Just ahead of attending IHRSA 2024, which was held March 6-8 in Los Angeles, the association announced a rebrand. What had been known as the International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association since 1981 would now be called the Health & Fitness Association. The move was part of an overall strategy to keep up with an industry that has experienced rapid change in recent years. While on the show floor, Athletic Business president Shawn Gahagan remarked that he was amazed at how many tech companies were represented in the expo compared to just 10 years ago, when there were only a handful.
It got me thinking about how much change I’ve seen across the athletics, fitness and recreation industries since I was hired at AB back in 2017. Perhaps the greatest and most obvious agent of upheaval was the pandemic, which took a terrible toll on all of our readers and temporarily shut down most college rec centers, commercial fitness gyms and athletics stadiums. That global crisis eventually led to a breakdown of the supply chain, which impacted nearly every equipment manufacturer, and saw people buying dumbbells on eBay at extraordinarily inflated prices. But change over the past seven years has not been limited to the impacts of COVID-19.
In my first years here at AB, cardio equipment manufacturers were excited to talk about how their new consoles would allow users to sign into their Netflix accounts. Today, they’re exploring how their machines might pair with cutting-edge virtual reality devices. Referee and umpire shortages — spurred by the pandemic and worsened by the deterioration of coach, player and parent behavior — have become an existential crisis for youth sports. College athletes are now being paid! The NCAA, as well as the NFHS, have sounded the alarm on the student-athlete mental health crisis, and architectural firms are now designing campus rec and athletic facilities with wellbeing as a topmost concern.
Calvin from the popular comic Calvin and Hobbes once mused, “Know what’s weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon… everything’s different.” His observation resonates with my experience in the industry. The IHRSA, er, Health & Fitness trade show I witnessed this year differed slightly from my first encounter back in 2017, yet beneath it all, there pulsed a vibrant undercurrent of forward momentum. While the changes during my time at AB have posed challenges, they’ve also ignited fresh perspectives and innovative solutions to address our readers’ most pressing issues.
