Here and Now

The magazine is still reaching outside the box to remain relevant to readers. Both Agoglia and LeCerf left the magazine in 2004 after the transition to Club Industry's Fitness Business Pro. Gregg Herring, the current publisher, then picked up the transition of the magazine along with Associate Publisher Marty McCallen and Editor Pamela Kufahl.

During the past four years, the editorial focus has continued to be getting the news to the reader accurately and quickly, which is why the magazine has a Web-first orientation today. As the editors gather the news, they develop the stories and post those online, then repackage those articles with more analysis for the print edition. The magazine has also added a blog and commenting to its Web site to allow for more reader interaction. Within the past year, the magazine also launched a digital edition, which offers an interactive version of the magazine that is e-mailed to readers.

The publication has also gone back to interviewing some of the biggest names in the industry, through its Executive Insights column, which has featured people like Carl Liebert, CEO of 24 Hour Fitness; Howard Brodsky, CEO of New York Health & Racquet Club; Jim Gerber, chairman of Western Athletic Clubs; Tim Miller, CEO of Crunch; and many others.

Still, the need for how-to content is prevalent, so three years ago, the magazine launched the Step by Step online columns focusing on retention, marketing, personal training, design, nutrition and sales.

In the future, the editors plan to allow for more interaction with readers online and with the digital edition, but without sacrificing the quality of editorial that the magazine has built and maintained during its 25 years.

Just as the magazine has changed during that time, so has the fitness industry, and the most important thing is for the magazine and trade show staffs to be aware of those changes and adapt to them in every area of the Club Industry franchise so that the magazine, Web site and trade shows maintain their relevance and their importance to the club operators in this industry. By doing so, the magazine looks forward to its next 25 years.

The War Room

The first two Club Industry trade shows in 1986 and 1987 were successes, but before Todd Logan and Marc Onigman could sit back and relax, an unexpected situation occurred. In 1987, the International Racquet and Sportsclub Association (now the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association — IHRSA) announced that it would move its 1988 trade show from spring to fall and the location would be Chicago rather than Dallas, New Orleans or Nashville, where the IHRSA trade shows had been in the past. That put the IHRSA show just three weeks prior to the Club Industry show in Chicago. In addition, IHRSA cut a deal with Nike in which the shoe company would give a free $99 pair of Nikes to everyone who came to the IHRSA show.

Needless to say, Logan and Onigman saw this as a declaration of war by IHRSA.

“Here you are in this little industry, and suddenly, there are these two shows in Chicago,” Logan says. “The suppliers and manufacturers really felt that they had to be at both. We were scared. It was one of those moments that if the IHRSA show was bigger than ours, we'd be out of business.”

However, Logan and Onigman were not ready to go down for the count. They gathered their seven staff members and told them that if IHRSA wanted a war, then they were going to give them a war, Onigman says. The staff turned a conference room into a “war room,” complete with mosquito netting on the ceiling, mess kits and a map of the United States on the wall with pins marking where all the major clubs were. For a year leading up to the show, the staff wore camouflage caps and carried the Swiss Army knives that Logan and Onigman bought them. They called themselves “The Niners” because there were nine of them. They developed a marketing plan for taking on IHRSA.

“We were energized,” Onigman says. “I never experienced anything like that in business.”

As the two trade shows neared, the tension was heavy.

“The whole industry was looking at that moment in time when those two shows were going to happen,” Logan says.

According to both Logan and Onigman, the IHRSA attendance was light, but the Club Industry attendance exploded. Also, they say that IHRSA's booth sales were half those of Club Industry.

“We had people cheering at the end of the show,” Onigman says. “It was the best show anyone had had in the industry.”

IHRSA never held a show in Chicago again.

A Look Back in Time

1984 - Magazine starts as a bi-monthly, published in Boston by Sportscape, which is owned by Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Todd Logan. Associate publisher and executive editor is Marc Onigman.

1986 - Craig Waters becomes editor.

1986 - First Club Industry trade show and conference is held in Chicago at the Chicago Hilton.

1986 - Magazine establishes the Hall of Fame Award.

1987 - Craig Waters leaves the publication for the International Racquet and Sportsclub Association (later called the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association).

1989 - First Club Industry East trade show and conference is held in New York at the Hilton.

1989 - Dan Tobin becomes editorial director.

1990 - First Club Industry West trade show and conference is held in Anaheim, CA.

1990 - Dan Tobin leaves and Margie Markarian moves from her role as Club Industry-plus editor to editorial director.

1990 - The logo and magazine are redesigned.

1990 - Magazine publishes a supplement, Rehabilitation Today, that becomes a bi-monthly magazine.

1992 - Marc Onigman leaves the publication.

1993 - Todd Logan sells the publication to Cardinal Business Media.

1993 - Tom Morgan becomes group publisher, and Terry Moffat becomes editor-in-chief.

1994 - Cardinal Business Media stops publishing Rehabilitation Today.

1995 - First Top 100 clubs list appears in the magazine.

1997 - First Distinguished Businesswoman's Awards are given out.

1997 - Tom Morgan leaves as publisher. Terry Moffat is promoted to publisher. Vince Zinno is hired as editor-in-chief.

1998 - Cardinal Business Media sells Club Industry to Intertec Publishing (now named Penton Media).

1998 - Vince Zinno leaves, and Jerry Janda becomes editor-in-chief.

1999 - Magazine starts its Web site.

2001 - Terry Moffat leaves the magazine, and Barry LeCerf becomes publisher.

2002 - Jerry Janda leaves the magazine, and John Agoglia becomes editor-in-chief.

2002 - The magazine and logo are redesigned.

2003 - Magazine switches from giving the Distinguished Businesswoman's Awards to giving a Lifetime Achievement Award.

2003 - Magazine starts the Best of the Best awards.

2004 - Refocus, redesign and renaming of the magazine from Club Industry to Club Industry's Fitness Business Pro occurs.

2004 - Magazine's e-newsletter is launched.

2004 - Barry LeCerf and John Agoglia leave the magazine. Gregg Herring becomes publisher, and Pamela Kufahl becomes editor.

2005 - Magazine's Web site is redesigned to focus more on news.

2007 - The magazine starts a blog on the Web site.

2008 - Digital edition of the magazine launches, and commenting is offered on the Web site.

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