One of the most prominent athlete-founded media companies out there is reportedly hemorrhaging money, according to Bloomberg News.
In a recent report conducted by writer Lucas Shaw, Shaw shared that LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s SpringHill Company lost almost $30 million last year due to the “Hollywood recession” and has “never made any money.”
As production companies around the world continue to struggle to keep up with the growing demand of streaming services on increasingly tight budgets, SpringHill appears to be no exception. Via Bloomberg:
The company lost $28 million on sales of $104 million last year, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News. SpringHill lost $17 million in 2022 and is on pace to lose millions more in 2024.
… ‘The entertainment market shift in 2022/2023 toward profitability brought rising costs, slower buyer decisions, and impacts from industry strikes, prompting us to recalibrate, including writing off underperforming projects to position ourselves for future growth,’ SpringHill Chief Executive Officer Maverick Carter said via email, adding that the company is expected to exceed projections this year.
SpringHill recently merged with British corporation Fulwell 73, which produces “The Kardashians” as well as the Grammy Awards, and Fulwell intends to cut its staff to 250 employees in an effort to target profitability by the end of the next fiscal year.
LeBron’s media enterprise has featured a number of culturally successful ventures such as Uninterrupted and “The Shop,” so it’s a bit of a surprise to learn about the company’s financial struggles.
“We built this business with LeBron, not around him,” Carter said of SpringHill, adding that James “remains deeply engaged in driving the vision and mission he helped shape, focusing more actively on certain passion projects.”
“The new company has the scale, investors and teams needed to adapt to where this change is heading,” he continued.
The list of successful celebrity media companies is becoming increasingly small. Hopefully Carter, James and the SpringHill team are able to turn things around in the coming years.
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