CrossFit didn’t need to invest millions or even thousands in growing its reach. Rather, the Crossfit fanbase grew the sport with their own time and money.
How did a bunch of passionate people help grow CrossFit into the behemoth that is is today?
And what can horse sports do to literally copy and paste the same strategy?
Listen to our latest Hacking Session, featuring Pegasus Co-Founders Jen Tankel and Sam Baynes and Pegasus CMO Noah Levy.
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
CrossFit didn’t need to invest millions or even thousands in growing its reach. Rather, the Crossfit fanbase grew the sport with their own time and money.
How did a bunch of passionate people help grow CrossFit into the behemoth that is is today?
And what can horse sports do to literally copy and paste the same strategy?
Listen to our latest Hacking Session, featuring Pegasus Co-Founders Jen Tankel and Sam Baynes and Pegasus CMO Noah Levy.
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
Here's a question for you, Jen. What happened to me last weekend that completely ruined your weekend?
Speaker 2:What happened to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you had a deadline on Monday, so yeah, and also.
Speaker 1:But what was I doing in between work?
Speaker 2:Oh, I know where you're getting that. It's Sam's favorite time of the year. I don't want to say the most dreaded time of the year for me, because I've learned to like it. I don't want to say love it, but it was the CrossFit Games.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Best time of the year Five, six days of complete CrossFit content overload, and it's the best thing ever. So the CrossFit Games happened, and the thing about the CrossFit Games is that, essentially, do you know anything about it? Noah, do you know anything? Do you have any context what the CrossFit Games is?
Speaker 1:I know literally nothing about it, yeah, so essentially what the CrossFit Games is is that everyone knows CrossFit as like these people who are obsessed with a cult in a gym. Well, in order to basically make people aspire to become CrossFit people and then to then go and join a gym, crossfit is a company really smartly created the CrossFit Games, which is kind of like the FIFA World Cup for CrossFit. What happens every year as opposed to every four years. And so the best 40 men in the world and the best 40 women in the world turn up at a competition in America and over five days they basically compete like 13 events back to back, and at the end of it, whoever has the most points is crowned the CrossFit champion, the fittest man in the world for men and women.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, it's a lot bigger than that. It's like these banners all over, it's like fittest on earth. I mean it really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like fittest on earth, and you know people who hate CrossFit will be like oh my God, this is such a wank and there's no way you can call yourself the fittest person on earth. But for someone who is a believer, yeah they're not that fit.
Speaker 1:They're like get the fuck out of here, like I mean. So the whole point is like right, yes, is a marathon runner a far better runner than a CrossFit runner? Yes, is a weight? Is an Olympic weightlifter a far better weightlifter than a CrossFit? Yes, but a marathon runner can't do anything but run a marathon and a weightlifter can't do anything but lift weights, whereas a CrossFit athlete can run a good time for a run and then they can go basically snatch or weightlift like 80% of what the best in the world weightlifters can do. So to have that range in athleticism is kind of what they're basically strive to achieve, which is why they claim to the fittest in the world.
Speaker 2:What I have grown to like about it is that the way in which they tell the story about the CrossFit games and they interview the athletes and they tell a bit of background about where they're from, who they're training with, what their goals are, and you see, I mean for better or for worse. I've seen them now for what? Five years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really, I know the names, you know the characters.
Speaker 2:I know the characters. This year was very shocking because Tia Tummi, you know, she wasn't competing although she just had a baby. But it was very shocking because the one girl, oh, I don't know her name, she didn't make the games, but her twin made the games and she's always made games Sydney Wells and Brook Wells, yeah. Sister, sister Riley.
Speaker 1:Anyway, this is my point, so this is why I brought it up. I didn't bring it up because I wanted to sit here on an equestrian podcast and talk about CrossFit.
Speaker 2:Well, any opportunity that you have to talk about CrossFit in any sort of Pegasus equestrian anything. Hey, you're into rider fitness. Have you heard of the CrossFit games?
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty much, but here's my point. So there is a podcast series that exists around the CrossFit ecosystem called the Savarn podcast. He used to be the media director for CrossFit the company and then he got kicked out. And then, when he got kicked out, he created his own YouTube channel and basically has now become like the number one media personality in the CrossFit world and for many years was a thorn in the side of CrossFit the company, but has now been embraced because he basically is the number one media personality.
Speaker 1:Anyway, the point is is what he does is leading up to the games, which is, you know, televised, etc.
Speaker 1:He has, every time a workout that they're going to have to do do 12 workouts is released, he and three other people get on a panel and they basically break down the workout. They look at each, every individual, strengths and weaknesses and they decide who's going to do well, why they won't do well. They compare them to historic data, they compare them to their personalities in terms of do they have the mental capacity to be strong in this or will they break, etc. And that, combined with all the YouTubers who create content about these people who compete, is basically what makes the event interesting, and so the reason I bring this up is because while I was watching it, I realized that there are two types of sports, and this is about comes back to the equestrian world. There are sports that are interesting because you care about the characters, and then there are sports that are interesting because the actual event itself, regardless of the characters, is exciting. So, 100% true. So you take 100% true.
Speaker 3:That's my experience, like with football. For soccer I mean, for example, I've been in Europe for a little too long, but with soccer I don't follow anything regarding the players. The only thing I know is that messy went to Miami, which is where I'm from, and that's super great. But other than that, like I really don't give a shit. But growing up, I mean, I was a huge fan of the NFL and the NBA and I used to follow all the time. You know which players were going to be traded, where, who was going to sign who, but I also enjoyed the game. But I'm seeing from my point of view today I don't really follow that crap anymore, but I still really enjoy the game because you know, I know how all three games work and I just I really enjoy it. So your point is 100% true.
Speaker 2:But do you enjoy the game or do you enjoy the player, or do you enjoy both?
Speaker 3:I don't know. I'm saying that back then, when I was a kid, I enjoyed both, but these days, like I don't really give a shit because I'm just too busy to follow this stupid drama of like oh, this player said that they want to go here, but they're actually not, you know. Blah, blah, blah, Like I don't really care about that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but this is my point right? My point is is that in sports there are two buckets. There are the sports that basically know that the event itself isn't that exciting. So let's take the Tour de France, which we talked about last week. So to Tour de France. If you know nothing about the sport and you know nothing about the characters and you know nothing about the rules, all you see is a group of people cycling on a road for 21 days straight. It is boring as batshit, like you know the backdrop is pretty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the backdrop is beautiful, it's beautiful. It looks like you know, it looks like a Windows desktop.
Speaker 2:And when they can get, when they can do it in a way, well okay, yes, asterisk, because if you have the right angle then you can show how fast they're going compared to the rest.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I mean that's impressive, but like, okay, that's great for five seconds.
Speaker 1:And then you've changed the channel, I've moved on, but what you have to do is the only reason people care when they watch the Tour de France, and the only reason they get very, very invested in it is because they know the characters, they know the riders, they know the teams, they know the politics of the teams, they know the financial challenges of the teams. They know that this team lost this sponsor because this rider didn't perform well enough, and if this rider doesn't perform well enough this year, they're going to lose their major sponsor. And that's essentially exactly what F1 did with Formula One Drive to Survive. They realized the same thing, so they created the Netflix Drive to Survive series that essentially created the characters, because if, in order for you to care about the sport, you need to actually understand the characters and CrossFit's the exact same, and that's what they've done. Better than any sport in the world is that, rather than putting all their chips in one basket and investing in Netflix and having one Netflix series, they've created an entire ecosystem of YouTubers who create all that for free anyway.
Speaker 1:Let's look at that lens through the horse world. I was thinking about it in terms of equestrian sports, and the conversation we're having last week was how do you get more people to be interested in equestrian sports? Do you go in and get convinced the public to be interested, or do you try and convince more people who already horse people to be interested in other sports? And now that I've thought about this, I think it's more nuanced than that, which is that each equestrian sport some are interesting, some fall into the category of like I can watch this and I'm entertained and I don't care who the people are, whereas some is like no, the backstory is actually crucially important to making me care about the result of this competition.
Speaker 2:All right. So you've said a lot of things, so, to unpack it right, a lot of this is how it is bundled up and filmed and then presented on screen with music and narration and clips and interviews to make it for a very exciting hour, two hours, whatever it is right. So and I know the CrossFit Games goes for longer than that and it's televised, but there's still a lot of interjection with athletes and interviewing them and showing them behind the scenes and getting ready and all those things right. But you went to an actual CrossFit. It wasn't the CrossFit Games, but it was a CrossFit competition that leads up to the games, and even you said you were bored.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was, and this is exactly my point. Even when you watch the CrossFit Games, it can be boring to watch, even though I care about it desperately and I love it and I look forward to it all year. The individual events can be boring, but I've watched so much background content on who the characters are that I care because I know that this person's weakness is this. This person's strengths, this person comes greater than fifth in this event and this is their strength. They've put everything on the line and they're really pushing themselves. I know the background context to make it interesting.
Speaker 1:So I guess the question I've got for you guys is just a general discussion when you look at equestrian sports, which ones do you think fall into the category of entertaining regardless of character and which ones fall into the category of like? Character development is crucially important if you're going to get anyone to be interested in this, because if you think about character development, right, it's interesting to the people who are really, really in it, because they don't need to watch content to understand the characters. They just know each other. So for them it's really, really interesting. But if you're going to try and convince people who aren't, who don't know all the characters who don't live a day in, day out. They need to be brought up to enough.
Speaker 2:I think with that example you would need to be able to do more character development and show the trials and tribulations and show more about what goes into it. But the discipline I'm talking about is dressage. So for the average person, you look at it and at the upper level, and I mean I am biased, but I think the upper level is actually quite fascinating because I can understand and appreciate how complex the movements are and a lot of them do these tests to music to speak to the layman.
Speaker 2:That's what Snoop Dogg, if you remember, did you see this, noah? Snoop Dogg had a clip that went viral. I think it was Snoop Dogg. Yeah, it was Snoop Dogg. A few years ago he had a clip that went viral because he was commenting on dressage horses and was saying you know how? How he couldn't believe that these horses were dancing. He's like oh my God, they're Crip walking. Yeah, they're Crip walking. Did you see that clip?
Speaker 3:I didn't see it, but you told me about it once.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think something like that, because so that's the upper level and there's definitely different components of dressage that I think even the outside world can appreciate. But your standard dressage competition, even at the upper level, not necessarily the grand prix, but competitive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even those, I think you would still need to show all those things similar to what you show in the CrossFit Games.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and compare that. So, dressage being, it's one of those sports where, if I was the USDF or I was a company that made my money out of the dressage ecosystem, trying to create content that appeals to the masses, that makes people care about the characters, and the great thing about the equestrian sports is that in every single time a person competes, you've got two characters You've got the horse and you've got the person and a third character, which is the relationship between the horse and the person. So there's a lot of opportunity there to create amazing content, but dressage is a perfect example of like that. Content needs to exist in order to get people to care.
Speaker 1:On the other end of the spectrum, you have show jumping right, and this is why show jumping, of all the equestrian sports, at least on the English side of the house, has become the one sport that the Long Jean's global tour is trying to commercialize and appeal to the wider masses, because it has a very set structure. It takes place in a small area with a set structure over a short period of time, and it's very, very easy, without even knowing who the people are or caring who the people are, to be able to understand that this person is doing better than that person and therefore this person needs to get this time to win in a jump off and sort of appeals to the masses. When we were in Europe recently, we took my parents to the Long Jean's global tour at Saint-Tropez and they loved it. No, knew nothing about horses Absolutely loved it. But they would not have loved it if we took them to dressage.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe, well, they would have been like oh, they were pretty. It was. They did sit there and be like it's amazing how they control these horses. Everyone amazed, is amazed by the control of the horse that they get in dressage. But they're not sitting there for five hours like on the edge of their seats Right?
Speaker 2:You're not. It's a different kind of experience. So Grand Prix or a freestyle, especially one to music, I mean it's really cool. But yeah, I agree it doesn't have the same type of adrenaline rush that shows you think does. But what's interesting, though, about the CrossFit Games is that you don't necessarily showcase the people that are at the very top. It's just it's people that are. You know, it's their first year this.
Speaker 1:The one girl right who got like a Emma Lawson, Emma Lawson.
Speaker 2:I know all the names. God, god help me. She's 18. This is her. She's a rookie, this is her first year, but, point being, she's not the veteran who's been in this space for a long time and already has all the sponsorship right. So I think that's an interesting angle is because here in the equestrian world, I think that most of that airtime and most of that, I'll say, the interest, because there's still the interest, but you know more about the people that are at the top, you don't really know a lot about the up and comers, I mean, unless they're just really good on socials or I don't know they're.
Speaker 2:They're the daughter or sign of somebody famous or billionaire, you don't even yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a whole market then, isn't there? Because I mean, you're talking about, like growing up, I used to watch ESPN. Like all the time I would just see a lot of sports reporting on all the levels of basketball, baseball, american football, et cetera, and there was a lot of reporting on who is this player and what level are they at and what is the next level that they're trying to get to. And those are the questions that need to be answered. I don't think that equestrian athletes should be burdened by having to do that themselves. There's a hole in the market here. Why is there not a single media company out there that's really covering this crap?
Speaker 3:I mean, like, for example, you go to a minor league baseball game and it's a triple A. So triple A is the league that goes right before the major league baseball, which you know has, like New York Yankees, boston Red Sox, and you know that you're seeing an up and comer. But this up and comer really needs to perform at this specific game and the next few specific games in order to be called into whatever major league team and which they're being farmed from. So that's a really good example of an instance where not only do you understand the sport, but you're also really invested in the character. But the reason why you're invested in the character is that there was a lot of media reporting on this character. You need to yeah these characters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the other thing too is, like you just kind of said it, which is that and I hadn't really thought about it, I thought about it but like not in the way that you just put it is that the reason you care too is because you're very detailed understanding, because of all the media and reporting and all the content about it, about the system of how to get from one level to another and what needs to and what level of performance needs to occur at each level at a very specific time in order to make that jump, and therefore you understand the consequences of a person's performance in the moment and therefore you care about their performance in the moment.
Speaker 1:And you know you and I we don't have anywhere near as much insight into this as Jen would. But in the equestrian and I'm sure it's different from sport to sport, but in equestrian sports is the season of an annual calendar structured in such a way that each event feels important, like if I don't perform at this level and get this score at this event, then I'm not going to qualify for this event, which means I can't get to the water quatering games. Does that level of urgency to perform on track exist?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it just depends on the level that you're at. So obviously, with the Olympians, they have to go, they have to abide by that type of schedule and if you're trying to qualify for something that's within the discipline or within USCF, for example, there are definitely things that you have to go through. But if you don't care about all of that stuff, it's not like you have to abide by this annual schedule, like the cross.
Speaker 1:You don't have like a season. Yeah, it's a season.
Speaker 3:So my question is during the season that, like a fan, could just follow? You know, even with NASCAR they have a season, you know Well, you could kind of create it.
Speaker 2:But I mean, if you think about it too, a lot of what happens in the horseport world is you follow the sun. So people that are I mean I don't know if this necessarily matters, but obviously people that are competing up in Virginia and Pennsylvania and New York in the summer they'll probably go down to Florida. So if you're a fan and you want to watch it in person throughout that season, you're going to have to travel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you could watch it if it was. I mean assuming there was infrastructure in place to like stream this stuff.
Speaker 2:But you can, there is infrastructure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think this is what Longjanes is doing right, and I think we've talked about this in the past Like this is what's Longjanes doing. That's really really clever, is? They're like we need to create a season, we need to create a structure, we need to create a system that fans can follow, and that is why they've set themselves up to have an annual season with teams that compete in a certain number of events and it's how many points each team gets over the course of a season and the winner with the most points at the end of the season is crowned the champions. That's their attempt to try and build out this infrastructure to allow fans to follow. But on that point, coming back to this lack of content and the lack of media surrounding it, it's a big mistake to see that as an issue, because it's actually the biggest opportunity.
Speaker 2:I think it's a huge opportunity.
Speaker 1:The amount of money that sports make off selling the story and the identity and the affiliation with the athletes is huge.
Speaker 1:You know, whether it is something as simple as selling a jersey for an athlete such as NFL and stuff they had a huge amount of money of jersey sales because people care about the individual characters or taking it one step further, as simple as oh, now that this person, now that people care about this character or this, you know this athlete, this athlete now has followers and people care about them. Okay, Now that they've followed, people care about them. Now let's sell products that they can flog and we'll give the athlete a revenue share or an equity deal to sell that product and then you make more and more money off of it. And considering how much the horse world is constantly trying to figure out, how do we get more money into the equestrian economy? I think really focusing on how we can build characters that resonate with a far wider audience out of the athletes would be a really just such low hanging fruit of how to kick start the rest of the economy of the sport.
Speaker 2:So here's a question what would you describe guy? Is his name Guy Ritchie?
Speaker 1:As in.
Speaker 2:Cross-seller, the YouTuber.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, craig, ritchie Craig.
Speaker 3:Who is he? Like Guy Ritchie.
Speaker 1:He's Guy Ritchie. Guy Ritchie, isn't he? I'm thinking Guy Raz, from how I built this Guy.
Speaker 3:Raz Guy Ritchie so okay, so the guy I don't know, he's someone.
Speaker 1:He's someone. He's Guy Ritchie. I'll give you a little bit Okay.
Speaker 2:So how would you describe who Mr?
Speaker 1:Ritchie is in the Cross-seller world.
Speaker 2:Craig, craig I hate how Americans say Craig Craig. It's an A Craig Craig.
Speaker 1:No, that makes every European like shrivel.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's ask Noah, he's a faux European. But true, floridian, is it Craig or Craig? It's Craig, craig, it's Craig. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:Explain to me grammatically how Craig C-R-A-I-G becomes E.
Speaker 2:Tell me about tomato.
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Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly that's why I'm right by default.
Speaker 2:All right, anyway, back to the point YouTube. So the YouTuber?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so do you have any idea who Craig Ritchie is?
Speaker 3:No, you told me about him, I think once.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:So, essentially, what CrossFit did? It's actually a genius business case. I don't hear anyone talk about it in marketing circles or in business circles, and it should be. And I went as far as to ring the guy who ran all this and set it all up to confirm that they did this on purpose. Who did you ring? Savan from the Savan podcast. I called him and spoke to him for an hour about the story I'm about to tell you.
Speaker 1:Spoiler, they didn't do it on purpose. It was a happy accident, which is a shame, because if they did it on purpose, it would have been genius. But essentially, what they did was as a corporation. They were like okay, we are a corporation, we are no different to orange theory, we are no different to any time fitness. All they are is a company that basically has gyms and then gym owners around the world pay them a license fee each year to be able to call themselves a CrossFit gym and they own the trademarks. So if you don't pay the license fee to corporate CrossFit and you call yourself a CrossFit gym, they will come after you and they'll sue you. So you cannot say you'll see these CrossFit gyms that look exactly like a CrossFit gym and operate like a CrossFit gym, but they'll call themselves like functional fitness or something like that, because they can't use the word CrossFit. So that's all they are technically.
Speaker 2:What if they, what if they misspelled it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, belgrade, serbia, or somewhere near there, where I saw Domino, like not Domino's, but I saw An apostrophe that s with literally the same exact logo and font.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The works for them, it works for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah but essentially so, that's all cross videos, right. So what they basically realized was the ultimate goal for them is how do we get more people to join CrossFit gyms? The more people we get to join CrossFit gyms, the more gym owners will want to own CrossFit gyms. The more license fees will get, the more the company's bottom line will grow. So what they basically realized was we need people to aspire to be crossfitters to Build the demand for our gyms from the ground up, and so they created the CrossFit games. The CrossFit game started off as a bunch of friends getting together, going through a series of tests it took place in over one day to see who could be the fittest at these things.
Speaker 2:Was it legit or was it just like hey, us three, let's get out there and start lifting some weight?
Speaker 1:It was a bit backyard, it was a bit rinky dink, but it was popular enough that in the first or second year they had people from international contestants turn up. Yeah, and there's a whole backstory behind that. If you're interested, it's worth looking into it. But essentially they then created, had a media team, and this is where Savane came in and what they did was these CrossFit games grew to a level that they ended up hosting him in stadiums and spectators were turning up. Then they basically went and created a Documentary team that then filmed the CrossFit games and they interviewed the main winners Before and after the games and during the games to basically create this documentary about the games and make the games seem way more important than they were, and that Created celebrities is that?
Speaker 2:what was the tipping point that got the public to want to come and join these CrossFit gems? You think?
Speaker 1:well, it was always steadily growing the membership, but that was where it went from being this thing that some people do tell all the mate, the. The populace who aren't into CrossFit Can actually observe it and see what it's all about Just by finding it on Netflix or finding it on Amazon Prime or something like that.
Speaker 2:Would you say that the average content was pretty good at that time, or has a yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it's got a lot better, but it's always been world-standard. Like guys and like everyone thinks, formula one driver Survive is good, the CrossFit was. Crossfit was doing formula one drive to survive Six years before formula one drive to survive came out.
Speaker 2:You gave a really good backdrop about that component, but for me, who's not across better to Sam's horror? I've got a bad back. I'm gonna bad back.
Speaker 1:I don't know how. About you some strength training? Oh, I don't want to get bulky.
Speaker 2:No, there was this. One time I went to this CrossFit class with Sam and we were the app things I was doing abnat setups like the most basic entry level.
Speaker 1:A 54 year old mama who hasn't worked out since before her first child could walk it and do these things.
Speaker 2:No, I had. I had a wound on my back from doing these abnat setups. I don't know how many I did. Yeah, it wasn't that many, but anyway.
Speaker 1:You scared yourself.
Speaker 2:So what I think it's interesting about what this guy does, richie, is that he is really down at the, the front lines. He's interviewing. He's interviewing everybody. He's showing a day-to-day. He's showcasing what it's like at the games and normal competitions. He's interacting with the other Athletes. He goes about his normal day and I wouldn't say it's very polished. He might get a sponsor every now and then, but it seems pretty gritty, but it's a really. He does it in a really interesting way. Yes, he's a proper youtuber when it comes to the CrossFit space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to explain how that happened. So they created these documentaries. The documentaries then got distributed through the mainstreaming platforms. That then made the best athletes celebrities and they have, honestly, like the, the best athletes. They have Pretty broad appeal because it's like holy shit, these people are beasts. Anyone you don't need to know anything about the sport to be able to relate to the fact that what these people are doing is pretty incredible. And then that got lots of popularity.
Speaker 1:Out of that popularity, what they realized was that what the YouTube community realized was that, oh, we shouldn't need to wait every year for a new documentary. Why don't we just start making more content and we can release it every day now? Because these celebrities, these athletes, they want to make money so they can work, so they can train full-time rather than having a Full-time job. So the youtubers then started going and interviewing them behind the scenes and the athletes were like yeah, come and watch me train, make a video about me. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Because they were trying to increase their public profile so that they could get sponsors and stop working full-time.
Speaker 2:I use a huge opportunity to do that in the equestrian space.
Speaker 2:Absolutely you have kind of the people that are going around with the camera and they're going and they're cleaning the stalls, they're doing all their day-to-day chores and they're really just documenting without a purpose, and to me that's a little bit boring. I mean it just gets old seeing someone go to the barn every single day and talk and it's really gritty Quality. And then they, and then you have the other end of the spectrum where they are quote-unquote YouTube stars. But everything is so glossy and it feels very high produced. They've got tons of sponsors, there's lots of ads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I.
Speaker 2:From the the that that beautiful middle, real but interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and those high-end youtubers, I mean, they do nothing but basically plug their product. It's got nothing to do with the sport, nothing to do with the season, nothing to do with the strategy, it's all just. Hey, I'm using horse footage to get you to pay attention and now that I've got your attention, now I'm like do nothing really of that just like highlight reels.
Speaker 3:In CrossFit. Is it like Equestrian, where you have different disciplines, or is it just like CrossFit is? Because I know that you have different things that you could do in CrossFit, but are you competing against different kinds of people based on what? Is it like boxing, where it's based on weight class? Is it like Equestrian, based on a specific discipline? How do people compete against each other?
Speaker 1:No, it's all one class. It's the same people competing across all events, which obviously makes it a lot easier, right? Because there's a lot less to focus on.
Speaker 2:I have a simple way of describing it it's as if you went to the gym and you know when you go to the gym you try a bunch of different types of exercises.
Speaker 3:Make that a competition, right right, I get that because I've actually been to a CrossFit gym once or twice in my life. But believe it or not, Give us a flex.
Speaker 3:Nala. But I'm just trying to think because we talked about this a lot in one of the last podcasts that we recorded, which was basically the fact that we have so many different kinds of disciplines in Equestrian, so how would we focus on making a few of them really big? If we were to do something like this where, let's say, if there was some documentarian who was following a few athletes, would they only follow show jumpers? Would they only follow dressage riders? Would they only follow 100 jumpers? Who would they?
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, so if I had like a magic wand and unlimited money, I think the way you have to do it right is that you create the high end documentary and that's what CrossFit did which is a high enough quality that gets people to be like I really enjoyed that, I want to learn more. And then, when they want to learn more, you have the YouTubers there to basically feel that thirst and to fill them up with that extra content. And then, when you want to do it, the alternative way, which is that you just have the YouTubers before you have the high end content, then I think in the Equestrian space is actually really really fortunate in a sense. I think the YouTubers will get a lot of traffic and they'll be able to build a steady business off of it, because there are so many Equestrians who are just naturally engaged in their own discipline regardless. But you wouldn't get the mass appeal, you wouldn't get non-Equestrians into the sport, you'd only get the existing Equestrians.
Speaker 2:I think all these different disciplines is actually a pretty big opportunity. So, instead of having to choose just the one which, to your point, could be a conversation I know we talked a lot about this before which is the Netflix you choose the one and then you get the public excited and then you let their curiosity kind of go from there. But I think exactly that with the YouTubers. I think there's so many opportunities that people that are passionate in different disciplines have so much to go with. It's almost like you can break it down by discipline and you can also break it down by region.
Speaker 2:So for example, you could have someone that's interested in becoming a YouTuber and who is really passionate about Equestrian sports and their base, say, in South Florida, who have a ton of events and athletes and just potential content, and you could just focus right there and be able to create a probably a big name for yourself, based only in Miami.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. I mean yeah, we haven't reached that level.
Speaker 2:But then say, if you're really into Drusage and you're based in the Pacific Northwest and I don't really know much about that particular region, but see, there's lots of Drusage competitions and it's just this unknown variable, and you're interested in this and you want to be a YouTuber and you'd want to be able to capture this, you can essentially have your little market up there too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know if this is a semi controversial comment, but there's no excuse in this sport why this doesn't exist. I say that because I've spent weeks and weeks at horse shows now, and there are a lot of people hanging around who don't have jobs, who seem to have the means to be able to do this. It's not like they have full time jobs and so they can't dedicate their full time to doing this YouTube channel because they've got to choose between their livelihood and YouTube, and so the question world is already full of a lot of people in one way or another, who have the time that they are already traveling through the horse shows. There's no reason why they couldn't be becoming creating this feeling, this media void. It's just, it's very low hanging fruit.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's just you first have to see what's possible Pretty much the point of this particular story. We're watching the CrossFit games and as we're watching that, we're seeing what is possible to take and all those learnings and the things that they're doing right that the equestrian world could then apply.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So for something like this, maybe the average person hadn't thought about it, even as a.
Speaker 2:YouTuber, most people didn't even think that that was a possible career path until, say, mr Beast was the one to yeah right, so you didn't even know. And if you were to say it back in, you know, say, 2010 or 13, people would just laugh at you. Now, obviously, that's a very much legitimate career path. But, point being, if you're able to take something like CrossFit, which, I'm sorry, you're just working out, you are just lifting weights and running and cycling and swimming.
Speaker 3:You could say that for equestrians too. You could be like oh, you're just riding a horse, You're just doing what the ancients did.
Speaker 2:Obviously, we were excited.
Speaker 3:You're just trying to hit the ball with the bat. You know like you could say that for a gen.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're, if you're, if you're interested in that and you're, say, a young equestrian and you're super tech savvy and you know how to film and you know how to edit videos, you could totally go and do what this guy did and become a YouTube star. And maybe you don't even want to become a YouTube star, but it wouldn't be a bad way to just incorporate passions. Yeah Right, if you enjoy.
Speaker 2:If you enjoy being there and you want other people to know about it and you ride too, I mean, and, like I said, I don't think you just need to have one to roll them all. I think there's tons of opportunity in every single discipline, in every single region, and even multiple right, which is it's. It's an opportunity.
Speaker 3:So so there's a really good point here, but before I get into that point, I just want to say that you know, for the podcast, for research and guests, for example, I've gone on YouTube and I've looked at equestrian YouTube before and, to be honest with you, while there are some really good equestrian YouTubers, of course, that we know of, in the end it's a very weak market compared to other sports, and when I say weak, I don't necessarily mean that the YouTubers are bad, but I'm saying that you don't have as many as you would expect. The bottle is pretty empty.
Speaker 1:And the content they create is. It's not the right content.
Speaker 3:For example, I have a friend from Bosnia who spent a lot of time in Germany and she told me that she saw a lot in Germany that she would have never thought of had she never been to Germany before.
Speaker 3:Because, you know, germany is like the United States of Europe it's by far the biggest and richest economy in Europe and Bosnia is one of the poorest in Europe. So, as a result, she was exposed to people who had different ideas and different opportunities that she would have never seen had she not left Sarajevo, which is still the biggest, richest city in Bosnia. So the point being is that I think what we were talking about before, where it's maybe some people they just genuinely didn't have the idea because they were never exposed to such ideas before. So this is why I think that this podcast that we're doing is extremely important, because we're bringing relevant examples from other sports that other equestrians could copy, and we're basically, you know they should try, we should start charging people money if some, all of a sudden, after consulting yes, consulting, you know, some 10 commission that the YouTubers that I follow in the CrossFit space, and these are the most popular ones.
Speaker 2:Matt Fraser Tia.
Speaker 1:Tumi no, I'm not interested in there. They're the athletes, the actual YouTubers, oh, sorry. So what they do really, really well, is that they make the viewer understand the story of the sport, the athletes and the season, and a perfect example of that is so Craig Craig, with an A Richie. He does about once every week or two. He releases a YouTube video called the news, and all he does is he basically sums up in 15 minutes what happened in the last two weeks in the CrossFit community. Here is the news. So this athlete did this. This person was injured. This person got a new brand deal and has launched their own sunglasses.
Speaker 1:This person blah blah, blah, blah blah. This event has changed. The games have been delayed. This workout was released. This is what it means blah blah, which basically means that for a viewer, if you are even if you're half interested in the sport, you can sit down, you can watch it and all of a sudden, everything makes sense, which means that when you're scrolling through Instagram or Facebook or whatever, and you see that athlete doing something, you're like, oh, I know why they're doing it.
Speaker 3:It reinforces the news that you saw.
Speaker 1:Well, it reinforces the news, but it also, like you know, humans are storytellers. That's why and we are storytellers, so we get the story. We understand the story. Oh, that person had a baby. I didn't know they had a baby. They've had a baby. That means they're not going to be able to compete, which means they're not going to compete in the games this year, and then I'm going to repeat in the games this year. That means this woman who usually comes second, she's probably going to come first. I'm going to go to her Instagram and see what she's doing, whether she's now really really working a little bit harder, because now she thinks this is her only chance to win the games this year.
Speaker 1:It's true, Once she is back you're done, all of a sudden, all the data points that are otherwise disconnected and therefore you can't really be that interested because you don't understand the story. All of a sudden it all makes sense, like reading the newspaper, and you're like, okay, now I get it, now I'm invested, now I'm excited and now I'm actively looking for more content and more understanding and I want to go watch the sport because I care.
Speaker 3:It's like Tom Brady and his divorce from Giselle, for example. It's like, oh okay, that's why the Buccaneers didn't win the Super Bowl or that's why they didn't. Yes, because it's like he, he's instructed, yeah, he's instructed. Even at one point early in the regular season I think I forgot exactly what happened he threw his helmet or something or he started yelling on the sidelines just like out of rate, Like he basically raged at some point in the beginning regular season, and this only happened maybe a month or two at max after the divorce was like publicized.
Speaker 3:But you see, here's the point of what I'm saying is that I'm not going to necessarily say that he went into a fit of rage because of his divorce from Giselle, but rather it fits that framework. It's very easy for one to think oh, you know, he got into a fit of rage because of his divorce from Giselle. Obviously, this is a pretty nasty example, because we don't want to wish anyone bad on anyone. At the same time, it's a really good example demonstrating this point of knowing basically about anything and everything about these athletes' lives. Now you're really following their stories into their actual profession, what they're doing in the sport.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly I think you can become a lot more empathetic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And then in terms of how does this actually help the sport? We've talked to a lot of equestrian athletes about this is that one of the biggest problems in equestrian sports is there is this huge trough between those that are on the edge of becoming the elite at the top and the elite. Because those who are on the edge they're constantly scrapping to get enough money to fund their ability to continue to participate and they don't get any of the sponsors. And then the top people they get the best sponsors, not only in terms of the best sponsors of wealthy individuals who fund their horse riding costs, but also they attract the best brand sponsors. And because humans aren't the athlete, the horse is the athlete in some sense. They stick around for so long and they get better for longer and longer and longer, and they get more resources, better horses, they get better at their sport, they get better performances, and so that gap between the people who might cross over to the elite and the elite just gets wider and wider and wider.
Speaker 2:So it's like venture capitalists.
Speaker 1:Kind of yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that one's doing well, that one's performing well, and then they all get FOMO and they all throw their dollars at it, but it doesn't really matter as much. It would be a much more impactful to pick the up and coming. Who really could do well with that cash? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so the thing is is that this media ecosystem and the brand deals that come from this media ecosystem and the company these athletes can start from their popularity that comes from this media ecosystem. That is the lowest hanging fruit of how to solve that problem, because that's going to put more money in their pockets. It's going to create a revenue stream that is independent of everything else, which is going to allow them to buy the extra horses, train longer hours, stop training other people's horses most of their life, and then that will create that will, that will bridge that trough and then, ultimately, the sport will be better in the long run.
Speaker 3:Based on everything that we're talking about. Do you think that there should be some centralized effort first, where we have, let's say, a new media company like the athletic, that is typically focused on reporting and covering these equestrian athletes, these disciplines, etc. And then the YouTubers will follow along? Or do you think that it should be vice versa, where it's independent creators first and then, naturally, something like the athletic for equestrian will be made, or do you think both could happen simultaneously? What do you guys think is more needed and is more realistic, considering your experiences in this industry?
Speaker 2:There is tons of opportunity for the YouTuber, like we were talking about, just the average, not the top, not the person that's just going and vlogging and documenting everything that, everything that they do at the barn, but that middle ground, the Craig riches of the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah just go ahead and start that immediately and just start generating that content, because a lot of the current media platforms they do a good job of posting photos and the results in the points but there's nothing behind it. I mean, imagine how much different CrossFit would be is if you only knew or even the bucks right If you didn't know about Tom Brady's divorce, or CrossFit with Tia if you didn't know that you know she just had a baby and that's why she couldn't compete. If it was just quantitative information and there wasn't any color behind it, it'd be very different. And I feel like that's where the current opportunity is with equestrian is just to go out and provide that color.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the answer is simultaneous. Now Two points. One is if you wanted to go and create a high quality production and go sell it to Netflix etc. I think it would be a very easy sale and I think you could do it very, very well. But you would need to go all in on the idea. You couldn't just half ask this. You would need to be like I'm going to create this series, I'm going to find the right people, I'm going to get the permits, because you need to get the USCF to give you approval to be able to film on location, because they have all the streaming rights and there's a lot of stuff you need to get everyone to buy in on, which would be a full time, dedicated effort. But then getting it to sell it to one of these streaming companies would be super easy because all you have to say to them is here's an independent reporter.
Speaker 1:This sector one in three households in America has an equestrian enthusiast in it. You've got a guaranteed audience if we do this. Well, this is going to go, and it's a majorly female audience, and most of the documentaries you make for sport are geared towards a male audience, like the golf show, the Formula One show, the tennis show. It's majoritably about male athletes, so here's your opportunity to balance the scales, and Hollywood loves equality and female empowerment, etc. So I think it'd be a very easy sale.
Speaker 1:But as far as the YouTubers go, you've got a choice. If you aren't that person, if you don't think you have the business experience, acumen or drive to go and do all that hard work and make that a reality, then there's nothing stopping you just literally going out to your discipline in your zone and starting to create the content about the athletes in your area. Because when that does happen that Netflix series, and it inevitably will happen when that does happen people are going to watch it and be like that was fucking sick. What's on YouTube? And you want to already have your YouTube profile up and running to capture that influx of audience. Absolutely good plan.
Speaker 1:You don't want to wait until the Netflix comes out and then try and start.
Speaker 2:And then everyone's going to be trying to start.
Speaker 1:And everyone's going to be trying to start.
Speaker 2:But you'll have agreed in an audience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not only that, but with the Netflix thing, to your point, sam, if there's a YouTube ecosystem already that basically supports the sort of investment that Netflix would be making, because whoever is proposing that documentary to be made and financed by Netflix could basically cite all these YouTube channels and high levels of engagement as evidence showing that there will be a big audience of this documentary on Netflix.
Speaker 2:Or, yeah, that YouTuber could probably make a cameo of some sort or be interviewed on the Netflix. I imagine there's probably already lots of people that are creating content right now, like if I was creating this on Netflix right now, then I can already think of many of these big names that already have these YouTube channels that I would probably go to to talk about. But those are the ones we talked about before that at the top.
Speaker 3:Even outside of sports. You're talking about people who are on these shows like Love Island or Love is Blind or the Bachelor, and they have huge Instagram followings or something like that.
Speaker 2:Too hot to handle.
Speaker 3:Jen's favorite. What's that? Is that Jen Love?
Speaker 1:Jen, it's the trashiest of the trash.
Speaker 2:I love it. It's such a great brain numbing show.
Speaker 1:But you just looked brain numbed when you said that.
Speaker 2:It's relaxing. It's like you know, sometimes you just need to go, take yourself to the spot and just have some R&R. This is R&R for your brain.
Speaker 3:Sure, you know. Anyway, I guess people from that show some of them would take advantage of their publicity from that show and then they would have be really popular on social media and that could give them brand deals and some sorts of income after the show. So the same thing could happen in Equestrian, for sure.
Speaker 1:All right, well, I think that's enough on CrossFit. I think I've bored the listeners enough and we had a bunch of other stories to get to, but we'll get to them next time.
Speaker 2:Do you think that if you were to look at the statistics of the CrossFit gyms opening in the attendance, it's just going to absolutely set up this episode?
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Oh God Listening. We really appreciate your support and you know we just love talking about this stuff. So if you know where to find us, find us at thepeggasysapp, find us on our social medias. We'll have the whole list and everything on our episode description.
Speaker 2:Hey, we could maybe even host a CrossFit clinic on our platform.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for listening to the latest episode of the Pegasus podcast. As you heard from our mid-roll, we are also releasing an Equestrian Event Management software platform. Now it's easier than ever to host, sign up and sponsor for any Equestrian event in the world, thanks to all the features of the Pegasus app. To sign up, go to our homepage at thepegasusapp. That is T-H-E-P-E-G-A-S-U-S dot app. Thank you again and see you next time.