--- title: "CEO Corner: Blk Box’s Gregory Bradley on Carving a Niche in the Fitness Equipment Market" url: https://burnaze.com/article/dc921f2f-a620-46cf-ae3e-d98e27c4138e source: "Athletech News" original_url: https://athletechnews.com/ceo-corner-blk-box-gregory-bradley-fitness-equipment-exclusive-interview/ author: "Josh Liberatore" category: "Gym & HVLP" industry: "Fitness" segment: "Gym & HVLP" topics: ["People"] published: 2026-04-29T20:31:19.000Z modified: 2026-10-31T13:19:03.228Z image: https://athletechnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/DSC_6718.webp --- # CEO Corner: Blk Box’s Gregory Bradley on Carving a Niche in the Fitness Equipment Market **TL;DR:** Blk Box, a Belfast-based strength equipment manufacturer, is expanding into the US market after securing partnerships with major gym chains and sports clubs across Europe. The company, founded by Gregory Bradley in 2012, has made a name for itself in the UK by making high-quality strength training equipment and supplying fitness equipment for most soccer clubs in the English Premier League. *By Josh Liberatore, originally published in Athletech News on 2026-04-29. [Read the original](https://athletechnews.com/ceo-corner-blk-box-gregory-bradley-fitness-equipment-exclusive-interview/).* ## Key facts - Blk Box supplies equipment to most English Premier League soccer clubs - The company manufactures most of its steel products locally in Belfast - Blk Box aims to continue growing at a rate of 40% per year ## Story For Gregory Bradley, going all in on a niche pays off. In 2012, Bradley founded Blk Box (officially stylized as “BLK BOX”), which has made a name for itself in the U.K. by making high-quality strength training equipment — everything from free weights to plyo boxes to rigs and cable machines — at its facility in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Blk Box also makes gym flooring and offers bespoke facility design services. The company, which essentially got its start after Conor McGregor’s strength and conditioning coach came across its products in a makeshift catalogue online, now supplies fitness equipment for most soccer clubs in the English Premier League and works with gym operators including PureGym, Fitness Park and Solo60, among others. ## Quality and manufacturing focus For Bradley, much of Blk Box’s success stems from a relentless focus on quality: the company manufactures most of its steel at its factory in Belfast and employs a team of athletes, sport scientists and strength coaches (the company even publishes its own magazine on training science). Bradley sat down with Athletech News to discuss his journey in creating and scaling a fitness equipment company, and outline what’s next for Blk Box as it targets growth goals including more expansion in the U.S. market. **Gregory Bradley:** I played Gaelic football growing up, which is an Irish sport, kind of like a mix between football and rugby. After I graduated from university — I studied marketing, communication and advertising — I wanted the same equipment I’d trained on for myself, so I downloaded some pictures of it and put it online. People started to ring me to say they wanted the equipment. One of the first was Conor McGregor’s strength conditioning coach. He was like, “I need this stuff for next Saturday.” I didn’t have anything to sell at this point, so I found a local fabrication company, and they were able to make it. That was our first order for the business. That gave me comfort that there was a demand for this. There was a mega-trend coming through with CrossFit, but at that time in the U.K. and Europe, there weren’t that many brands offering this style of equipment. We were one of the first. **GB**: Taking some risks along the way has been key. ## Customization and growth strategy Setting up a huge manufacturing factory (in Belfast) was a bit of a risk. The easy thing to do would just be to import products from China, but we wanted to be different in the marketplace. We manufacture most of our steel products locally in our factory. Creation transparency is important for people; they want to know where their product is coming from. Our ability to customize at scale has also been a big differentiator. We can co-brand the equipment, or fully brand the equipment in clients’ names, whether that’s Soho House or any of the football teams we work with, or hotels, CrossFit boxes, etc., so they can have the equipment in their own colors and logo. Our speed has been key as well. A lot of companies’ lead time might be 10 to 16 weeks for custom equipment. We’re doing it in around four to six weeks max. **GB**: Sometimes I need to pinch myself because we’ve done so much. I’ve met a lot of the coaches at courses, and a lot of our team are sports scientists and strength and conditioning coaches, so you can talk at a peer level with these people in terms of what their requirements are, whereas a lot of our competitors are either salespeople or engineers; they don’t understand athletic performance. That’s another thing that sets us apart — our team is mostly made up of athletes and coaches. So we live and breathe this. One of our core values is client obsession. It’s all about the long term, giving really good advice and trying to over-deliver. Historically, I think most gym equipment companies tried to sell as much equipment as possible to hit their quotas and make their commission. For us, equipment’s important, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. So we’ve been lucky, but I think it’s been through doing good work and referrals. **GB**: It’s around 30% of our business. In our DNA, we specialize more in sports performance. We’ve been lucky to work with most of the Premier League football teams in England and many in rugby, cricket — loads of weird and wonderful sports. That’s where we probably feel most comfortable. PureGym was the first commercial team we worked with, and we gave them exclusivity in the U.K. in the high-value, low-price sector. But we’ve recently also won some contracts with Fitness Park, which is a fast-growing gym from France and expanding across Europe. We like working in multiple sectors, whether it’s Hyrox studios, CrossFit boxes, corporate wellness or hospitality, because it gives us so much data and insight. We don’t want to be single-point focused in any one sector. ## Expansion plans and goals **GB**: The low-hanging fruit is Europe. We have recently hired country managers in France, Spain and Germany, and we’ll continue to increase our market share in those spaces. But ultimately, the big prize is the U.S. We have a president of sales for North America, Fergus Ahern. In the U.S., we’ve completed installations for PureGym, which acquired Blink Fitness. That’s been a good, steep learning curve, made slightly more complicated with the current tariff environment. Rouge is obviously the big gorilla, but we’re confident we can carve a niche in America, working with some boutique studios and high-end commercial chains. Given our pedigree, I’d also like to see if we can do something in sports. We’re currently speaking to some teams for the upcoming World Cup. **GB**: Generally, it’s continuing to do what we’re doing. We grew close to 40% last year, so we’re hoping to continue at that rate each year. We also want to make the U.S. expansion a success. I’m going to be spending a lot more time there, because it can be a graveyard for many businesses if you don’t get it right in such a big country. We want to land a couple of new key accounts in the U.S., hopefully work with some dealers as well, and then land a first sports team or a university athletic facility as well. ## Entities - unit expansion (topic) - Fitness (sector) - Athletech News (publication) - Josh Liberatore (person) - Blink Fitness (company) - Hyrox (company) - PureGym (company) - us market entry (topic) - CrossFit (company) - PureGym acquisition of Blink Fitness (deal) - Fitness Park (company) - equipment manufacturing (topic) --- Originally reported by Josh Liberatore, Athletech News (https://athletechnews.com/ceo-corner-blk-box-gregory-bradley-fitness-equipment-exclusive-interview/). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/dc921f2f-a620-46cf-ae3e-d98e27c4138e).