I think most of the Golds that have closed during the past 15 years or so have been franchises. I used to belong to one and the owner dropped the Gold's name/franchise and named his gym something else. Keeping it all under your name avoids having to pay high fees to Golds. Eventually the owner just closed all his gyms completely. I think places like Planet Fitness put him out of business.
This is their exact error. They drop the Gold's Gym name and turn the gym into a 'softcore' gym to try and appeal to more members (usually because they see gyms like planet fitness doing it). But they can't compete with the big corporate gyms and their ultra-low fees, and soon go out of business.
If instead they went the other way, kept their hardcore weight lifter image, and improved upon it, they would carve out a niche market for themselves that WOULD stand against the corporate gym model.
I have seen this play out before so many times, with bally's fitness, then 24-hour fitness, and now again with planet fitness. I have seen the gyms that succeed and the gyms that fail, decade after decade, in different parts of the country. The solution is simple, run a real quality business that appeals to an educated market, it works.
And btw, a good franchise often provides much more than what they cost. Name recognition, national marketing, advertising tools, very large wholesale equipment contracts, expert consultation, etc. Although it is true that Gold's Gym corporate has gone done hill in the last decade...
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