Muscle Talk

“(GRID is the) world’s first professional spectator sport with co-ed teams competing in human performance races.” – Tony Budding, first CEO of the National Pro Grid League, and former director of CrossFit Media/original member of CrossFit Headquarters

What makes GRID different?

What is a “human performance race”? It’s not quite Cirque du Soleil. It’s not quite Olympic lifting. It’s not quite gymnastics. It’s a little like CrossFit, but not quite. It’s called “GRID,” and it’s an entirely different entity unto itself. The league is called National Pro Grid League, originally the National Pro Fitness League, and it’s an amalgam of calisthenics, gymnastics, Olympic lifts, and lifts you’ve never heard of (“deck to backflip,” anyone?). Since its inception two years ago, GRID has faced a plethora of criticism and backlash from the fitness industry and those who are die-hard functional fitness enthusiasts.

People are quick to confuse and compare GRID with CrossFit. However, if you watch either sport, you can see certain fundamental differences. First of all, CrossFit isn’t designed for the “specialist.” That is to say, CrossFit builds athletes to be really good at everything—not necessarily fantastic at everything or perfect at one thing, but really good at everything. CrossFitters don’t tend to specialize in any one modality (like gymnastics or Olympic lifting) because it might inevitably take away from a different skill or proficiency. In CrossFit, the name of the game is “jack of all trades, master of none.”

GRID, in direct contrast, is a group of athletes who specialize. Every team has bodyweight/gymnastics specialists, strength specialists, and “utility players” (those athletes who are pretty good at everything, a.k.a. CrossFitters). In GRID, because some of the movements are so complicated and unique to the sport (chest-to-bar, toes-to-bar, muscle-up), you need athletes you’re going to be able to train specifically for those types of movements. That is to say, GRID allows you the flexibility to build a team with a female gymnast who can do 15 unbroken muscle-ups, but can’t snatch more than 115 pounds, and an Olympic lifter who can’t climb a 20-foot rope, but can snatch 300 pounds.

Who makes up GRID?

Speaking up people who can snatch 300 pounds, The GRID league has players such as Willis McGahee (a former NFL player), Dimitry Klokov (an Olympic weightlifting legend), Ryan Elrod (a Cirque du Soleil performer), and countless NCAA D1 athletes who come from sports backgrounds such as basketball, football, and baseball. It could be argued that in the grand scheme of the athletic world, most of these names are bigger than the “CrossFit names” in general.

Each team has seven men and seven women (with an additional two athletes on the inactive roster), and one man and one woman must be at least 40 years old. NPGL works similarly to other professional sports teams in that there’s a draft and a combine before the season starts, where teams can select competitors. Also similar to a pro league, NPGL teams can pick up free agents throughout the season. The athletes are salaried professionals, and their incomes range from $1,500 to $20,000 per athlete. According to the NPGL website, “The minimum compensation for each “dressed” athlete is $2,500 per match. On top of the 14 active athletes, each team will have two men and two women on its reserve list. Each of these athletes will be formally signed and receive payment of at least $100 per year, even if they never get called up.”

The format of each match is essentially the same:
- Matches are 2 hours long
- There are 11 races over the course of the match
- 8 athletes (4 men and 4 women) from each team compete, while in-match substitutions are permitted.
- Matches will take place on the NPGL court (a.k.a. “the GRID”)
- There are 5 different match formats – Still 11 races per match, but the exercises/events within each race differ depending on the format.

GRID from a different point of view
Interview with the owner of the Miami Surge

Mather Wiswall is a competitive CrossFitter, based out of Philadelphia, PA. He and his sister Rubi wanted to get in on the ground floor of the NPGL once they heard that a league was being developed. In 2014, when the league was actually starting to mature and expand, although the Wiswalls ended up losing their initial bid for a team in Philly, they found partner investors for the Miami Surge team.

Q. How do you, personally, go from being a CrossFit athlete and fan, to wanting to buy/own your own team in Philly?

A. My sister and I come from an event and marketing background. We’re also huge CrossFit fans. So it was the perfect storm of utilizing what our strengths and skill sets were, as well as our interests. We also worked in Philadelphia with a league of CrossFit gyms, competing against one another. So we were already pretty involved with this direction, and we knew the potential of the idea of GRID. When we heard about it, it was a no-brainer move, and we did whatever the league needed us to do as far as what location would be best. We like the market and the people in Miami, so it was a great place to start a team.

Q. Anyone familiar with the sport of functional fitness knows Talayna Fortunado, and she was one of the original athletes on the Miami Surge. The NPGL also has names like 2013 CrossFit Games runner-up Lindsay Valenzuela, two-time CrossFit Games winners Annie Thorisdottir and Noah Ohlsen, who placed eighth in 2014 and 2015. How do teams end up with these all-stars?

A. Talayna was pretty excited about the opportunity from the get-go. I think ultimately the competitive CrossFit athletes are looking for any way to compete, especially if it’s profitable for them. So if you have a guaranteed income and another opportunity to compete, then it’s a pretty easy decision to compete. Also for them it’s the idea of a different format and working on a team, with men and women—it’s a different application for their talents and skills. It’s an opportunity to develop, learn, and try something new. As long as you have the time and are competitive, then there’s no reason not to compete! It’s another avenue to gain exposure for your brand, as well.

Q. Why doesn’t CrossFit want anything to do with GRID, and vice versa?

A. It’s not that we don’t want anything to do with CrossFit. I think that many athletes involved with GRID train CrossFit; we appreciate what it is and the methodology behind it. What we are is different than CrossFit. We’re not specifically one type of training; we’re an entertainment entity and a sport. That’s what we were created for, so our target audience and our goals and objectives are a lot different than CrossFit. It’s just a natural separation in direction overall.

Q. Let’s talk money for a minute. The NPGL is billed as a professional sports league; do the salaries of the players and the caps for owners reflect that title?

A. For the most part, it’s a good supplement to whatever their existing job is. We’re a brand new league, just starting up, building our fan base, so of course we’d love to be the full-time option for our athletes, but there’s still some growing to do to get to that point. I think that anybody that wants to compete for a living in functional fitness wants to take a few different avenues and opportunities to build the best income that they can. We’re a good part of that, but I don’t think we can be the only part just yet.

Q. How does GRID make money?

A. There are a lot of different ways in the pipeline. Right now, we’re providing an entertainment service, so ticket sales, sponsorships, and other services like gridleague.com are our main sources of revenue. But we’re also providing content for media distribution, so ultimately, that’s our intended main stream of revenue in the future.

Q. How do the combines and the draft work? Is it comparable to the NHL or NFL?

A. It’s not as big, obviously, but it definitely adds another dimension to the fun and drama of the league. For the people with the dream and aspiration of becoming an NPGL athlete, the process is pretty interesting. The main difference right now between the NFL and GRID combines/drafts is that there’s no collegiate level to judge or recruit talent, so we have to utilize our own methods; that’s where the GRID Score comes in to play, the GRID Invitational, then the Pro Day and combine process. That’s when you get to meet athletes, and have them perform in the exact same GRID races.

Q. Women have a pretty obvious and important role in GRID. Why does the league emphasize that? Why isn’t there a WNPGL for them?

A. Honestly, I think that’s the most compelling aspect of the sport from a structure perspective. We’ve had all of these traditional sports that have been gender-specific, and there’s been a perception of separation of physical capability. That’s natural for people to think. But we believe that’s an old-school way of thinking, and in the future, there will be more sports where men and women work together. The reality is that the separation of gender is like any other kind of bias. Men and women work together, live together, we’re just always together. We believe this will revolutionize the way sports are played.

Ultimately, not only does it make sense from a new-age thinking point of view, but the dynamics that come out of men and women working together on teams, training together, and living together just yields a lot of interesting stories that don’t exist within traditional single-gender sports. That’s what naturally happens when you put the two genders together; how women react to things, how they react to men, how they perceive things is completely different, so there’s a lot of interesting content there. Then of course you have the natural attraction element; we’ve seen cross-team and inner-team couples pop up; that’s also dramatic and fun on its own. I really think it just makes sense and breaks some incredible boundaries. It’ll significantly contribute to how big the sport is going to be.

Q. Tony Budding, who originally developed GRID, stepped down as CEO at the beginning of the year. Then in August, Jim Keane, who took over from Tony, stepped down. What happened, and what’s next in terms of leadership?

A.  I think that, as with any start-up, there are growing pains and learning what everybody’s goals and objectives are within an organization. Sometimes figuring out who is optimal in what role takes some learning and adjustment.  It’s a tough and extremely demanding job to have. The leadership now is comprised of majority owners, which I think is a good thing. I feel confident with that direction.

Q. Where do you personally see the future of GRID going? Will it be like the XFL, which had a short, slightly memorable run as a pro sports league, or do you think it will be like the NFL of functional fitness?

A. While the quality of the product is amazing, building and promoting a brand new pro sport league is incredibly difficult as we have seen with the MLS and UFC in recent years. We'll continue to plan seasons that cater to our fan base and athletes as best we possibly can within the capability of our recourses and with long term success in mind. The number of teams we have now provided a good, competitive experience to our fan base, so we’re not looking to expand right now. But if the league feels it would be better for the sport if we did, then we would get more.

As far as the development of the sport itself, Its my personal hope that we continue to evolve even more toward a "specialist sport" as we learn the aspects of the sport that people respond to the most. It allows for more extreme displays of physical talent as well as makes teammates depend on one another even more. It also heightens the importance of team makeup and the possible combinations of athlete types that could equal success.