Rainer Schaller

Rainer Schaller completed his training as a retail salesman in Schlüsselfeld.[3] He supplemented this with further training to become a business and retail specialist. At the age of 22, he took over his first Edeka supermarket, and shortly afterwards three more in his home region.[6]

In 1997, he switched to the fitness industry and opened his first studio under the McFit brand in Würzburg, Germany.[6] He tapped into the discount segment of the market with this brand.[7] By mid-2006, McFit was operating 62 fitness studios in Germany with a combined 400,000 members and 1,000 permanent employees.[5] In 2011, McFit was considered the largest fitness studio operator in Europe, with more than 1 million members.[8][9] Schaller gradually diversified his business to reach different target groups.[10] In 2018, Rainer Schaller appointed Vito Scavo to oversee operational management of his holding company.[11] In August 2019, the McFit Global Group holding company was renamed RSG Group and encompasses twelve fitness chains (including McFit, John Reed, High 5).[12] In 2020, Schaller acquired Gold's Gym,[13] which was in bankruptcy (Chapter 11 proceedings) due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[14] By the end of 2020, Schaller's group of companies employed 41,000 people in 48 countries, managed 17 different brands and more than 1,000 studios.[15]

In 2006, Rainer Schaller became managing director of Lopavent,[16][5] which organized the Love Parade until 2010. The aim was to use the event to promote McFit's studios.[6] The Love Parade went off without incident, under Schaller’s direction, for three years.[17] In 2010, however, he came under fire[18][19] for the stampede at the Love Parade in Duisburg, which left 21 people dead and 652 injured.[20] Schaller testified as a witness in the court proceedings on the accident in 2018, accepted moral responsibility, but was not charged.[21]