LeBron James’ media company lost $28 million in 2023

While the last few years have seen a tremendous rush of professional athletes founding production companies, attracting major investments and launching notable projects, the long-term value of many of these companies remains largely unproven. One of the best-known companies there is the SpringHill Company, which was founded in 2020 by LeBron James and Maverick Carter. And Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw had some news on his 2023 financials on Sunday:

SpringHill, the media company co-founded by LeBron, lost $28 million last year. It never made any money.

A look at how the Hollywood recession is affecting production companies – even those run by the world’s most famous people – in this week’s newsletter.https://t.co/VG0gIjoGzh

— Lucas Shaw (@Lucas_Shaw) December 1, 2024

Here are some important parts of this piece:

The company lost $28 million on revenue of $104 million last year, according to filings obtained by Bloomberg News. SpringHill lost $17 million in 2022 and is on track to lose millions more in 2024.

… “The entertainment market’s shift toward profitability in 2022/2023 brought rising costs, slower buyer decision-making and impacts from industry strikes, prompting us to rebalance, including writing down underperforming projects, to position ourselves for future growth,” Maverick said Carter, SpringHill’s chief executive officer, said via email, adding that the company is expected to beat forecasts this year.

As Shaw notes, SpringHill (the parent company of several notable sports projects from The store to Uninterrupted) is far from the only celebrity production company that hasn’t yet made big returns. Part of this is related to pandemic-era production challenges, but streaming service cutbacks during the pandemic and post-pandemic are also a factor, as is the impact of last year’s writer and actor strikes and ongoing corporate changes and consolidations . And big changes are coming to SpringHill, which recently merged with British company Fulwell 73 (known for the Kardashians shows and the Grammys, among other things), making cuts to get to 250 employees in the new company and aiming for profitability by the end 2025. So it may not be immediately bad.

Still, it’s definitely interesting to see some financials on SpringHill. And it’s perhaps especially notable that all the big projects they’ve had so far, and the star power of James and Carter, haven’t been enough to make them profitable yet.

Admittedly, this isn’t always crucial in sports media, especially for those who watch long games. The New York Times bought The Athletic for $550 million in 2022, although it never turned a profit, and just last month announced its first profitable quarter, although it also allowed that newspaper to dismantle its union sports department. And SpringHill could still pay off for its investors; If they can actually reach profitability by the end of 2025, as Carter predicts, that’s a big step.

SpringHill could also get more personal input from James if he decides to retire from the NBA. That could give him more time to work at this company, and in a company that focuses so much on him, that could be significant. (For the record, Carter told Shaw, “We built this business with LeBron, not around him” and “(James remains deeply committed to and more actively focused on executing on the vision and mission he helped create certain passion projects). , still is not profitable, give it a try Starting an athlete manufacturing company might be more difficult than many had thought.

(Bloomberg)