Economics in Yoga

Eleanor Carter
David Roody
Economics IHSS
January 28, 2019
Economics in Yoga
Worldwide over two billion people practice yoga, and here in the United States there are 20.4 million people practicing yoga annually. Weather it’s yoga studios, yoga apparel, teacher training, or retreats, the yoga industry has exploded in the past decade, paving way for the new demand of yoga related products. In New York City, Mike Patton had a dream to open up a yoga studio in the heart of the city. This studio would cater to busy Wall Street Bankers and the businessman of the city, the studio would become a place where the noisy background of life would fade into the soothing sound of meditation music. However there was one problem: how does one create a popular yoga studio in the center of one of the most financially taxing places in the world? To answer this question, a hypothetical studio crowned “Smart Yoga.” The charge was simple: $14 for drop in, $8 for members, and around $4,000 for teacher training. There profits were balanced against payments that the studio had to put out. Rent, the teachers themselves, and check in assistants were where most of the profit went out to. Because of this the goal was to bring in as many people as possible to support these outward payments. The Economist writes, “For Mike, the long term key to running a successful yoga business isn’t so much offering classes to working stiffs like you and me three times a day. The real engine driving the business of yoga is turning working stiffs into yoga evangelists- people who want to learn more about yoga and encourage others join in the experience of yoga.” It was important for the studio to recognize that people were searching for something spiritual when they entered a yoga class, and the goal of the studio was to cater to that need as to make a profit.
For many yoga studios it is hard to get started. With the increase in demand for yoga products, it has become a competitive field, and is hard for many smaller business to get started. This is relevant to us as adolescents because of the difficulty to start your own business, and the way the market has changed in the past years. It is important for many of us to remember that passion is not enough to get us started in the world now, sometimes we have to focus on paying the bills and making sure we have a steady income. So many millenials and Gen X are focused on getting to the top and having that “dream job” instead of working to get to the goal. Many fundamentals during this process can be missed if they are rushed. This article was important to the yoga community because many time people struggle to start a new business. We can see the difficult variables; taxes, studio space, collecting numbers to help grow your foundation.  The point of the article was to show that young entrepreneurs can take a old spiritual practice and modernize it, creating a business` that’s important to the city and to the individual.









Works Cited
Godard, Thierry. “The Economics of Yoga.” SmartAsset, SmartAsset, 21 May 2018, smartasset.com/retirement/the-economics-of-yoga.

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