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Liverpool FC owner Fenway Sports Group, Nike and US financier Todd Boehly will come together in a newly merged US-British film and TV company run by sports and entertainment veterans including NBA star LeBron James.
On Monday, LeBron’s US-based The SpringHill Company will announce a merger with Fulwell 73, a UK film, television and music production company that is co-owned by a group including actor James Corden and producer Leo Pearlman.
As part of the merger, shareholders will invest a further $40mn to help the company to grow.
“I don’t think there’s an independent production company anywhere in the world that can boast a group of financial partners quite as strong as this merger is going to have,” Pearlman told the Financial Times. “It’s a hell of a line-up of people who are coming into this new business.”
SpringHill is a production company founded in 2020 by James and sport marketer Maverick Carter. It has directors including Serena Williams, and the backing of Fenway, Epic Games, Nike, RedBird Capital Partners and Main Street Advisors.
The group also includes the Robot Company, a marketing agency and consultancy, and Uninterrupted, which provides a platform for athletes to produce their own content.
Fulwell 73, the production company behind TV series including The Late Late Show with James Corden and The Kardashians, is backed by Boehly’s Eldridge Industries.
The group is helping develop a £450mn film and TV studio complex in Sunderland, north-east England.
Pearlman said the deal, which is expected to close this quarter, would be a “merger of equals” that would position both businesses for the next “iteration of this industry”.
He added that the merged group would be “a global content company” with entertainment at its core that would also look at “the tangential opportunities that exist in the industry now that you have to exploit to truly be successful”.
Pearlman pointed to the growing demand for sports stars in particular to create content directly for consumers on YouTube and social channels, alongside platforms such as Netflix. “The partnership between brand and content is becoming ever more important,” he said.
Carter, who is chief executive of SpringHill, said. “Like everyone, we see the ways audience behaviour is shifting.”
The combined group has not yet agreed on a name. SpringHill is named after the housing complex where James was raised, while Fulwell 73 refers to a stand at Sunderland Football Club’s former stadium and 73 to the last time Sunderland won a major trophy.
Fulwell 73 produced the Netflix documentary series Sunderland ‘Til I Die.
“We’re trying to convince LeBron and Mav to ditch their Liverpool allegiance and become Sunderland fans with the rest of us,” Pearlman said.
