Mark Wahlberg has started companies of his own and backed plenty of others. But the gym he\u2019s opening in December, he says, has him more excited than anything he\u2019s done in his entire career. It also goes after a corner of the market where venture money keeps flowing: pricey, diagnostics-heavy wellness.<\/p>\n
Speaking with us at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on Thursday, the actor said the first Municipal Gym opens in December. It\u2019s a 32,000-square-foot club outside Las Vegas with blood work, epigenetic testing, recovery gear, compression therapy, cold plunges, and a caf\u00e9 that serves up protein muffins, among other things. He\u2019s pitching it as the affordable alternative to the longevity clubs that charge tens of thousands of dollars a year for much the same thing.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the second part of a scheme that was, in some ways, first hatched seven years ago, with a casual sportswear line.<\/p>\n
The clothing brand Municipal launched during COVID, which Wahlberg volunteers \u201cwas not a good idea.\u201d (Clothing was a lousy business to enter in 2020, with retailers from J.Crew<\/a> to Brooks Brothers<\/a> going bankrupt.) <\/p>\n It grew out of what he\u2019d been seeing as a celebrity fitness spokesperson. He\u2019d 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. \u201cEverybody 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\u2019s lives as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n By that, he meant what people eat, what supplements they take, how they train, and how they recover. Clothing was just the start. \u201cWe figured, okay, we\u2019ll start in the apparel space, and then we\u2019ll build from there.\u201d He says he only takes swings at \u201cthings that I\u2019m very passionate about and things that are a direct extension of who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n Even without a pandemic, clothing is a brutal business, as we pointed out, citing Lululemon\u2019s repeated quality-control challenges<\/a>. But Wahlberg didn\u2019t seem fazed, talking instead about why the gym fits his vision. He thought it \u201calways could be great for the brand\u201d in part because it gives people a place to \u201cactually feel and touch the clothes\u201d before they buy. Besides, he continued, how people exercise is \u201canother big part of people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n 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<\/a> 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<\/a> to its wellness centers. Equinox is similarly taking names for a $36,000 longevity add-on<\/a> that it plans to launch atop a traditional gym membership.<\/p>\n Wahlberg says Municipal aims for that same luxury tier but for a lot less. \u201cWe have a better price point than our competitors, and we\u2019re going to get far more results,\u201d 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\u2019re predisposed to. Supplements and hormone therapy are also \u201cright there.\u201d<\/p>\n When we asked whether the gyms double as storefronts for his other products (he owns a supplements brand<\/a>), he said \u201ckind of.\u201d What he\u2019s really building, he said, is a \u201chealth and wellness ecosystem\u201d with \u201ceverything there, soup to nuts.\u201d <\/p>\n He didn\u2019t put a number on how many gyms he wants, but he called the growth strategy \u201caggressive,\u201d telling us that \u201clandlords and developers who toured the Las Vegas site have offered \u201cAAA locations at very favorable terms, with great TI\u201d (tenant-improvement allowances that help pay for the build-out).<\/p>\n Wahlberg\u2019s record in fitness might scare off someone else. We told him we\u2019d recently watched \u201cWahl Street,\u201d 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. \u201cHow did you know about the pandemic?\u201d 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. Wahlberg said he learned a lot from the experience.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the biggest takeaway was just making sure that I\u2019m involved with people that share the same approach that I do.\u201d He also said he always thought big box was the better model. F45\u2019s classes suit people who are short on time, but he wants members to hang around Municipal for hours. Plenty of gyms run on a \u201cjoin up but don\u2019t show up\u201d model, he said, adding: \u201cI can\u2019t understand that philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n 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. \u201cYou learn a lot on the blacktop,\u201d he said. \u201cYou learn to win, to lose, to compete, and hopefully to get back up and do it again.\u201d <\/p>\n He has never hidden his rough youth. (He was sentenced to two years for assaults as a teenager and served 45 days.) <\/p>\n In fact, earlier in the afternoon on Thursday, surrounded by friends and business associates in a seating area backstage \u2014 this is the man who inspired the show \u201cEntourage\u201d after all \u2014 he said he was turned around by two people, including Father Jim Flavin, a Boston-area parish priest who has been in Wahlberg\u2019s life since he was 13.<\/p>\n He wants the gyms to carry that same spirit. \u201cIt\u2019s a place to work, but have fun and support each other and create community and really challenge people to be better versions of themselves,\u201d he said. It\u2019s personal, he said outright. \u201cI\u2019ve come from next to nothing to being in an amazing position,\u201d Wahlberg said. \u201cI 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 overcome your circumstances if you\u2019re willing to go out there and do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n At 55, he added, his goals have changed; while he was once focused on looking good, \u201cI just want to feel good when I wake up in the morning,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to be able to conquer all the things that I have planned for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n He also said his plate is exceedingly full right now, between the gym, a film role as Pete Rose<\/a>, and his daughter\u2019s equestrian career<\/a>. He\u2019s so eager for the gym to open, he said, that visiting the construction site feels like \u201cliterally watching paint dry.\u201d Indeed, asked if he was open to taking on new ventures, he shrugged. \u201cI\u2019m not out there hunting, looking for the next thing for sure.\u201d But he wouldn\u2019t rule it out, he added quickly. \u201cIf something amazing were to come along, obviously I wouldn\u2019t turn it down.\u201d<\/p>\n