Health-and-wellness isn’t just for women. Gameday Men’s Health started in 2018 with a couple of clinics in California. Now, it has more than 1,000 locations in the pipeline domestically and internationally.

“The first franchises opened in 2021 and 2022, but then by last year, it was just explosive growth,” said Tyler Wozny, a partner in the concierge health care concept’s Manhattan locations. “Our Flatiron location in New York, which opened four months ago, was the 250th. We are now hovering somewhere around 319.” The latest Manhattan location opened this month in a 2,416-square-foot space in the A&D Building on the Upper East Side.

Per a press release, Gameday Men’s Health provides services like “testosterone replacement therapy, erectile performance solutions, medically supervised weight loss, peptide and vitamin therapy, and advanced longevity diagnostics.”

It all happens in a man cave-like setting. Step off the elevator at the Flatiron location, Wozny said, and the sports memorabilia, recliners and flat-screen TVs immediately reveal that this is not your father’s medical office. “Everything is open,” he said. “We have sports on the TV, healthy snacks, great coffee. Guys all of a sudden feel at home for something that would typically have made them feel quite nervous.”

The company said its in-house labs process testosterone and prostate-specific antigen blood tests within 25 minutes, enabling personalized wellness plans and treatments in less than an hour. “It is not: ‘OK, go to a third-party lab and we will see you in two weeks and maybe you will come back and maybe you won’t,’” Wozny said.

Health-and-Wellness Shift

Houston-based Baker Katz broker John Frazier, who does not represent Gameday Men’s Health or its franchisees, noted that health-and-wellness concepts’ bent toward women is changing. In and around Houston, he said, more operators are offering male-focused medical services like testosterone therapy. “The market is shifting to meet rising demand from male customers,” Frazier stated. “This change stems from a broader cultural shift toward self-care and preventative health.”

That shift, Wozny said, has been driven in part by social media influencers and podcasts. A client might listen to a health care expert discuss hormone optimization or longevity medicine on the likes of “The Joe Rogan Experience” and then turn to Gameday Men’s Health for testing and treatment, he said. “Guys in their 40s and 50s have realized that they do not have to age like their fathers did. They’re seeing that there is another way.”

Real Estate Considerations

The typical medical or dental office requires sinks in every room and hookups for complex equipment, but the buildout for Gameday Men’s Health is straightforward by comparison: a few rooms for exams, injections and tests and some nicer office spaces for conversations with clients, Wozny said. The locations tend to run from 1,500 to 2,000 square feet.

Gameday franchisees in the suburbs prioritize locations with parking and near freeways because easy in-and-out access is important. In urban environments like New York City, walkability and access to subways are key. “The protocols that our guys are prescribed often require coming back weekly for something like an injection or a follow-up that can last three to five minutes,” Wozny explained. “The location cannot be out of the way and hard to park.”

Co-Tenants

Specialty grocers like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market make a natural co-tenant fit for Gameday Men’s Health. That’s part of the reason Wozny and his partners have looked carefully at Whole Foods’ location decisions in Manhatan. “The Whole Foods guy is our guy,” Wozny said. “He has a little bit higher disposable income and cares about his health and what he is putting in his body.”

Most customers are over 30, and men in their 40s represent the biggest proportion of clients for Gameday Men’s Health. Income-wise, customers run the gamut; a common thread is a willingness to spend money on looking, feeling and performing better, Wozny said.

Other logical co-tenants include fitness and other health-and-wellness operators. The Flatiron District location is close to spas like Othership, Bathhouse and Remedy Place, as well as a Chelsea Piers Fitness location, Equinox Flatiron and a WTHN acupuncture studio. “All these places are really driving the conversation around health-and-wellness in that neighborhood,” Wozny said. “We feel grateful to be there.”

Staffing Dynamics

Gameday physician medical directors — often trained in fields like urology, endocrinology or anesthesiology — oversee operations at each location, Wozny said. On April 1, Gameday Men’s Health announced that franchise owner and board-certified physician Haleem Mohammed would serve as chief medical officer, setting quality standards and leading clinical strategy, patient care and international expansion.

Gameday locations also employ clinic directors — typically nurse practitioners or physician’s assistants — who handle day-to-day operations and receive additional training related to the medical services on offer. “It is super common for us also to interface with the other medical professionals in our guys’ lives, whether that be their primary care physician or their cardiologist,” Wozny noted. New clinics start out with anywhere from three to five employees but can see their payrolls grow to 10 or 15 people as their patient books expand.

Expansion Trajectory

Gameday has more than 1,000 clinics in the pipeline domestically and internationally and actively is selling franchise licenses for territories in Canada. Based on the strong performance of its Flatiron location, Wozny and his partners likely will continue to expand in Manhattan as other franchisees open locations and grow across North America. “We are starting to look at the Financial District in New York,” Wozny said. “We think that is the next logical space to build out in the city, and then we will go from there.”

As Frazier sees it, the male-focused-health care segment could become more of a fixture in the Marketplaces Industry given the trend toward co-locating fitness, wellness, spa and personal care businesses that serve overlapping customer bases. He said: “I expect this trend to continue, with an increasing presence of male-focused brands integrating into these health-and-wellness hubs.”