[Editor’s Note: This video interview with Sebastian Schoepe, president and CEO of RSG Group North America, took place on Sept. 21, 2022. Club Industry planned to publish the video on Oct. 24, but on Oct. 21, RSG Group founder Rainer Schaller was killed in a plane crash that also took the lives of his partner, Christine Schikorsky, and their children Aaron and Finja, along with an RSG Group colleague and the pilot of the plane. Out of respect for the six people who perished, their families and the RSG Group family, Club Industry held off on publishing the video, posting it now with the blessing of the RSG Group. Club Industry will publish a legacy story on Rainer Schaller soon.]
When German company RSG Group bought American brand Gold’s Gym out of bankruptcy in July 2020, it was an opportunity for Rainer Schaller, who founded RSG Group in 1997 and was full owner of the company, to expand RSG’s presence in the United States and to help an iconic brand known worldwide regain its footing and its legacy.
RSG Group encompasses 20 brands, most of them throughout Europe, including McFIT, the John Reed family of brands, Holmes Place Spain and High5.
Schaller had a goal of coming to the United States with his brands, according to Sebastian Schoepe, president and CEO of RSG Group North America. In fact, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, RSG Group had quietly entered the U.S. market with a John Reed club in Los Angeles (its opening was delayed from 2020 to March 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions) and with groundbreaking on its luxury Heimat brand in Los Angeles, which opened in June 2022.
But when the pandemic forced Gold’s Gym to file for Chapter 11 in May 2020 and the company came up for auction as part of the restructuring, Schaller couldn’t pass on the opportunity to be part of its turnaround. His winning bid of $100 million tied the legacy of Schaller and RSG Group with the legacy of Gold’s Gym. It also moved RSG Group from a European powerhouse to a global powerhouse with a presence on six continents—and it marked RSG Group’s first foray into franchising.
So what do you do with an iconic brand once you become keeper of its legacy? For RSG Group, you take about six months to get to know the brand and its operations internally, and then you move it forward by focusing on its beginnings, according to Schoepe.
“I don't think Gold's Gym is just any other fitness brand,” Schoepe said as part of a video interview in September that can be viewed in full above. “I think it's the most iconic fitness brand in the world. I may be a little biased now, but we thought so from day one.”
RSG Group is run by fitness enthusiasts who understood what Gold’s Gym means to the fitness industry.
“So as soon as we heard that Gold's Gym was unfortunately struggling, we wanted to jump in and help save the brand, if you will,” he said. “And we probably wouldn't have done it for many other brands, but Gold's Gym is just so iconic. … We wanted to save it and recalibrate the brand and bring it back to its glory days.”
Of the changes that RSG Group implemented, Schoepe pointed to two that were the most significant: focusing on the legacy and the history of the brand in terms of club interior design and products, and making operational changes that put the customers in charge of their purchases.
Gold’s Gym was founded in 1965 in Venice, California, by Joe Gold with a focus on bodybuilding. Over time, that focus had faded, as far as RSG Group was concerned.
“We recalibrated the brand,” Schoepe said. “We do have a bodybuilder in the logo; it is quite obvious what we do.”
With that in mind, Gold’s Gym now targets serious lifters and people who are serious about training. That doesn’t mean just bodybuilders, Schoepe said. It includes anyone serious about training for any reason—to better define their body, to lose weight, to gain strength or, yes, to compete in bodybuilding contests.
“Before, we had a good product, and we tried to please everybody,” he said. “I don't think you can create something that is for everyone.”
To capitalize on the strength-training legacy of Gold’s Gym and to emphasize the history of the brand, the new Gold’s Gym locations contain some design elements from the original Venice location, such as the mint wall and the outdoor workout space. Each new location also has a legacy wall featuring black and white photos of people working out at the original location along with a history wall that details Joe Gold’s contributions to building the brand and the industry.
On the operational side, RSG Group put customers in charge by getting rid of sales roles and allowing people to sign up using a tablet at the entrance to their clubs.
“We don't sell memberships; people buy memberships,” Schoepe said.
This approach is one that Schaller implemented with his first club and has used at most of his clubs since then.
RSG Group also simplified the memberships to one or two options.
“We're not pushing you into a contract because we believe that if you push a potential member into a contract, you will have a problem with that member three to six months down the line because they’re not going to be happy there, and they will let everybody know at the club and outside the club,” Schoepe said.
Change can be difficult for people who have been part of an American institution like Gold’s Gym for many years. Some of the franchisees have been with the brand for 30 to 40 years or more, and they have seen a variety of owners.
“When we had our very first meeting with all of our company staff when we took over, I asked them for two things: give us a chance and be patient with us,” Schoepe said.
The RSG Group leadership team met with franchisees at the annual conference in 2021, and this fall, after another year under their belt and a plan for change, they again attended the annual conference, communicating to franchisees the return to the brand’s legacy, the targeted membership demographic, the change in the sales process, and a focus on friendliness and cleanliness in clubs. And they shared what they said was proof of the success of these changes at the new company-owned location in Texas, which exceeded membership goals and where the changes seem to be resonating with the new targeted demographics.
“Having the support of the franchisees is very important to us,” Schoepe said. “I think they've realized after meeting us at the first convention and our leadership conference, ‘OK, these are fitness guys. These [people] are like us.’ Because most of our franchise owners are fitness people. They love their gym.”
That shared love of the gym, of fitness and of the Gold’s Gym legacy is something Schoepe and the team that now leads RSG Group after the Oct. 21 death of Schaller in a plane crash is counting on to move the brand forward. The team will do so now without Schaller but with a continued focus on the legacy of Gold’s Gym and that of Schaller now, too.
To hear more from Schoepe about expansion plans for its luxury brand Heimat, whether the RSG Group will bring more of its brands to the States, whether it will begin franchising some of its other brands, and more, view the full video above.