Mark Wahlberg wants to take on the longevity-startup crowd with an affordable gym concept

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Mark Wahlberg has started companies of his own and backed plenty of others. But he says the gym he’s opening in December has him more excited than anything he’s done in his entire career. It also goes after a corner of the market where venture money keeps flowing: pricey, diagnostics-heavy wellness.

马克·沃尔伯格（Mark Wahlberg）创办过自己的公司，也投资过许多其他企业。但他表示，他将于十二月开设的健身房让他感到前所未有的兴奋，这甚至超过了他职业生涯中做过的任何事情。该项目还瞄准了风险投资持续涌入的一个细分市场：昂贵且高度依赖诊断的健康产业。

Speaking with us at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on Thursday, the actor said the first Municipal Gym opens in December. It’s a 32,000-square-foot club outside Las Vegas with blood work, epigenetic testing, recovery gear, compression therapy, cold plunges, and a café that serves up protein muffins, among other things. He’s pitching it as the affordable alternative to the longevity clubs that charge tens of thousands of dollars a year for much the same thing.

周四，这位演员在旧金山的 TechCrunch Disrupt 大会上接受了我们的采访，他表示首家 Municipal 健身房将于十二月开业。这是一家位于拉斯维加斯郊外、占地 3.2 万平方英尺的俱乐部，提供血液检查、表观遗传测试、恢复装备、加压疗法、冷水浸泡，以及供应蛋白松饼等食品的咖啡馆。他将其定位为那些每年收取数万美元费用、却提供类似服务的长寿俱乐部的平价替代品。

It’s the second part of a scheme that was, in some ways, first hatched seven years ago with a casual sportswear line. The clothing brand Municipal launched during COVID, which Wahlberg freely volunteered “was not a good idea,” given that clothing was a lousy business to enter in 2020, with retailers from J.Crew to Brooks Brothers going bankrupt. It grew out of what he’d been seeing as a celebrity fitness spokesperson.

这是他七年前通过休闲运动服装系列首次构思的计划的第二部分。服装品牌 Municipal 在新冠疫情期间推出，沃尔伯格坦言这“不是个好主意”，因为 2020 年服装业极其难做，从 J.Crew 到 Brooks Brothers 等零售商纷纷破产。该品牌源于他作为名人健身代言人的观察。

He’d done collabs with various brands, and other companies kept approaching him to be their brand ambassador, but they all seemed to want the same thing, he said. “Everybody just kind of wanted to sell T-shirts and sneakers. And I was like, well, I want to kind of have a bigger impact on people’s lives as a whole.” By that, he meant what people eat, what supplements they take, how they train, and how they recover. “We figured, okay, we’ll start in the apparel space, and then we’ll build from there.”

他曾与多个品牌合作，其他公司也不断邀请他担任品牌大使，但他表示，这些公司似乎都想要同样的东西。“每个人都只想卖 T 恤和运动鞋。而我想的是，我希望对人们的生活产生更全面的影响。”他指的是人们的饮食、补充剂摄入、训练方式以及恢复方式。“我们想，好吧，我们就从服装领域开始，然后以此为基础进行扩展。”

He says he only takes swings at “things that I’m very passionate about and things that are a direct extension of who I am.” Even without a pandemic, clothing is a brutal business, as we pointed out, citing Lululemon’s repeated quality-control challenges. But Wahlberg didn’t seem fazed, talking instead about why the gym fits his vision. He thought it “always could be great for the brand” in part because it gives people a place to “actually feel and touch the clothes” before they buy. Besides, he continued, how people exercise is “another big part of people’s lives.”

他说他只尝试“我非常热衷且与我个人直接相关的事情”。正如我们所指出的，即便没有疫情，服装业也是一个残酷的行业，我们还提到了 Lululemon 反复出现的质量控制问题。但沃尔伯格似乎并未受此影响，而是谈到了健身房为何符合他的愿景。他认为这“对品牌一直都很有利”，部分原因在于它为人们提供了一个在购买前“亲身感受和触摸衣服”的地方。此外，他继续说道，人们的锻炼方式是“人们生活的另一个重要组成部分”。

Most in the space have been laser-focused on the high end. Fountain Life, the longevity company co-founded by Tony Robbins, raised $18 million last year to expand its centers for wealthy clients, and a full subscription runs $21,500 a year, according to reports. The Estate, a company co-founded by Robbins and hospitality executive Sam Nazarian, is still mapping out plans to charge $35,000 memberships to its wellness centers. Equinox is similarly building a waitlist for a $36,000 longevity add-on that it plans to launch atop a traditional gym membership.

该领域的大多数参与者都专注于高端市场。据报道，由托尼·罗宾斯（Tony Robbins）联合创办的长寿公司 Fountain Life 去年筹集了 1800 万美元，用于为富裕客户扩建中心，其全套订阅费用每年高达 2.15 万美元。由罗宾斯和酒店业高管萨姆·纳扎里安（Sam Nazarian）联合创办的 The Estate 公司，目前仍在规划其健康中心 3.5 万美元的会员费方案。Equinox 也在建立一份等候名单，计划在传统健身会员的基础上推出一项 3.6 万美元的长寿附加服务。

Wahlberg says Municipal aims for that same luxury tier but for a lot less. “We have a better price point than our competitors, and we’re going to get far more results,” he said. For $99, he said as an example, members will receive three rounds of blood work and an hour with a doctor to flag what they’re predisposed to. Supplements and hormone therapy are also “right there.”

沃尔伯格表示，Municipal 的目标是同样的豪华层级，但价格要低得多。“我们的价格比竞争对手更有优势，而且我们将获得更好的效果，”他说。他举例称，只需 99 美元，会员就能获得三轮血液检查，并与医生进行一小时的咨询，以确定他们的易感疾病。补充剂和激素疗法也“就在那里”。

When we asked whether the gyms will double as storefronts for his other products (he owns a supplements brand, for example), he said “kind of.” What he’s really building, he said, is a “health and wellness ecosystem” with “everything there, soup to nuts.” He didn’t put a number on how many gyms he wants, but he called the growth strategy “aggressive,” telling us that “landlords and developers who toured the Las Vegas site have offered “AAA locations at very favorable terms, with great TI” (tenant-improvement allowances that help pay for the build-out).

当我们问及健身房是否会兼作他其他产品（例如他拥有的补充剂品牌）的店面时，他回答说“算是吧”。他说，他真正构建的是一个“健康与保健生态系统”，里面“应有尽有”。他没有透露具体想开多少家健身房，但他称增长策略是“激进的”，并告诉我们，“参观过拉斯维加斯场地的房东和开发商已经提供了‘AAA 级地段，条件非常优惠，且有极好的租户装修补贴’（用于支付装修费用的津贴）。”

Wahlberg’s last big bet on a gym chain might have scared off someone else. We told him we’d recently watched “Wahl Street,” his reality show, in which an early episode shows him getting deeply involved with the fitness chain F45 in 2019, and that we wanted to warn him about what was coming. “How did you know about the pandemic?” he joked, to laughs from the crowd. He bought into the company, known for its 45-minute classes, at a $450 million valuation. It went public in 2021, then was delisted from the NYSE in 2023 after its stock collapsed.

沃尔伯格上一次对健身连锁店的大手笔押注可能会让其他人望而却步。我们告诉他，我们最近看了他的真人秀节目《Wahl Street》，其中早期的一集显示他在 2019 年深度参与了健身连锁品牌 F45，我们想提醒他即将发生的事情。“你们是怎么知道疫情的？”他开玩笑说，引得观众大笑。他以 4.5 亿美元的估值入股了这家以 45 分钟课程闻名的公司。该公司于 2021 年上市，但在股价崩盘后于 2023 年从纽交所退市。

Wahlberg said he learned a lot from the experience. “I think the biggest takeaway was just making sure that I’m involved with people that share the same approach that I do.” He also said he always thought big box was the better model. F45’s classes suit people who are short on time, but he wants members to hang around Municipal for hours. Plenty of gyms run on a “join up but don’t show up” model, he said, adding, “I can’t understand that philosophy.”

沃尔伯格表示，他从这次经历中学到了很多。“我认为最大的收获就是确保我合作的人与我有相同的理念。”他还表示，他一直认为大型健身房模式更好。F45 的课程适合时间紧迫的人，但他希望会员能在 Municipal 待上几个小时。他说，很多健身房采用“加入但不出现”的模式，并补充道：“我无法理解这种理念。”

The name Municipal is very intentional and clearly means a lot to Wahlberg, who grew up poor in Boston, one of nine kids, playing on public basketball courts and golf courses. “You learn a lot on the blacktop,” he said. “You learn to win, to lose, to compete, and hopefully to get back up and do it again.” He has never hidden his rough youth. (He was sentenced to two years for assaults as a teenager and served 45 days.)

“Municipal”（市政）这个名字是经过深思熟虑的，对沃尔伯格来说显然意义重大。他在波士顿贫困家庭长大，是九个孩子之一，经常在公共篮球场和高尔夫球场玩耍。“你在操场上能学到很多，”他说。“你学会了赢，学会了输，学会了竞争，并希望在跌倒后能重新站起来再试一次。”他从未隐瞒过自己坎坷的少年时代。（他青少年时期曾因袭击他人被判两年监禁，实际服刑 45 天。）

In fact, earlier in the afternoon on Thursday, surrounded by friends and business associates in a seating area backstage at Disrupt — this is the man who inspired the show “Entourage,” after all — he said he was turned around by two people, including Father Jim Flavin, a Boston-area parish priest who has been in Wahlberg’s life since he was 13. He wants the gyms to carry that same spirit. “It’s a place to work, but have fun and support each other and create community and really challenge people to be better versions of themselves,” he said.

事实上，周四下午早些时候，在 Disrupt 大会后台的休息区，被朋友和商业伙伴簇拥着的他——毕竟他就是电视剧《明星伙伴》（Entourage）的原型——表示，他曾被两个人改变了人生轨迹，其中包括波士顿地区的教区牧师吉姆·弗拉文（Father Jim Flavin），他从沃尔伯格 13 岁起就一直陪伴着他。他希望健身房能传承这种精神。“这是一个锻炼的地方，但也能让人享受乐趣、互相支持、建立社区，并真正挑战人们成为更好的自己，”他说。

“I’ve come from next to nothing to being in an amazing position,” Wahlberg continued. “I try to constantly remind myself that I can inspire other people growing up in similar situations, especially inner-city kids and at-risk youth, that there is a way to overco

“我从一无所有走到今天这个令人惊叹的位置，”沃尔伯格继续说道。“我努力不断提醒自己，我可以激励其他在类似环境中成长的人，尤其是内城区的孩子和处于危险边缘的青少年，告诉他们有一种方法可以克服……”