Column: Franchisors Are Buying Back the Middle

Fifty-two percent in January. Thirty-two percent in October.

Those are the shares of The Joint Chiropractic's system units held by regional developers at the start of 2026 and today, according to the company's Oct. 6 announcement that it had reacquired developer rights across Texas, including Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston. Add Chicago, Minnesota, Ohio, Iowa and Nebraska, and The Joint says the markets it has taken back have room for more than 150 additional clinics. It says more reacquisitions are coming.

We covered the Texas buyback itself when it was first disclosed. What changed my read is everything happening around it.

A Place At Home told Home Health Care News this month it plans to finish the year with five corporate conversions, and its co-founder expects its revenue mix to flip: 60% comes from franchising today, and he projects 70% will eventually come from corporate operations. We wrote about that buyback strategy last week. Roto-Rooter paid $60.6 million for its largest independent franchise. Keep Safe Care stopped selling single units altogether.

Here is my take. Franchisors are pulling margin and control back toward the center, and they are calling it support.

That isn't automatically bad. A regional developer sits between the brand and the franchisee, keeps a cut of the fees, and handles recruiting and field support with wildly uneven skill. When headquarters does that work itself, a franchisee can end up with better support from people who have more resources. The Joint's CEO, Sanjiv Razdan, made exactly that pitch: "By taking a more direct role in these markets, we can pair our operational resources and development expertise to strengthen clinic performance, attract high-quality franchisees and build a stronger foundation for long-term growth."

Keep reading the release, though. The Joint also says the reacquisitions "created meaningful opportunities to bring additional revenue back into the business." That is the honest sentence. Fees that used to stay with the developer now go to headquarters.

Not everyone is moving the same way. Lola Beans said Oct. 6 that a Texas group that runs Wingstop and Crumbl locations expanded a 15-unit deal into a 120-plus unit area representative agreement covering the state. Under that structure, the group will recruit franchisees and provide operations support across Texas, the brand said. The drive-thru beverage brand was founded in 2020. My guess, and it is a guess: young brands still rent the middle layer because they can't afford regional teams yet, and mature brands buy it back once they can.

If you own units in a market that just changed hands, I'd want two answers in writing. Who picks up the phone when your field consultant leaves? And does the money the developer used to keep come back to you as service, or does it simply stay at headquarters?

What I don't know is whether franchisee economics improve under direct control. The Joint hasn't published before and after unit numbers for reacquired markets. A Place At Home's best evidence is one Jacksonville conversion it says nearly doubled in size. That is a story, not a dataset. Ask me again in a year.