How to Start a Premier Martial Arts Franchise in 2023 Looking for information about how to open a Premier Martial Arts franchise? Here's what you need to know.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Premier Martial Arts Franchise Information
Since its founding more than 15 years ago, Premier Martial Arts has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs who are passionate about people's well-being and character development find success as business owners in the wildly popular martial arts segment. The brand now boasts 200+ locations across the country – all of which are helping thousands of children learn self defense and stand up to bullying, become accountable for their actions, and learn life lessons that promote confidence, integrity, and respect. Interest in martial arts is at an all-time high; popular culture is inundated with examples of martial artists, leading new generations of people to martial art for fitness and more structured ways to work out. Parents are turning to karate and martial arts as a sport for kids, often with the goal of developing character and discipline while having fun. Premier Martial Arts is one of the nation's leading investment opportunities in this attractive market segment. The franchise opportunity is led by industry experts and martial artists Barry Van Over and Myles Baker, who've spent two decades developing high-performance systems to help more than 100 independent martial arts schools grow from struggling businesses to stable and successful enterprises.
Premier Martial Arts uses this experience — combined with a small-footprint martial arts school and a popular, standard curriculum — to make for an attractive, low-investment, and easy-to-operate martial arts school franchise. Below are a few convincing reasons to investigate the Premier Martial Arts franchise opportunity:
- Small footprint of 1,200 ‐ 1,600 square feet
- Small staff of one or two instructors per location
- Low ongoing overhead
- Contained classes to maximize space and foster community
- Minimal to no weekend hours
Premier Martial Arts is led by Barry Von Over, the brand's founder and CEO, and Myles Baker serves as the vice-president of franchise development.
How much does a Premier Martial Arts franchise cost?
To open a Premier Martial Arts franchise of your own, here are the financial requirements and ongoing franchise fees associated with business ownership:
Initial franchise fee: $49,500
Initial investment: $183,650 - $421,800
Net worth requirement: $330,000
Cash requirement: $75,000
Veteran incentives: 10% off franchise fee and development fee
Royalty fee: 7%
Term of Agreement: 10 years
Common questions about Premier Martial Arts:
What is the Premier Martial Arts franchise?
This fast-growing martial arts franchise is your chance to make a positive impact on your community. The Premier Martial Arts franchise is poised to revolutionize the $4 billion martial arts industry. Premier Martial Arts specializes in teaching karate, krav maga, kickboxing, and jiu-jitsu for children ages 3-15 and adults of all ages. While our instructors are highly trained and certified to provide a best-in-class martial arts experience, our curriculum also focuses on important personal development. Our instructors focus as much on character development and discipline as they do on martial arts, which makes us highly popular with parents. Premier Martial Arts includes comprehensive business training, curriculum training, instructor training and a wide range of ongoing support.
Who owns Premier Martial Arts?
The success that Barry Van Over, founder and CEO of Premier Martial Arts, has enjoyed in business, is a testament to the discipline that practicing martial arts provides, especially if the practice begins early in life. Martial arts has been a part of Van Over's life since elementary school. Growing up in the era of Karate Kid and spending hours watching Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris defeat their opponents with honor, integrity and stone-cold focus inspired Van Over to take up the ancient practice himself. Myles Baker and Ricky Lam serve as the brand's vice-presidents, aånd Amada Ellis is the director of support at Premier Martial Arts.
How many locations does Premier Martial Arts have?
To date, Premier Martial Arts has just over 200 established franchise units in North America. Our typical 1,200 to 1,600-square foot school model can accommodate between 160 and 360 students. Franchisees sign up students who pay a membership fee and a monthly fee for 1-2 classes a week. In addition to membership income, franchisees sell upgraded training programs that allow students to add different levels and kinds of training to their experience, with the goal of becoming a black belt, a process that takes three to four years of study. We also sell gear and merchandise, offer seminars and self-defense classes, private lessons and offer special events and martial arts-themed birthday parties.
Why is martial arts so popular?
While people have been practicing martial arts for thousands of years, the ancient discipline has never been more popular than it is today. The last time Statista conducted a survey of how many people practiced martial arts, they discovered that almost 4 million people, ages 6 and older, were practicing martial arts in 2016. With more than 20,000 martial arts studios operating across the nation and the rise of martial arts in the mainstream, there is reason to believe that those numbers would be even higher today. Martial arts is front and center in popular culture — movies and other media. Every time Hollywood launches a new Batman, X-Men or Star Wars movie, audiences of all ages are witnessing martial arts. The sport of UFC has become one of the most exciting sports of our time, with a growing audience of fans and millions of people paying to watch martial artists compete at the highest level. For young children, there are the heroes in Kung Fu Panda and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to emulate on the playground. We're surrounded by martial arts everywhere, all the time.
Reasons to own a Premier Martial Arts franchise
Premier Martial Arts is revolutionizing the martial arts industry. Our studio spaces are clean, bright, and beautiful. Premier Martial Arts studio locations are in high-end retail areas next to brands like Starbucks. Because of our insistence on high-end locations, Premier Martial Arts has developed a business model that has several competitive advantages. Our franchise business model is all about simplicity. We can run the entire facility with minimal staff, we can be super- efficient with our profit generators, and our small footprint allows us to be in the best shopping centers for a reasonable rate. This allows us to keep overhead low and profit margins high. And most importantly, it's a low-cost investment that is easy to scale up to multi-unit locations. There are martial arts schools all across the country, but for visitors to a Premier Martial Arts school, it's immediately different from anything else in the market.
For Premier Martial Arts franchisees, our easy-to-follow business model is designed to place the day-to-day responsibilities of operating the studio on a well-trained, highly competent instructor who is given intensive training. The instructor is assigned a list of duties to fulfill throughout the day to benefit the franchise owner.
You don't need any experience in martial arts to succeed as a franchise owner with Premier Martial Arts. We've developed a business model that places our owners as the CEO of their businesses – meaning they are making sure that their businesses are running smoothly and are profitable. They are out in the community networking, implementing the marketing strategy that we provide, and ensuring that their businesses are providing the best martial arts experience to their customers.
Related: Considering franchise ownership? Get started now and take this quiz to find the personalized list of franchises that match your lifestyle, interests, and budget.
