New Book Details CrossFit Founder's Spending Before $200 Million Sale

A book published on Oct. 27, 2026 documents years of unchecked spending at CrossFit under founder Greg Glassman, drawing on company financial records and interviews with former executives, the New York Post reported.

In "The Glass Box," author Calum Marsh writes that Glassman, now 70, built CrossFit from a single Santa Cruz, California gym opened in 2001 into a licensing business that took in an estimated $100 million a year by 2015. Trainers paid a modest annual fee to use the CrossFit name while keeping ownership of their gyms; by 2005 there were more than 50 such gyms in 21 states.

Former chief executive Jeffrey Cain told Marsh the company was covering hundreds of mobile phone lines, including for people who did not work there, at a monthly cost of close to $200,000, as well as roughly 1,000 gym memberships. Glassman, who owned the company outright after buying out co-founder Lauren Jenai in 2012, disputed that his outlays amounted to a scandal, telling Marsh, "But the till was mine."

Glassman resigned as chief executive on June 9, 2020, after a tweet about the killing of George Floyd prompted Reebok to end its sponsorship. He later sold CrossFit to Eric Roza and Berkshire Partners in a deal Marsh puts at $200 million. CrossFit now lists more than 9,000 affiliated gyms, down from over 15,000 in 2018.

This story was first reported by New York Post.