Gyms always driven by profit?

[YeahBee]

Gyms always driven by profit? Got the idea from reading how much it costs to compete for you BJJ guys in the US.

Are there gyms out there who aren't driven by profit? Like here in Sweden I pay a membership fee (about 50-60$ for a year) and all coaches work voluntary, martial arts just isn't a business in Sweden and you can't have a career as a MA teacher (I guess there are some MMA gyms in the bigger cities)

And to hear the insane amount you pay to compete blows my mind, don't your clubs kinda take turns organizing tourney?

 

[Kimuralex]

as i stated in another thread, rent for a one bedroom apartment here is close to a thousand bucks...even more in some other parts of nyc. imagine how much a training center would cost. then i am sure people need to buy insurance and such and thats even more money...most martial arts teachers dont have any other job so they also need to live..add that all up and its going to be probobly over 100 dollers a month per student. Renzos over here is 180 or 190 but it is in the middle of the city where rent is very expensive, and ofcourse since it has his name and countless other blackbelts training there it will be a hefty cost.

 

[sproggdawg]

Gyms always driven by profit? Got the idea from reading how much it costs to compete for you BJJ guys in the US.

Are there gyms out there who aren't driven by profit? Like here in Sweden I pay a membership fee (about 50-60$ for a year) and all coaches work voluntary, martial arts just isn't a business in Sweden and you can't have a career as a MA teacher (I guess there are some MMA gyms in the bigger cities)

And to hear the insane amount you pay to compete blows my mind, don't your clubs kinda take turns organizing tourney?

Mine definitely isnt. My instructor is seriously the most honest and respectful guy ive ever met. Id never train anywhere else because of it(at least not when Im in town). I pay $99 a month for BJJ. It actually started out a couple years ago that I was doing CSW and it cost the same amount. I told him I was interested in BJJ and he let me pick that up for FREE. Now Ive stopped CSW and train exclusively in BJJ. I had to miss a couple of months(more like 4) a while back and instead of charging me for the missed months and the classes when I resumed, He credited those 4 months to me. I ended doing BJJ for 4 months for free. Alot of places are very financially driven. I definitely got lucky.

 

[mepersoner]

There's a judo place around here that charges something like 35$ a month plus 60$ a year. I beileve they take donations to help keep the place open.

 

[judokapinoy]

when i cross trained into bjj to help my ne waza i was baffled about the prices. it was crazy. bjj has a crucial ground game. but to learn, you better have the $$ becuase thats what they want.

 

[qiksilverman]

as i stated in another thread, rent for a one bedroom apartment here is close to a thousand bucks...even more in some other parts of nyc. imagine how much a training center would cost. then i am sure people need to buy insurance and such and thats even more money...most martial arts teachers dont have any other job so they also need to live..add that all up and its going to be probobly over 100 dollers a month per student. Renzos over here is 180 or 190 but it is in the middle of the city where rent is very expensive, and ofcourse since it has his name and countless other blackbelts training there it will be a hefty cost.

Renzos is only 180-190 a month in NYC i thought it was way more if it is only that I may be seeing you in September

 

[amphibious]

A lot of gyms are motivated by profit... a lot aren't. Rent has a lot to do with rates...

When I was a kid, boxing in Seattle I trained at three different gyms, one was the Bellevue Boys & Girls Club boxing program where all the coaches were volunteers and it cost $20 a month (this was in mid to late 80s). I also trained at the Hillman City Gym which was a huge old school gym in the middle of the ghetto... my dad never paid anything for me to train there, but I only went on weekends (and I was like 10 years old). The last five years of my amateur boxing career were spent at the Everett Community Center gym... and it was $12 for the year. The two coaches were both volunteers... both gyms, Bellevue and Everett, had a big van and drove all the boxers to tournaments all over Washington and Oregon and we never paid a penny for any entrance fee or gas money.

 

[Kimuralex]

Renzos is only 180-190 a month in NYC i thought it was way more if it is only that I may be seeing you in September

I dont train there, i train under a renzo blackbelt. Someone that goes there told me that if you want to take thier kickboxing its like 250 or something but otherwise he pays 180...but some guys that recently checked the place out said it was 189 a month but since there are so many new people joining cuz of this new mma phase that they only allow you to come 3x a week when your a white belt. I dont know too much about this cuz i dont go to renzos, many people here do

 

[elcapitan]

interesting thread. .

last summer i paid the same amount $$$ for 3 months of training in sweden as i pay for 1 month here. . .and my gym in cali is considered cheap. . .

the main dif. is rent and the low cost of insurance for sure!!

but one have to consider the fact that the level of instruction and competition is alot higher in the U.S.(at least for BJJ and MMA)

but this will change in a near future. . .

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

Gyms always driven by profit? Got the idea from reading how much it costs to compete for you BJJ guys in the US.

Are there gyms out there who aren't driven by profit? Like here in Sweden I pay a membership fee (about 50-60$ for a year) and all coaches work voluntary, martial arts just isn't a business in Sweden and you can't have a career as a MA teacher (I guess there are some MMA gyms in the bigger cities)

And to hear the insane amount you pay to compete blows my mind, don't your clubs kinda take turns organizing tourney?

Rent and overhead is expensive in the US. Pretty much every club runs on profit. The only one Ive been to that didnt was a generic MMA place that made money form shows and local sponsors and even they charged something for people to train there.

 

[PhxJudoJujitsu]

My gym isnt, but only becuase the guys who run it, also have day jobs. That being said, they atleast ensure they break even.

 

[ScottAM]

my gym is a non profit.
www.southhillsjudo.org
they help a lot of disadvantaged kids and I think they work with the public school district. Regular members pay money, but its rather affordable (60$ a month). My first martial arts school was almost completely free, you had to pay 10$ a year to be insurded. It was tkd and I went there as a kid. It was started by a priest who did missionary work in korea.
www.sejongtkd.org
most gyms are for profit. Space, mats, equipment, ect are expensive.

 

[Balto]

Tournaments I believe are run for profit.

However, gyms don't run for serious profit at all. If you own a BJJ school, and you are trying to make serious money off of it, you are a retard. That is all.

I'll do a real fast pro forma of a hypothetical BJJ school in Pittsburgh to show this.

Let's say the average rate around here is $70/month (cost of living is low).

A highly successful BJJ school might have 50 paying students (this is actually pretty generous).

So the monthly revenue is $3500. Sounds like a lot, right?

You have to subtract out costs. Rent for a place big enough to train is probably going to be $500/month around here even in a cheaper area.

There are utility costs. Think around the bill of a large house per month. So $300/month there.

You have to pay insurance. I'll say it's close to car insurance rates and costs $100/month.

And don't forget the association fee. That's probably $200/month right there.

So after costs, your NOI is like $2400/month That's $28,800/year.

But you don't get to keep that. A good school is a corporation (running it as a sole proprietorship is retarded because if someone would die or something else catastrophic, you would be personally liable with all of your assets like your house, car, etc). You could even get hit with corporate tax, but I'll just assume for this it's a pass through entity (pay a lawyer to set this up) and the corporation pays no tax on that $28.800/year.

So now you get $28.800/year of income that you have to pay taxes on. I'll assume a 25% tax bracket since you probably need another job to live on such a meager income. So you really only keep $21,600.

Sounds like a lot of money, but keep in mind you taught BJJ all year. To charge $70/month, you better be offering at least 4 classes per week with 50 students total. At 2 hours per class, that's around 400 hours a year. Also, don't underestimate the time that it takes to pay the bills, keep all the records, talk to students, manage the bills, etc. That's probably another 200 hours a year.

So you make $21,600 for 600 hours of work. That comes out to $36/hour. That's not horrible, but is comparable to being a plumber or electrician or mechanic or something.

So in other words, being skilled in BJJ compensates you about as much as any other trade.

It's not a super lucrative business. You make just about as much money as a plumber, and wouldn't it sound crazy to tell people that you were going to hit it rich by becoming a regular hourly wage plumber?

 

[sakufan]

I you were a nobody yes. The top jiujitsu guys make a decent living literally by fighting their way to fame and fortune.

 

[guardpasser]

I teach for free, but I am only a blue belt