LeBron (Probably) Isn’t a Billionaire Anymore

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Just because you’re good at one thing, doesn’t mean you’re good at everything. Take, for example, LeBron James. He’s one of the top three basketball players of all time, but is he also good at working out? This guy doesn’t think so:

Sure, everyone’s a critic on the internet and anyone can claim to be a doctor, but also, Dr. Mike makes an ironclad case that LeBron James does not work out well. Foam-rolling doesn’t encourage faster recovery, his warm-ups would probably injure normal humans, and these exercises don’t strengthen the target muscles, but waste energy and time.

Now, does it matter? For LeBron, no. It doesn’t. LeBron James might literally (and I mean literally) be the greatest athlete in the history of mankind, with the greatest combination of strength, speed, coordination, agility, health, height, and what have you, of all time out of all humans who have ever lived. Does it matter how he works out? Probably not! His pecs will be damn strong no matter what he does.

Really, he’s just wasting his own damn time. And it’s up to LeBron if he cares that he’s wasting his time. (Of course, there’s something that he could be putting that time into: not losing his status as a billionaire, because his celebrity production company is in trouble…)

Then again, we all get things right and wrong, including the very best among us. Just in the last week, I’ve gotten one very big thing wrong (but it’s really, really good news). As you’ve probably guessed by now, it’s time for another edition of “What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong”. We’re going to talk AI, overrated and underrated genres, prestige TV shows, podcast interviews, music catalogue sales, and a whole lot more. 

Right: LeBron James and SpringHill Company Is Overvalued

For years now, I’ve been trying to warn people that celebrity production companies are overvalued/overhyped. (To be fair, a lot of stuff in Hollywood has been overvalued over the last few years.) Inspired by that Twitter meme, here’s how it started:

And how it’s going:

Allegedly, The SpringHill Company (co-owned by LeBron James) has never made money. Honestly, The SpringHill Company’s lackluster revenue ($100 million in one year) is almost as bad as the losses. For a company valued at nearly $700 million (which the Wall Street Journal reported as making nearly $200 million at some point), that revenue backslide seems much, much worse. Their earnings are going backwards! 

Just because you’re great at basketball doesn’t mean you’re great at starting a Hollywood production company.

If you’ve been following the Streaming Ratings Report, none of this is a surprise. LeBron’s production company hasn’t had a hit in years. This fall, he’s had not one, but two flops: Rez Ball and Starting 5, both on Netflix. Neither made any of the ratings charts I track, except for Luminate…but the Luminate numbers for both titles were so low, it just confirmed their status as flops. 

Of course, this might be news to two European production companies. In spite of all the flops and losses, the deals aren’t slowing down for SpringHill Company. Variety reported that they’ve made a deal with Mediawan, and they’re merging with Fulwell 73.

The real question is: who leaked this damaging info to Bloomberg and why? This Bloomberg article (by Lucas Shaw who deserves kudos for this seriously great reporting) came out a month after the merger announcement. Really, though, the SpringHill Co. has deserved way more scrutiny for a long time now.

Related: Is LeBron No Longer a Billionaire?

Let’s review the numbers from Forbes (who previously rescinded a Kardashian’s billionaire status) article on LeBron’s wealth:

• Springhill Company: $300 million
• Fenway Sports Group: $90 million
• Real Estate Holdings: $80 million
• Blaze Pizza: $30 million
• Cash/Other Investments: More than $500 million

Well, it’s safe to say that SpringHill Co. is no longer worth that much. And as far as Fenway Sports Group, while sports franchise valuations are going up, they own an RSN! And RSN values continue to plummet. 

Is LeBron no longer a billionaire? It depends. Forbes wrote that LeBron “has commanded more than $385 million in salary…and raked in upwards of $900 million in income from endorsements and other business ventures.” Now, after cuts to his agents, managers (call it 20%), and taxes (call it 30-50%), that’s probably down to just $600 million. If LeBron had plowed all of his money into the S&P 500 since 2005 (and kept spending down), he’s probably still a billionaire. 

But if he’s spent $100 million or more on SpringHill Company (and other bad investments), then sorry, he probably isn’t. It seems to be a “Tres Commas” situation.

Wrong – The Academy is Dual-Casting This Year’s Ceremony!

I honestly couldn’t be happier about this very, very big correction. 

Just last week, I wrote about “saving” the Oscars to get the ratings up. In addition to nominating more popular films, I suggested dual-casting the ceremony on Hulu/Disney+ as well as broadcast, even writing that I doubted this would happen. (I’ve recommended this for years, to be honest.)

Well, great news: the ceremony is going to be on both Hulu and ABC!!!! (Not Disney+ though…)

When you get things wrong, what matters is why. In this case, you can blame falling behind on my news roundups last month due to the holidays. 

While the horrible start time (4:00 Pm on the West Coast) remains, this is a huge victory and a very smart change. I can’t wait to see what impact this has on the ratings. Given that streaming is 40% of living room TV viewing according to Nielsen, this change could boost the ratings 3 to 10% on its own, but a lot of factors go into the ratings. If this estimate is right, it would mean a three-year increase in ratings from the 2020 award year nadir.

Now I just hope against hope that either The Wild Robot or Inside Out 2 surprises us with a nomination, though I doubt that happens.

Right: I Predicted that Paul-Tyson Would Do Big Numbers

Check out my article last month for all the numbers and analysis on Netflix’s big Tyson-Paul fight, but I do want to quote what I wrote earlier this year:

“I’d also bet their boxing match with Jake Paul and Mike Tyson does big numbers, simply because you could argue it has bigger stars in America than any of their past events.”

I predicted that Paul/Tyson would do big numbers, and it did. Mainly, it had two big, cross-generational stars. The question is whether Netflix can replicate this in the future.

To my credit, I also had big expectations for Wicked as well.

Wrong: Prestige Shows Get Clicks, and That’s Why Outlets Cover Them

Often in the Streaming Ratings Report, I’m critical of other reporters and journalists who either…

1. …call shows “hits” without data. (And many aren’t hits…)
2. …don’t cover the ratings on shows.

After making similar claims about Pachinko last September, The Ringer’s Ben Lindbergh sent me some excellent feedback on why prestige TV shows garner so much more coverage than more popular shows, like, say, NCIS, CSI, or some other acronym show:

• They drive clicks!

Fair enough! Since the online space is mostly dominated by higher-educated, richer people who probably have jobs where they can sit and work at a computer (like me!), they’re more likely to engage with digital news articles. The types of shows that appeal to that specific demographic will generate more traffic. (Not to mention there’s probably a lot less to say about procedurals.)

If I had to slightly qualify my criticism, this explanation (which I agree with) doesn’t justify headlines that make it seem like unpopular shows are popular. (The Ringer does a good job avoiding this; other websites don’t.) It also doesn’t account for some amount of selection bias. Still, great point!

Ben also pointed out one reason why critics don’t update their priors on whether shows are popular or not: the ratings come out four weeks later. Digital media lives in the now, and a four-week wait is too long. Another great point! (And I hope this changes in the future.) 

Wrong: The Giant Music Catalogue Sales Continue

I thought gigantic music catalogue sales were slowing down, and even wrote so for my last “What I Got Right/Wrong” column, but both Queen and Pink Floyd sold their back catalogues for huge bucks this year. 

Still, I’d bet if you graphed it on a timeline, the sales are slowing down, but that might just be because the mega-artists have already been scooped up after the initial frenzy.

Right: Kamala Harris Needed to do Interviews Earlier

Almost exactly one week after I wrote that Kamala Harris should have gone on more podcasts in general, Semafor had a very interesting interview with deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty, arguing that the Harris campaign did try to land interviews on male-leaning sports podcasts, only they were roundly rejected by everyone, since they afraid of losing their right-leaning listeners. 

I’m skeptical. 

First off, even if this is true, you know when they should have leaked this information? During the campaign! I guarantee prominent hosts like Bill Simmons wouldn’t want the heat from their left-leaning listeners that he rejected the Harris campaign. I especially doubt that he would have rejected Tim Walz. (Doing great interviews was supposed to be the VP nominee’s strength.) Second, the Harris team still could have found willing podcasts; thousands of podcasts exist, and I guarantee that some of them would have welcomed the publicity boost. 

But really, this is all irrelevant because Harris and Walz spent months not doing any interviews!!! I wish Tani pushed Flaherty harder on why the campaign did so little press in August and early September, to the point that it became a political liability. 

Again, the issue wasn’t not enough podcast interviews; it was not enough interviews period. 

Wrong: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Godzilla Minus One Are on the Netflix Ad-Tier

Going through my archives, I realized that when I discussed Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Godzilla Minus One in the Streaming Ratings Report, I didn’t take into account the effect of Netflix’s ad tier. Since Sony films aren’t available to some non-negligible number of Netflix subscribers on its ad tier, these films’ streaming numbers will automatically be lower than Netflix originals.

This fact will complicate any analysis comparing theatrical releases on Netflix to straight-to-streaming films.

Right: Updating My Overrated and Underrated Genres for 2024

To close out 2023, I wrote an article about “The 20 Biggest Myths in Hollywood”. (And I just updated it again last month.) Near the end of that article, I recapped some overrated and underrated genres. Let’s update that list!

Overrated Genres

• Prestige TV Shows – Right! Just last September, Elaine Low reported, once again, that buyers are allergic to “dramedies”, even after The Bear and Hacks did great at the Emmys.
• Horror – Right! Since I just wrote an article comparing animated films to horror films, and way more horror films are flopping in theaters this year, I’m still right on this.
• Adult Animation – Right! The “Adult Animation” genre was 2023’s worst genre of the year, Arcane just flopped, and I wrote about this genre’s struggles last August. (My usual caveats about budget still apply.) So yes, still overhyped.
• Anime – It’s Complicated but Still Right! After the success of Avatar: The Last Airbender this year and One Piece last year, its still-growing global revenue, and dedicated fanbase, I get why people think this genre is red hot…but not a single anime show made the Nielsen charts in 2024 (and a bunch came out!) and the top anime film was 70th on the theatrical box office charts in 2024. So, to summarize, anime is a strong source of IP, but anime titles themselves struggle in America, outside of that devoted fanbase.
• The Kardashians – Still Right! Read my take here. Disney said this was a top-performing show, but it still hasn’t made the Nielsen charts. And the details about their new contract never leaked. Plus Matthew Belloni told me on his podcast that Hulu hasn’t touted the success of the The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives…because it did better than the Kardashians.
• Concert Films. I just wrote about Olivia Rodrigo’s concert film flopping in the SRR, and no other artist followed Taylor or Beyonce’s lead this year, which sort of tells you everything you need to know about this genre.
• Sports Docu-Series – Right! This genre performed worse in 2024 than 2023, as two of the biggest docs (Receiver and Starting 5) flopped.
• Basketball Movies and TV Shows – Right. Same as above.

Underrated Genres

• Superhero Films – Probably Right? Earlier this year, I wrote in a “What I Got Right…” article that superhero fatigue is real, but then Deadpool & Wolverine destroyed the box office. This genre is underrated, for now, because it’s not dead yet. (2025 and 2026 will provide huge test cases.)
• Sitcoms/Comedies that are actually funny. – Both? Some sitcoms started doing well at the end of the year (Nobody Wants This, The Inside Man) while others flopped hard.
• Procedurals – Still Right. But it’s hard to say until some real streaming procedurals come to Netflix.
• Animated Movies – Definitely right. A few months ago for the Ankler, I made the case that animation (not horror) was the real hot genre, since its hits were huge, and the smaller films still made their money back (meaning that had a low fail rate). Since then, Transformers One made $129 million global (on a reported $75 million budget) the week before The Wild Robot made over $300 million, and Moana 2 set records. (I can’t wait to add Moana 2 to my horror films vs. animated movies graphic.)

Wrong: The NBA Did Leave WBD

Compared to many, many other pundits, I was always more skeptical that Warner Bros. Discovery (via TNT) would lose its NBA rights. And yet WBD settled its lawsuit with the NBA, gaining a few things, but losing the NBA. I still think that that skepticism was warranted, but at the end of the day, the WBD did lose the NBA.

My coverage of the actual ramifications of the NBA deal, though, held up quite well. The NBA sold a third package of national rights, to air/stream more games, and local NBA media rights deals look set to continue sliding. The NBA’s ratings have also continued to slide. While they might get a boost in the next NBA deal as more go on broadcast TV, they’ll almost certainly fall for the streaming-only games, which happens to the NFL right now on Prime Video. (The Prime Video games have taken about three years to catch up to previous NFL channel games, but still lag behind Sunday and Monday night football games, according to Nielsen.)

The NBA allegedly gave Amazon a discount to get access to their data; I can’t wait to see how this plays out in a year or two if ratings are down.

Wrong: I’m More AI Skeptical Now

If you had asked me, last year, post-GPT-4 especially, I would have told you that there was an 80% chance that an LLM could write a passable Streaming Ratings Report (or at least the first draft) in the next five years. Now I’m down to 20 to 40%. Frankly, looking at how much logic LLMs can hold at any one time, I’m far more skeptical. There’s too much information to synthesize, and its predictive algorithms will mostly spout what other people have already written (even if it’s inaccurate) rather than what’s actually happening according to the data. 

And even if this is possible, how much will it cost? The energy expenditures seem enormous. 

Why 20 to 40% then? Well, there could be another AI breakthrough at any time. But that’s what I’m betting on. 2025 and future upgrades could be a big indicator of which way and how fast this new technology is coming. 

Quick Hits:

• Right: Theaters Help Streaming Films. As I tweeted last month, it’s smart to read this newsletter since I’ll tell you what everyone else will be thinking six months from now. For example, read this NY Times article for the new conventional wisdom on theatrical releases.
• Wrong: Netflix Will Make Some Big Budget Films. I wrote about this a few months ago, but I was under the impression that Netflix would stop making big budget straight-to-streaming films, but it appears that they’re just going to be more selective about what/how many big-budget films they make.
• Right: Spotfy’s podcast pivot didn’t work. The latest update is that their head of podcasting, Sahar Elhabashi, is leaving after six years at the company.
• Wrong: Spellbound Flopped. Just two months ago, I hypothesized that Netflix’s Spellbound—which stars a princess!—could be Netflix’s next big breakout hit. That didn’t happen.