Breaking Down Lebron’s SpringHill Company for Modern Creators

Winning in the creator economy means using your influence as leverage. Let’s look at SpringHill as a blueprint. An ecosystem of IP, services and strong brand culture.

Photo Credit: Ike Edeani for Bloomberg Businessweek

The SpringHill Company started off small. In 2008, when Lebron James and Maverick Carter were just getting their bearings in the entertainment industry, the company was created as a means to produce More Than a Game, the documentary about the “trials and tribulations of high school basketball in Ohio”. This first venture under the SpringHill banner was about ownership. James didn’t want to lose rights to his own story. It would be another six years before releasing their first TV show, Survivor’s Remorse.

Since then, the duo has leveraged their influence to build SpringHill into a major player on the Hollywood scene. While their projects have spanned both genres and networks and the company has expanded outside of television and film, the mission has remained the same — to empower greatness in every individual by creating the most culturally-inspired brands, entertainment and products. Greatness as a fundamental theme is the red thread between James and Springhill that makes it work. 

Today, influence is currency when placed in the right hands. It’s a pathway made possible by the creator economy. The creator economy is “the class of businesses built by over 50 million independent content creators, curators and community builders including social media influencer, bloggers and videographers, plus the software and finance tools designed to help them with growth and monetization” (SignalFire). Through the possibilities opened up, an engaged following turns into community, community into corporate partnerships and then, in some cases, business entities of their own. The perfect strategy. 

It’s an uphill climb for so many.  

Sure, there are more than 50 million people engaged in their own level of content creation. Only a small percentage of them go on to see real earning potential. It’s an aspirational hobby for most. Success that starts on social media comes from shifting your influence away from those platforms and onto owned channels. With control over how to talk to your community you have more leverage. When Instagram is down, where will they find you? It’s the standard rhetoric whenever the site has an outage. Rooted in the point that your brand experience should be tailored and holistic, across a mix of different touchpoints. In structure and approach, the SpringHill Company offers itself as a blueprint for the modern creator looking to follow the pathway from social media stardom to founder. By maintaining a mix of brands, content and services the company is able to remain at the pulse of its brand culture while growing. 

Why Content Is King

SpringHill cashes in on an insight of the times: as we become a more digital society, we’ll need content to fuel those experiences. It used to be that winning in the creator economy was simple. In the land before algorithms skewed in favor of ad spend, where hashtags reigned supreme, the pathway to mega-success as an influencer was paved with consistency and massive followings. Today there is more noise to sort through and the tech is in control. The task of today’s creator is to build the engaged community of yesteryear, but also find a way to maintain ownership of their IP. The SpringHill structure is an answer.

SpringHill is a media company that makes and distributes different types of content. “Carter calls the company a “house of brands.” It’s part Disney storytelling power, part Nike coolness, and part Patagonia social impact.” (Bloomberg). They bring this to life through three core components: 1) brands as IP that can be licensed or sold via products like Uninterrupted merchandise 2) an in-house studio where they produce for film, TV and audio and 3) a media consultancy for brands wanting to leverage their expertise. A mission rooted in greatness and empowerment, consistent themes to their media output, and an ecosystem that’s self-reliant. SpringHill works because it's on par with the brand culture of Lebron, allowing them to leverage his stardom, but is not dependent on Lebron to function. 

From Influence to Entity

The true test of turning influence into cultural cache is this ability to strategically define brand culture and create synergies that allow it to live on its own. It’s the same task creators looking to grow their work outside of the creator economy face. James’ influence starts with basketball, a realm he mastered with skill and a consistent narrative. The work of SpringHill is not only transforming that narrative across ventures, but also forming partnerships that aid in its growth and longevity. 

The company made headlines when it was valued at $725 million in a deal with RedBird Capital Partners. Since SpringHill effectively licenses their content instead of selling the rights, deals like this infuse cash into more content creation which they’ll continue to own and profit from in the future. 

Perhaps it does take a bit of arrogant aspiration to take a community of likes and follows and turn that into a thriving company. But if the modern creator can take anything away from SpringHill, it’s that influence gets you in the door, but won’t keep you there. “You can’t create a real digital business on a celebrity. We don’t do that with LeBron. He is our founder and our North Star, but the business isn’t built on everything touching him.” (Bloomberg). 

SpringHill as a North Star for creators opens up possibilities. That you can maintain your IP, work with brands to provide services like content creation and launch products of your own all  under one roof. With the right synergies, brand culture takes on a life of its own, independent of persona. The creator economy promises nothing except that it will continue to become more saturated. Something like 75% of U.S. children (aged 6-17) want to be YouTubers when they grow up. Cutting through the noise to legitimate success hinges on a more strategic approach to brand growth. 

To win, creators with influence must find ways to infuse ownership into their formula at every level: a personal website, an email newsletter, content as IP. The myth of the creator economy is that software replaces the need for brand strategy. If your current success hinges on one particular platform, chances are you’re not set up for long term growth.

Those are the breaks.