RSG Group: The Brand Owner Thomas Bowman Told Personally
RSG Group has owned Gold's Gym since its 2020 bankruptcy buyout. In August 2024 Thomas Bowman emailed Gold's Gym, publicly addressed the RSG executives he named in a video, and filed a BBB complaint. His documented record says RSG never responded.
RSG Group is the named target of this page for one specific reason: RSG owns the Gold’s Gym brand, and Thomas Bowman took the Daytona sauna complaint to RSG personally in August 2024. His record says no response came back.
Brand owner is not the same thing as the local operator — and this page does not blur that line. The Daytona Beach club is franchise-operated by Next Level Health, LLC. RSG Group is the Berlin-based owner of the Gold’s Gym company and brand. Thomas complained to the club and Gold’s Gym corporate and addressed RSG at the top of the chain. The questions below therefore separate what the local operator was asked to do from what the brand owner was told.
The silence counter
Who RSG Group is
Gold’s Gym filed for Chapter 11 protection in May 2020. In July 2020, Berlin-based RSG Group GmbH was selected as the winning bidder in the court-approved auction, at an estimated purchase price of $100 million. Gold’s was to emerge from bankruptcy with 61 company-owned gyms and more than 600 franchise-owned gyms.
That 2020 buyout matters to the chronology. Thomas’s August 2024 complaint was not made to the pre-bankruptcy owners. It was made during RSG’s ownership — to the company RSG had bought, and then to RSG’s leadership in a public video.
RSG remains the owner in the current record. On September 28, 2026, Gold’s Gym announced a new 15-unit Southern California franchise-development agreement. The release describes a brand with more than 500 locations, says RSG acquired Gold’s in 2020 and integrated it into the RSG portfolio, and presents the deal as franchise growth — not an exit from the business. Current reporting places the wider system in the 500–600+ location range across roughly 30 countries.
Sources: Gold’s Gym’s July 14, 2020 announcement, “RSG Group Set to Acquire Gold’s Gym” · Business Wire, September 28, 2026, “Gold’s Gym Builds on Southern California Legacy With 15-Unit Franchise Development Agreement”
The name
Gold’s Gym is not a generic brand. Joe Gold opened the first one in Venice, California, in 1965, and it became the most recognized name in fitness — the original gym, the one the industry traces back to. When RSG Group bought the company out of bankruptcy in 2020, it bought that name and everything it stands for.
What the name stands on in Daytona Beach is documented on this page: a franchise sauna with mold growing under a bench sealed shut since 2012, a member who tested it, got sick, and brought the evidence to the brand owner personally — and, in his documented record, no response at all. The heritage was built in Venice. Its current chapter is being written by owners who received that email and that video, and answered with silence.
He told them personally
August 8, 2024 — the email
At 4:33 p.m. EDT on August 8, 2024, Thomas emailed info@goldsgymfl.com and communications@goldsgym.com. The subject was “Mold Problem Inside Sauna At Daytona Beach Gold’s Gym Location.” The original message was recovered from his mailbox archive in October 2026.
In brief, the email:
- alerted the club and Gold’s Gym corporate to what Thomas described as a serious mold problem inside the Daytona Beach sauna;
- linked his Part #1 video, filmed inside the sauna that day;
- demanded that the sauna be closed immediately;
- demanded professional testing and release of the results;
- demanded cancellation of his membership and return of the money he had paid.
The founding-case details, including the Mold Armor results naming Chaetomium spp., Aspergillus spp., and Nigrospora spp., are laid out in The Founding Story.
August 14, 2024 — the message to RSG’s CEOs
Six days later, Thomas published a direct video message to RSG Group. In the video, he addresses the executives by the names Brian Warne and Danny Waggoner. This page repeats the names as Thomas used them in his own title and message; it does not assert their current titles. In his Part #3 recap, Thomas records that he sent the Part #2 video to RSG headquarters as well as to Florida’s Governor.
This is the centerpiece exhibit because it removes the usual distance. The complaint was not only a review, a social-media post, or a filing in a local drawer. It was a named customer speaking directly to the brand owner’s leadership, on the public record, while the founding case was only days old.
Thomas’s documented account is that nobody from RSG Group or Gold’s Gym contacted him in response — not after the email, not after this video, and not in the two years that followed. That is his record, stated here as his record. RSG and Gold’s can change it by producing a response or answering the questions below.
The record, in order
July 2020 — RSG buys Gold’s Gym
RSG Group wins the court-approved bankruptcy auction for Gold’s Gym at an estimated $100 million. From this point forward, RSG is the brand owner Thomas would eventually address.
August 8, 2024 — Video and written notice
Thomas films Part #1 inside the Daytona sauna and emails the Florida club and Gold’s Gym corporate the same day, demanding closure, professional testing with released results, cancellation, and a refund.
August 9, 2024 — BBB complaint
Thomas filed BBB complaints against both Gold’s Gym corporate and the local franchise owners, according to his record. The sauna-mold complaint dated August 9, 2024 is publicly displayed on the Daytona Beach BBB profile and marked Unanswered; the location’s BBB grade is F, with BBB citing failure to respond to four complaints. See the Daytona Review Watch file and the Daytona row in the Silence Index.
August 14, 2024 — Direct message to RSG’s CEOs
Part #2 is published and, per Thomas’s recap, sent to RSG headquarters. This is the date used by the main silence counter above.
August 16, 2024 — The paper trail
In Part #3, Thomas recaps the first eight days: the company, the franchise owners, the BBB, Florida agencies, the health department, and code enforcement — and what each did or did not do. The full five-video record is embedded on The Founding Story.
August 24, 2024 — The national question
Part #5 widens the case from one sauna to the construction and oversight problem Thomas believes dry saunas share nationwide: no cleaning access beneath a fixed bench, no floor drain, and no inspection mandate he could find.
August 2024 to October 2026 — No response in Thomas’s record
Thomas states that the CEOs never reached out and that he received no contact from the franchise, Gold’s Gym corporate, or RSG Group about the August 2024 complaint. The RSG row in the Silence Index records the founding case as one filing and zero substantive responses, labeled Founding Case Record.
September 28, 2026 — The brand is expanding under RSG
Gold’s announces the 15-unit Southern California franchise deal. The release’s ownership boilerplate still identifies RSG as the company that acquired and integrated Gold’s in 2020.
October 2026 — A follow-up letter is drafted, not sent
A follow-up letter to the Daytona operator, Gold’s Gym corporate contacts, and RSG Group has been drafted for Thomas’s approval. It has not been sent. If he approves and sends it, the letter will attach the original August 8 email, restate the unanswered demands, ask the questions below, and give the recipients 30 days from the actual send date to answer in writing.
The ask
These are the questions carried in Thomas’s drafted follow-up letter. They are questions — not findings, and not legal conclusions:
- Was the Daytona Beach sauna ever professionally tested for mold after August 8, 2024? If so, on what date, by what company, and with what results? Will the testing report be released?
- Was the sauna closed and remediated? If so, on what dates, by whom, and what work was performed — specifically inside and underneath the bench?
- When was the sauna last professionally inspected or tested, and what is its inspection and cleaning schedule today?
- What happened to the August 8, 2024 demand for membership cancellation and a refund of everything Thomas had paid? Was the membership cancelled, and was any refund issued?
- Did anyone at the franchise, Gold’s Gym corporate, or RSG Group respond to the August 8 email or the August 14 video message? If so, when, and in what form? Thomas’s record is that he received nothing.
Why the brand owner stays on the page
The local operator runs the Daytona club. RSG owns the brand on the door and acquired the company whose name Thomas bought a membership under. This page does not claim to know RSG’s private franchise agreements, who inside RSG first saw Thomas’s video, or what direct control RSG exercised over that sauna’s daily cleaning. Those are not in the public record provided here.
What is in Thomas’s record is narrower and stronger: the brand owner was told — in writing to Gold’s Gym, through a public message addressed to the RSG executives he named, and through a BBB complaint — and Thomas received no response. The Silence Index keeps that count. This page keeps the exhibit: his message, in his own words.