Sports Innovation Lab CEO Josh Walker made the case that consumer spending data can transform the way fitness and wellness brands approach marketing and advertising
Do you know your customer? It’s a straightforward question with profound implications for fitness and wellness brands.
At the 2025 ATN CEO Summit in New York City, Sports Innovation Lab co-founder and CEO Josh Walker shared a bold message for fitness industry executives: they probably don’t, or at least not as well as they should.
“I know more about your customers than you do,” Walker said during an eye-opening presentation “I do because my team focuses on this every day of the week. For the last seven years, we’ve been studying the consumer and what they spend their money on.”
An insights, analytics and data company that works with the biggest brands in sports, media and entertainment, Sports Innovation Lab tracks consumer spending patterns based on credit card data, with a database of over 200,000 customers who’ve spent over $220 million and made over 2.6 million purchases.
“It may not be exhaustive, but it absolutely is indicative of a large portion of the market,” Walker said.
The Case for Customer Spending Data
Walker says customer spending data is critical information for fitness and wellness brands looking to implement an effective marketing strategy in 2025.
“This is information that this industry needs, and it’s information that this industry wants,” he said. “If you’re doing any direct-to-consumer marketing today, you’re probably doing it in a way that predicts what a customer is doing based on what they search for and what they click on.”
“That’s old school,” he added. “You want to do it on what they buy.”
Walker also noted that Sports Innovation Lab’s data can help brands unearth insights into their consumers, like determining whether or not they’ve switched to a competitor after canceling their subscription.
“They stopped paying for your wearable? Did they start paying for another one, or did they just stop wearing the wearable?” he said. “Those are the things that our data can show that’s really, really compelling.”
A Deep Dive Into Boutique Fitness Consumers
Last year, Sports Innovation Lab partnered with Athletech News to create specialized data and insights for the fitness industry. Together, ATN and SIL will develop in-depth consumer profiles of fitness and health enthusiasts. Known as “fitness communities,” these profiles span four categories: Class Curators, Luxury Lifters, Gym Goers and Deal-Driven Fitness Fans.
During his presentation, Walker shared some insights into the spending patterns of Class Curators, a group that tends to frequent boutique fitness brands like Orangetheory Fitness, Barry’s, F45 Training and others.
“We know because they’re a class curator that they’re nine times more likely to wear (a fitness wearable)– a Whoop, an Oura, a Garmin, a Polar strap, whatever it is,” Walker noted. “We also know that they’re seven times more likely to go skiing .. and that they’re six times more likely to attend events” like concerts and sports games.
Sports Innovation Lab’s customer spending data can also help brands understand membership trends over time. Walker shared data showing that consumers are spending around $2 million more per quarter on Club Pilates than they were a year and a half ago, growth that far outpaces industry averages for boutique fitness brands over the same period.
Walker wanted to drive home one point in particular for CEOs and founders in the audience: they have access to more data than they might think.
“Your consumer is somebody we can help you identify, and this data is accessible to (the industry),’ he said. “I’m not here to sell to you. I’m here to let you know that it’s available.”
Be on the lookout for more information on the ATN Innovation Summit, a can’t-miss two-day event to be held on June 17th and 18th in New York City featuring the biggest names, brands, and ideas across fitness, health, and wellness.
