Maverick Carter on building the future of sports media

0:10Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore Media, where we are talking to all of the most important and interesting people shaping our new media age. I'm Max Taney. I'm the media editor here at Semaphore. And with me, as always, is our editor-in-chief, Ben Smith. Ben, did you enjoy our annual convening of the Semaphore world economy? What did you take away from it?

0:37Ben Smith:Yeah, it was pretty amazing. I mean, we had, you know, like half the cabinet, 500 CEOs, quarter of the Senate, and all these global officials in Washington for a week. And I don't know. I mean, we're still using AI to process it all. but you really do come away with a sense of how the world is thinking. We're using AI to process it all. What does that mean? What? Stay tuned. Okay, I guess I will. Maybe I'll ask Claude what you meant by that. But one of the people who we had at the event last week was Maverick Carter. He is the longtime business partner of LeBron James. He was the co-founder of Spring Hill Entertainment, which he recently merged with Fullwell, another entertainment content studio.

1:19And I got the opportunity to chat with him for about 15 minutes on stage, which we both thought was a really interesting conversation about the future of sports media, the future of celebrity-driven media and Hollywood. And of course, you know, as many fans of the show might know, actually a few fans of the show definitely know because I've gotten some books and things sent my way. I'm a big fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and their superstar LeBron James. And so it was awesome to get to ask Mav a little bit and get some hints about what his future might hold. But Ben, what did you think about this conversation with Maverick Carter?

1:58Why did you want to book him for our global gathering of business leaders?

2:02Ben Smith:Well, I think he and LeBron were honestly these kind of visionary media figures of the last decade. I mean, people are sort of sick of celebrities and athletes setting up production companies and talking about all that stuff now. But they were among the first with, I guess, Reith Switherspoon and Hello Sunshine. And they really became these arms dealers to the streaming boom. And for a moment, this was a model that everybody copied. And then I think the interesting conversation is as the world changes, where they go to. But I really do think Maverick as sort of a media entrepreneur was just wildly ahead of the curve.

2:35Yeah. And, you know, the other thing, too, is I actually think that they get lumped in to a certain degree. And I've lumped them in as well with Will Smith's Westbrook and with, as you mentioned, Hello Sunshine, the Obamas' higher ground productions. This kind of, in some ways, I guess the Obamas aren't totally celebrities, but, you know, the celebrity-focused media arms. But LeBron and Maverick Carter were thinking about how to do things differently in the media space from a much, much younger age. Mav was one of the people who was involved in the decision, which was LeBron James' obviously very famous decision to leave Cleveland and go to the Miami Heat.

3:11And that was a really interesting moment because it was a chance for that LeBron and Maverick Carter realized that they could do things a little differently. They didn't have to hold a press conference and announce this. They didn't have to leak it to a media outlet. that they could literally produce and engineer it all by themselves. Now, it backfired in a spectacular way, but they were actually too early on it.

3:32Ben Smith:But this is honestly every public figure, corporation, athlete now, is the sort of control over your own content. And this is something they were just so early to. Well, we asked Mav about that. We asked him about the future of global basketball, which he is involved in. And of course, we asked him about what LeBron James is going to do after he retires. So we'll have Mav Carter right after this and then Ben and I to break it all down at the end of the episode.

4:08Mav, thank you so much for being here. We're really excited. Most people in this room, it's a pretty smart crowd. They know you, but I want to just read a few notable bits to kind of orient the conversation. I hate this part. I know, I'm sorry. I watched Shane Smith do this, you know, to prepare for this interview, but you kind of have to do it, which is you're the co-CEO of Fullwell Entertainment. You founded Spring Hill. You're a longtime business partner of LeBron James. You were one of the people behind Nike's first ever lifetime endorsement deal for LeBron, which I believe at the time was the biggest endorsement deal ever.

4:42And you've made some very wise, smart investments in Beats and in Liverpool. Cool. Your career has really risen with LeBron's. It's mirrored LeBron's in some ways. You guys have kind of come up together. You've seen it since the beginning. As LeBron enters the next phase of his career, thinking about what he's kind of going to do next, how will that change and shape what you both are doing? How will it be different in this kind of next phase? Well, the world we live in today is so interesting and cool because it changes every second and every minute so if you think about an athlete like lebron or his caliber you know not that long ago 20 years ago 15 years ago it would be most thought about like sports casting or broadcasting but now because of the technology and what we have and access where someone like him who's become a person who has a global fan base can tap into that to those fans i think what we've already built at full well is the ability to have creativity and production, a whole company that does that every single day.

5:46You know, we produce the Grammys, we're producing the 28 Olympics, all of the ceremonies for the 28 Olympics, we're making those. We make the Kardashians. So we have a team of people that can produce and create at a high caliber. So he is actually going to come to us with what his vision is. How does he want to keep creating content and telling stories that connect with his fans. And then how do we build a suite of shows around that? And then the beauty of it is today, distribution is everywhere. So someone like LeBron Scalib, who has a big draw, you can get distribution anywhere and really connect with people and build a show, just us, without anybody else.

6:24How do you kind of balance the, I'm already going off my scripted questions. How do you kind of balance the desire to, you're an on-camera personality in some of these shows, like The Shop, LeBron, obviously. Also, he has his podcast with Steve Nash, which is really fantastic. Mind the Game. How do you kind of balance how much to put yourselves into these projects versus the stuff that you want to do with you guys not as the talent? Well, I mean, contrary to what you or anyone may believe, I never wanted to do that. That's not what I wanted to do. I was kind of, with The Shop, honestly, it was an executive there who was buying the show at the time, was really compelled.

7:04whatever compelled him he said hey i'll do this and make this show with you guys but matt i want you on it in the chair i didn't really want to do it it was actually hbo at the time who am i to tell hbo what the hell to do is it was hbo at the time no it's a little wonky now but it was the greatest brand in all of television so i never really wanted to do it and then my company and i did that people liked it my company pushed me i'd rather run the company that's what i always that's what my dream was to do. I think for LeBron, it's for him, he's much more of a person who obviously billions of people know around the world.

7:39But the through line through all of it, even when I was on the shop and other things that I've done is like being ourselves and being authentic and being who we are, discussing the things that we know about and being curious about the things we don't. And now we obviously have a company that is way outgrown, he or I, and we make lots of things. So for us to be in, we're in like a tiny little, we made 20 shows, 20 different things for Netflix alone this year and 15 for Amazon. So people think we're in a lot, but we're in a small amount of things that the company does. So to kind of shift gears a little bit, it's a really interesting moment for professional basketball, which you've seen up close.

8:22Play of the game is better than ever. We have some of the most skilled players of all time, But there's a lot of questions around the business and the future of the league. Ratings are down. You know, there's a lot of talk about tanking, about load management. Do you think that the NBA is in need of some change, some major change or reinvention, similar to what we've seen in Major League Baseball, which seems like it's been a success? Yeah, I think, first off, I think the ratings were up this year, actually, in the NBA. But they did go, they put a lot of games that were mostly on cable onto NBC.

8:56So you expect to see some things go up. But I do think, I think any and every business, especially in today's day and age, has to change even faster than ever. And I think with, again, when you talk about technology, the distribution of technology, and then ultimately, if you're in the business that I am, which is the same one that the MBA is, which is really the attention business, you want people to pay attention and watch the things that you make the product. your product is essentially a thing that people don't consume they they watch it they consume it they sit and you have to get their attention and once you get your their attention you have to hold it so I think how that is done you know how you get the people the NBA doesn't have a distribution problem I think as they think about how they get people's attention and keep it is something they have to keep iterating on as they go forward for sure and like last night there was the NBA plan for the NBA playoffs, which had a lot of stakes because the losing team went away.

9:56And I think stakes is always a way to get and keep people's attention and get people talking. And it also not only gets people who watch, but also the players playing care at a different level because it's literally win or go home. So I think into the future, I think basketball is in fantastic shape. Globally, basketball is far and away the second biggest sport in the world. The only one bigger would be soccer. And the third one is far down. The NBA is, I mean, basketball is second by a wide margin. Third is far away. So I think they have a good place there. They have great distribution for the next 11 years.

10:33They made that new media deal. That's fantastic. But I think as they think about literally the product that we consume and getting people who are much younger than me to watch and get their attention and keep their attention, they're absolutely going to have to make some changes. I think it's to add stakes to more of the games. That's interesting, right? The play-in kind of did that. The in-season tournament, they've tried it, but the business model actually needs some adjusting as well, I think, because if you don't adjust the business model, which is an inventory model, right? They have 30 teams playing 82 games, and they sell that inventory to media channels.

11:09It's hard to adjust it without adjusting the business. Will adding teams actually make that, will that actually lower the stakes a little bit? I wouldn't say it lowers the stakes. It just adds more inventory. You go from 30 teams playing 82 games, which is whatever that math is, roughly 2 ,400, 2 ,400 games. You're going to add two more teams, so you add another 160 games. So it just, I wouldn't say it lowers the stakes. I would say it's par for the stakes. I would say it adds inventory, which makes it, you need more people to get more attention from more people once you add inventory. Right. I had a lot more questions for Mav Carter, but we have to take a short break right now.

11:52But we'll be back more with those questions after this.

12:03You mentioned the growth of global basketball, second biggest sport in the world. Last year, there was some viral thing about you on the boat with LeBron, Jokic's agent. You were kind of consulting in an informal way for Project B, which is this new international basketball league. Can you tell us anything about what that league is going to look like, the men's version, which should be, I believe, starts later this fall, and how that's going to be different from the NBA's expansion into Europe, the EuroLeague, all of the other kind of global basketball. How is that going to be different? Again, I think basketball globally is in great shape and continues to grow by any measure.

12:43basketball is second globally, but one big one is how many domestic leagues there are around the world. China has a really big, robust league. Europe has a league in basically every country. And then they have the European League, the European Championship, essentially. Then, of course, there's the NBA that is King Kong of all these leagues. But I think no one has created a truly global league that truly taps into basketball fans around the world with one product that fans care about. And the guy starting Project B, that's what they're after. They're trying to create a truly global league like F1, right?

13:22If you think about F1, you know, NASCAR is fantastic, but F1 is truly global. They race all around the world, you know, though most of the drivers are from Western countries because you kind of need money to be a great F1 driver. Basketball has the opposite, right? Anyone can be great at basketball because the barrier for entry into the sport is so low. But the guys at Project B are attempting to build a global basketball league that matters and has stakes. And I believe that should come true also. But I think it shouldn't just be Europe or America. There should be a global basketball business that has stakes.

13:59And that doesn't mean all the domestic leagues, including the NBA and Europe, are going to exist and they should exist. But there's enough basketball fans and enough basketball players to go around and build multiple leagues around the world. And I think the way those guys at Project B are attempting to do it, it should exist and it needs to exist. And I think, sure, the NBA is going to go into Europe. I think they're going to, they already are, find challenges with that just because because Europe already has a very well-established basketball leagues. And, you know, you go to Spain or the best league is the Baltic League with Serbia and Slovenia.

14:34Those leagues are very well-established. And the European League is very well-established. So I think the NBA going in there, they're going to find some roadblocks. But that's their thing to figure out. But global basketball being figured out definitely needs to happen. Two quick questions because we're running out of time. Your company, Spring Hill, recently, somewhat recently, last two years, merged with Fullwell. You're the co-CEO. What does the combined company do that neither could do? So both, the two big things we got is at Spring Hill, we had a pretty robust, we were way ahead of them on kind of the digital side of content business.

15:12How are you creating shows that live on YouTube that most importantly become IP, like the shop? We have the show, mind the game that we own. And we have to, but when you own something, everybody's like, I want to own something. I want to own it. I want to own it. But then the burden is on you to monetize it also, right? And to take the risk of putting up capital to fund it and keep it going and put capital in to grow it, which is a fantastic thing. What Fullwell had that we didn't have, and now our company has both, obviously, that's the beauty of a merger. Through all the pain we went through of integration, they were the biggest and best in the world in live.

15:51Like we, again, we produced the Grammys. We're going to do all the ceremonies for the 28 Olympics in LA, the opening and closing ceremonies for both the Olympics, Paralympics. We did Harry Styles live at Manchester, in Manchester this year. That was just on Netflix. We did One Shot with Ed Sheeran that was just on Netflix. So they were the best in the world at live. And the guy who leads that, Ben Winston, my partner and Gabe Turner, they were just the best in the world at that. And we did no live. and together, that is where the content, the future of the content business is really, there's really upside in live entertainment, live experiences and the digital side of the business.

16:31Scripted business, there's still a lot of growth and a lot to be done, but it's really like finding a needle in the haystack to find a hit scripted show. It's really hard to do. Last question for you. I know that you're not going to tell me, you're not going to make news on stage, though I wish that you would about what LeBron is going to do next season, whether he's going to continue to play, whether he's going to retire. I'm from Southern California. I would prefer that he played for the Lakers. But, you know, we can set that aside. But when you guys are having a glass of wine, having dinner, you know, talking about what his future looks like, what's the advice that you give him?

17:04What do you suggest that he do? It changes between glass one and glass nine. OK, what do you say on glass nine? In glass nine, it's like. Incredible what you've done. And don't worry about what people think. Just continue to be you. Whenever you decide you've had enough, be done with it. And live your life and enjoy your family and more wine and your kids. And who gives a shit what happens? It's been an amazing ride. We've done amazing things. Continue, obviously. He loves his community. He gives back to his community a bunch. And just really continue to do what fulfills you, what makes you feel good.

17:42Because that's what the rest of the world is doing, too. We all assume that people care about everything we do. No, everybody's too busy caring about themselves. So I try and tell them to make sure you focus on yourself. Well, that feels like a great place to end it. Mav, thank you so much. It's been a great conversation. Thank you, guys.

18:07Ben Smith:Okay, that was an incredibly fun conversation. I'm kind of jealous that I did not get to be a part of it. And obviously, it was largely a conversation about basketball, inevitably. But there was a little bit in there about media. Sorry to our listeners. We got some sports fans, I will say. No, no, that was sports. Sports is media. Sports is, in some days, I think sports is all of media. But I guess I'm curious what you took from that about, you know, there is the sense that the Spring Hill era is sort of over and they made the most of it. Do you think that that thread of a kind of athlete-led business continues?

18:40Ben Smith:or do we go back to the world that Maverick kind of references, the past world, where you just kind of go and become a sportscaster? I actually think that they are better positioned than pretty much anybody else in this space because they have that ace in the hole. That's LeBron James. You can see this with his own show, which Mav references in the interview, Mind the Game, which is, you know, a pretty, they didn't come up with the concept of an athlete-hosted podcast that's happening while the season is going on. But they took it to another level with a level of detail, insider knowledge. And of course, you know, the idea that LeBron James is going to be sounding off on things that are happening and giving his in-depth perspective on things that are happening essentially right now.

19:27And they've also been able to just use the amazing connections that both, that the entire team has to book incredible superstars on the show. So they have that component. And that's where Mav said that they do the digital thing quite well. And they've had some success with certain shows like this. You know, they had The Shop, and regardless of what you think of the quality, and this is in a slightly different bucket, but they made the remake of Space Jam.

19:51Ben Smith:So they've done some, they have done some projects. I don't think I caught that one. I was not a fan, and I think a lot of people didn't, it got panned. But it was interesting, and it came out during the, at the right time, kind of in a certain moment of the pandemic. But I think that they've got kind of an ace in the whole. Clearly, they're thinking about what the future is going to be. And you can see a world in which they do something very similar to what Peyton Manning, what the Mannings have done with Omaha Productions and kind of spin out all of these different projects. And now they're saying they have live as well.

20:22So it'll be really interesting to see kind of how they juice the live component with the people they have as a part of their little stable.

20:27Ben Smith:I kind of see it. Is there anything left for independent sports media in here? Or do the leagues and the athletes ultimately own the whole conversation. You know, it's really interesting because there are really popular individual sports creators. We've seen some success and people operating outside of the kind of mainstream, like Pablo Torre, who's been a huge thorn in the side of the NBA and of some other leagues and some famous players and coaches. And, you know, obviously we had Pablo on the show to talk about it and he did a tremendous job. But I do think that the real center of power is, of course, with the players who now, if they have smart management and they have a clear, well-thought-out plan, they can really build hugely successful businesses and enterprises on their own that attract huge ad dollars and sponsorships.

21:18Ben Smith:Yeah, and are sort of safe in that regard. I mean, I think there will always be space for Pablo and some, you know, independent investigative types. I was at some point recently, I was talking to somebody, a lawyer who works with, let's say, with a professional sports team, and asked him what that job was like. And I said, ah, that's about 70 % cover-ups. So I feel like there's always going to be some in there. But let's get to your true passion here, basketball. What does the globalization of basketball, what is that about? In a moment of waning American kind of soft power broadly, the soft power of basketball is unbelievable.

21:54Ben Smith:What is happening? It's really interesting to hear Mav diagnose and kind of work through some of this on stage. And I think I ultimately mostly agree with his perspective, which is that basketball is the second largest sport in the world, clearly behind football. It's grown tremendously in its importance culturally around the world and its influence and its popularity. It's the reason why so many of the best players in the NBA right now are international players. I mean, of the top five players in the NBA, only one arguably is American these days. The NBA has a problem, and there's an opportunity in global basketball, which is that there are a lot more good quality athletes, and there's still only one dominant league, which gobbles up all of the attention and the money and the talent.

22:43And so if the Project B team is able to kind of siphon away some of that and build what sounds like from what Matt was talking about to be some sort of like F1 tournament style game, they could theoretically build a competitor to the NBA. The NBA really is limited by geography. You can't have teams fly from Portland, Oregon to Paris, France and play. It's the reason why they can't be in the same league because it doesn't make sense in terms of when to watch the games. it's too burdensome and taxing on the actual schedule, which means that there's a real opportunity if there are quality basketball players who enough critical mass of them who want to play and are willing to play in other places.

23:24It seems like that's the real opportunity for Project B. All of these guys are trying to do it in Europe, which, I mean, it seems interesting. The NBA is launching their kind of own thing there. But I think that the real opportunity is somewhere further afield, athletes who don't want to go as far and fans who have too much of a time lag between when NBA games are happening and when they could watch these games live. So maybe a place like Africa, the NBA has tried to develop in Asia. Those seem like some of the obvious places to go.