LA Fitness Swallows Bally in $153 Million Gym Takeover

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All over the country, Bally gyms are reopening as LA Fitness centers as part of a $153 million sale by Bally to help ease its financial issues. Writes a Racked tipster, "just went to my Bally Fitness, and was issued a brand new card from LA Fitness. Here is a short paragraph from the Bally website. All the gyms closed last night at 5pm instead of the usual midnight, then all the papers were signed, and they all opened this morning as LA Fitness."

Bally has sold more than half of its clubs to LA Fitness; the locations affected include Flower Street downtown, Bundy Drive in west LA and El Centro in Hollywood. According to commenters on Yelp, the gyms could use new management. There are several amazing negative reviews of the the Hollywood location from a month ago, including one that lists seven grievances like "every new trainer hits on me" and another that states: "This place is matted in tendrils of old hair and drenched in a salty coat of old man ball sweat. Also, they kept charging me secretly after my year was up. Thanks, assholes."

LA Fitness has announced the takeover on their site, and though they state that they want the "transition [to be] as easy as possible for both the members and employees" they also say that several clubs will be closing by the end of the year.
· Bally Total Fitness to Sell 171 Fitness Clubs [Bally]
· Fitness International, LLC Acquires 171 Bally Total Fitness Clubs [LA Fitness]