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How Matt Giordano Built a 100-Member Youth Program Inside CrossFit Newtown

Presser 2 days ago

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It all started during the first wave of the global pandemic in 2020.

When schools shut down, Matt Giordano and his wife began offering a place for kids to do their homework with a teacher on-site at the dental practice where his wife works.

“The owner of the dental practice was a member of my gym at the time and saw that the online options for physical education were less than optimal for the children,” Giordano said in an interview with the Morning Chalk Up. “So she asked if we would do a kids’ class one day a week […] We started with about 16 kids once a week until school opened again.”

But even when kids went back to school, they still wanted to go to the gym. So, not only did he keep the program — he expanded it.

Today, nearly five years after COVID-19 hit the world, Giordano has a thriving youth program with more than 100 kids and an eight-person coaching team. Further, Giordano said about 10% of the youth are “the original kids” who started five years ago.

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The Details

Giordano offers three different youth programs as part of his Newtown Youth Academy.

First, he runs a class for children between ages 5 and 12 on Saturdays that costs $99 every four weeks. Generally, 20 to 25 kids attend each four-week session.

Then there’s the small group youth program, limited to eight kids maximum of a similar age.

For example, on Mondays, there’s an early-elementary and late-elementary class. On Tuesdays, Giordano offers a high-school and a middle-school class. Then, on Wednesdays, there’s a middle-school and high-school class for girls only. He sells this program via punch cards, which cost $120 for four sessions.

Finally, Giordano offers specialty programs for youth, including a “fusion class” that mixes soccer with strength and conditioning.

In all, Giordano’s youth program brings in between $5,000 and $7,000 a month and usually accounts for anywhere between 10% and 12% of his monthly revenue.

“But that number is trending up in the last couple of months, and it looks like it’s going to continue to grow,” he said.

One Big Thing

Giordano has done all this without spending much time or money on marketing and without going after his members’ kids or the athletic kids.

For the most part, the program has been referral-based, although Giordano admits he has “put a lot of effort into getting Google reviews.”

“It’s mostly non-members’ children who haven’t found a sport that they love yet. We have some athletes, but that’s not the majority of the kids,” he added.

The Big Picture

To other gym owners, Giordano said offering a program for youth is a no-brainer if you have the capacity and bandwidth, not only for your business but for the kids who desperately need it.

“If you have people who are passionate about coaching youth, it’s a great revenue stream,” Giordano said.

He added: “There are a lot of kids who are sitting around not getting enough activity, and physical education is almost absent in the school system. These are big problems that gyms like ours can help solve.”