120,000 members and a 70% use rate. NYSC CEO Bill McMenamy on what it costs when members actually turn up.

Most club economics quietly depend on members who never come. Bill McMenamy built the opposite: a majority of his members check in more than 16 times a month, his use rate is above 70%, and he is candid that it costs him more in repairs, maintenance and capital than a half-empty gym would. He took over New York Sports Club in 2022, straight out of Chapter 11, with a fifty-year-old name and, in his words, no website, no app, no CRM and no equipment worth having. He came from Gap and from pharma, not from fitness. Today he runs 32 clubs across four cities, ten public partnerships, the boutique brand Fhitting Room, and 120,000 members.

In this conversation:

• Why a full gym is more expensive to run than an empty one, and why he wants it anyway
• What the club everyone told him not to invest in now returns
• Why he refuses to measure ten partnerships on ROI, and what he looks at instead
• What a human coach is for once software writes the training plan
• Why he is about to stop charging members for something they pay for today

This season of Tomorrow Health is brought to you by Zing Coach.

Chapters:

00:00 Cold open

00:16 Intro

01:16 Fitness is immature in its use of data

02:51 Three kinds of member, one building

04:26 The club nobody wanted

05:27 Rebuilding a brand that had nothing left

06:55 From three visits a month to sixteen

07:40 Why he refuses to measure partnerships on ROI

08:29 Selling units is not selling solutions

09:27 What a coach is for once software writes the plan

12:48 Why he is about to stop charging for the app

13:56 Which health markers are worth optimising

14:40 Insurance will write the exercise prescription

15:41 Subscription rules are about to change the model

16:48 Why a boutique does not work inside a big box

18:41 Invest in your people this quarter

Links:

• Bill McMenamy on LinkedIn
• New York Sports Club
• Natalia Karbasova on LinkedIn
• Tomorrow Health
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