The Class Nobody Cancels

You are still the analyst at Marlowe Athletic, the 84-club fitness chain from the Practice challenge. 

Six months ago Marlowe launched Anvil, a 45-minute strength format, at 22 of its 84 clubs. Leadership wants to roll it out everywhere before January. The COO has asked you for the number: how many clubs, and by when. 

Here is what the last six months look like. 

	Anvil clubs (22)	Non-Anvil clubs (62)
Members at launch (February)	84,200	227,700
Members now (August)	88,900	221,400
6-month member retention	79%	71%
Average monthly visits per member	6.8	5.9
Peak-tier ($79) share of members, now	31%	18%
Peak-tier share of members, January (pre-launch)	29%	18%
Anvil class fill rate	91%	—
Personal-training attach rate	14%	9%
Staff cost per club per month	$61,400	$52,800

Three additional facts: 

• The original 22 clubs were selected by regional operations as “the clubs most ready” — the newest, largest, highest-tier-mix clubs, all in metro markets. 
• Six of the 22 were added later, in April, purely as capacity overflow from neighbouring clubs — they were not selected on readiness. Those six show: 6-month retention 73%, Anvil fill rate 68%, personal-training attach 10%. 
• Rollout economics: $18,000 one-time per club (equipment and floor conversion) plus roughly $7,900 per club per month in incremental staff. 

Constraints to consider 

• No experiment was run and you cannot run one. The decision is due in three weeks; there is no holdout and no time to build one. 
• Floor conversion requires at least 900 square feet of contiguous free floor. 24 of the 62 remaining clubs do not have it, and landlord approvals for a reconfiguration take four months or more. 
• Finance will fund a maximum of $600,000 of one-time capital this fiscal year. Nothing above that line gets approved, whatever the return looks like. 
• The regional operations team that chose the original 22 clubs will implement whatever you recommend, and their bonus is tied to Anvil adoption. 
• You must give a number and a date. “It depends on further analysis” is not an answer, and neither is “roll out to all clubs eventually.” 

There is one more input. The COO’s chief of staff ran the table through an AI assistant and got this summary back. He is planning to paste it into the board pre-read. 

“Anvil clubs grew membership 5.6% over six months while non-Anvil clubs declined 2.8% — an 8.4-point swing attributable to the Anvil format. Anvil clubs also show 8 points higher retention, 15% more visits per member, and a personal-training attach rate 55% higher than non-Anvil clubs. While Anvil clubs carry $8,600 more in monthly staff cost, they generate approximately $30,000 more in monthly revenue per club. Recommend immediate rollout to all 62 remaining clubs.” 

Whatever you recommend, you must say what in that summary you would not put in front of the board. 

AI Usage Guidance 

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