NEO U Invites Competitors to Help Everyone Get Fit
*By Christian Smith*
Peloton and Equinox may be racing each other for fitness domination, but the new studio and streaming service NEO U is taking a more collaborative approach, said one of its co-founders; he's inviting major brands to join his effort.
"If I was to meet with any of those companies that I just said, I would say, 'Hey, we're not competing against each other. I'm just another revenue stream for you,'" Nate Forster, a co-founder, told Cheddar. "Equinox can be on the platform. Peloton can be on the platform. I'm not trying to take the users from them."
NEO U just closed a $4 million round of funding, said Forster, bringing the New York fitness studio's total capital raised to $20 million. The company plans to use that cash to finish and launch its global streaming platform by September. The new service will store content from dozens of trainers and fitness studios; and all of it can be filmed at NEO U's Fifth-Avenue headquarters, Forster said. It's home to three studios ー weight and HIIT training, boxing, and yoga ー with industry-standard camera and lighting equipment, and a live control room.
Trainers and studios that partner with NEO U can make money by charging clients for classes in NEO U's physical space and through a revenue share on streamed content.
NEO U already has over a dozen trainers shooting content in preparation for the launch of its streaming service, including fitness influencer Nicole Mejia. Though she already has more than [1.3 million](https://www.instagram.com/nicole_mejia/?hl=en) Instagram followers, Mejia, the founder of the popular workout program Fit and Thick, sees NEO U's streaming platform as a way to grow her audience.
"I'll be able to kind of access all of my following all over the world really in a way that I'm not currently able to with my physical classes," Mejia told Cheddar.
In its first iteration, NEO U's streaming platform will focus primarily on classes, but Forster has bigger ambitions. He said he wants NEO U to become the "Amazon" of health and wellness.
"When our platform is done, we're going to have talk shows and nutrition shows and e-commerce," he said. "And it's going to be a place where all these different things can live."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-one-gym-plans-to-take-over-the-fitness-streaming-industry).
Brandon Marcello, National College Football Reporter for 247Sports, breaks down each of the two semifinal matchups and explains why the smart money is on the two SEC teams.
Sponsored by BetMGM
Mark Drumheller, betting analyst for Yahoo Sportsbook and The Sharp App, dives into an icy matchup between the Vikings and Packers, as well as other must-watch games including a potential trap in Baltimore.
Sponsored by BetMGM
Trysta Krick, Host of 'BetMGM Tonight' helps clear up a very crowded playoff picture by making selections for Week 17's top games while pointing to to an AFC West matchup for her lock of the week.
Sponsored by BetMGM
Trysta Krick and Mark Drumheller give viewers their winning picks ahead of Week 17 of the NFL season, while Brandon Marcello dissects each of the College Football Playoff semifinal matchups.
Sponsored by BetMGM
The National Women's Soccer League is partnering with Voyager Digital as its first-ever cryptocurrency brokerage in a multi-year deal. Marla Messing, interim CEO of the NWSL, and Steve Ehrlich, CEO of Voyager Digital, joined Cheddar to discuss benefitting the league and educating players and fans as a way of democratizing cryptocurrency. Messing explained that the players themselves will own half the assets as part of how the deal is structured. "My hope is, just in terms of the expectations of crypto over the long term, that I hope a lot of them are able to just let it sit there," she said. "And that one day this will be a nice retirement account for them."
Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini joined Cheddar's Kristen Scholer to discuss plans for the future even as COVID-19 upended Barstool's sponsorship of the Arizona Bowl featuring the Boise State Broncos and the Central Michigan Chippewas due to the spreading omicron variant. "In our case as a company, coronavirus has been a big boom for us," she noted. "We've been able to create a lot of new programming, launch a lot of different personalities, and frankly take share from traditional media, and that's what we've done the entire pandemic." While she admitted to taking a hit on the canceled Bowl game, live events aren't completely off the table for Barstool in 2022. Nardini also talked about potential sports betting expansion following its partnership with Penn National Gaming.