CR Fitness runs 98 Crunch gyms. This month it signed a deal to open 25 Yoga Joint studios, 24 in Florida and one in Dallas. It's the first time the company has bought into anything other than budget gyms.
Yoga Joint is a Florida brand that teaches classes in rooms heated with infrared panels. It runs two formats: Flow, a 60-minute vinyasa yoga class, and FIIT, a 45-minute strength and cardio class with weights and bands.
So why would a budget gym operator want a heated boutique room? Because it has already been testing one inside its own gyms.
Who is CR Fitness?
It's the largest Crunch franchisee, and it has money to spend. Sixth Street made a $350 million investment in it in October 2025, to help fund more than 100 new clubs over five years. It expects to reach 110 Crunch gyms by the end of this year, according to FranchiseWire.
In March 2025, the company said it had built a hot yoga studio at its Crunch Channelside club and added heated Barre Pilates classes, then took the hot studio to other clubs. The heated classes came first. The boutique brand came second.
Yoga Joint is much smaller. It has 16 company-owned studios and 4 franchised ones. One deal from one Crunch operator could more than double its size.
Why are budget gyms moving into boutique fitness?
Because boutique classes are where members pay extra, and a big franchisee already has the money, the people who find sites and the back office. What it lacks is a premium product. CEO Tony Scrimale listed what he looked for: "proven unit economics, a concept that stands apart in its category, and an operating model built to scale the way we scale." Yoga Joint says its studios averaged $1.84 million in sales in 2024. That's a lot of revenue for one heated room.
Notice the order. CR Fitness tried heated classes inside Crunch, watched members use them, and is now buying a brand that sells the same experience on its own, at boutique prices. That's a budget gym using its own members as a test market.
| Step | What CR Fitness did | When |
|---|---|---|
| Test | Built a hot studio at Crunch Channelside and added heated Barre Pilates | By March 2025 |
| Roll out | Took the hot studio model to more Crunch clubs | 2025 |
| Buy in | Signed for 25 Yoga Joint studios in Florida and Dallas | September 2026 |
It's the same squeeze Singapore's big chains are feeling, where boutique studios have been taking members from big-box gyms. In the US, the big-box operators have decided to buy in rather than wait. Crunch itself has put money into Pilates, and Crunch Select bundles five boutique studios into one membership.
What this means if you run a studio
The next boutique studio that opens near you may not be run by a first-time owner. It may be run by a company with a hundred gyms, a finance team and unit economics (what one location earns after its own costs) it has already worked out across dozens of sites. That operator can afford to wait a year for a studio to fill.
The next studio that opens across the street might be run by the budget gym down the road.
The Run RateThat's the threat. There's also a gap. A company running 98 budget gyms is good at volume. It's less proven at what boutique members pay for: someone who knows their name, their old injury and the class they never miss. Scrimale says the way Yoga Joint trains its instructors gives him "conviction we can deliver that same experience in every studio." That's the bet, and it's the hardest part to copy.
So here's what to do. Know what each class earns, not just what the month earns. Make your coaches the reason people stay, because a franchise can copy the room much faster than the relationship. And if you run hot yoga or Pilates in Florida or Dallas, keep an eye on new leases over the next year. Yoga studios are already cutting classes to add Pilates, so your market is getting crowded from both ends.
The budget gyms have the money. You still know your members by name.