit for $200 Million After 2020 Backlash Over George Floyd Remarks
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Nov 8
Summary
$200 million marked Greg Glassman’s exit from CrossFit after he resigned and sold the company when remarks about George Floyd and the pandemic triggered intense backlash in 2020.
Those comments capped wider controversy around Glassman, who was also accused in a New York Times exposé of fostering a culture of routine sexual harassment; he denied the allegations.
CrossFit had grown from a 1995 Santa Cruz gym into a 15,000-gym network across 160 countries, built on high-intensity group workouts and a tight community culture.
Calum Marsh’s new book argues that as CrossFit expanded among police, military and first responders after 9/11, its rugged ethos increasingly fused with macho politics and militarized imagery.
That legacy outlasted Glassman, with Marsh saying CrossFit reshaped not just training styles but the social culture of fitness in ways still visible in U.S. political and wellness circles.