The Charlotte Hornets recently made a jersey patch deal with iconic content creator MrBeast (James Steven Donaldson) which permits MrBeast to display his food brand, Feastibles, on the jersey of each Charlotte Hornet player. Feastables will also be integrated into various Charlotte Hornets assets and events. This has far reaching implications around the power of content creators as media companies and brands. There has been speculation around how much MrBeast paid for the patch in that the previous patch sponsor, Lending Tree was reportedly paying $5 million per year.
I have a novel theory—Charlotte should be paying MrBeast for the association and his creative capabilities to integrate the Hornets into his content. Through his multi channel arsenal MrBeast has the power to reach millions of loyal followers and will likely enlist new fans for the Hornets and the NBA for that matter. Look at the data to support this. Mr Beast has 188 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, nearly 10 times that of the NBA. He has 41.8M Instagram followers, 19 times that of the Charlotte Hornets. He has 24 million followers on Twitter, double that of the Los Angeles Lakers, the most followed NBA team— and his videos have done more than 30 billion impressions. He was named by Forbes the top creator of 2023 with a net worth of $50 million. Products bearing MrBeast’s Feastables “feast like a beast” moniker are selling briskly.
Influencers, following the trail set by athletes, have become powerful forces in marketing, media and culture— so let’s use the athlete model as a comparable. When I was representing Shaquille O’Neal we allowed companies to use his IP, the “Dunkman” logo in their advertising along with his name, image and likeness. The company would pay a fee for that and they had the benefit of an association with Shaq which was valuable to them. We actually required them to use the Dunkman brand in their marketing communications because that helped us sell Dunkman product and created brand value. Our strategy was to use “other people’s money” (OPM) to build our Shaq/Dunkman brand. The beauty was that they were also paying for it. This is similar to the MrBeast/Feastable example in that MrBeast/Feastable is getting exposure from the Charlotte Hornets Jersey placement. It has been estimated at about $16 million per year.
If we use historical examples MrBeast would be paying a significant sum to be the Hornets patch sponsor. However, it would be interesting to calculate the value that the Hornets will receive as a result of what MrBeast is required to do to promote the Hornets-Feastable relationship. It will be similarly interesting to do a post season analysis of the comparable marketing benefits to each party as a result of the partnership. It could offer valuable insights for similar deals.
Another comparable is is how some brands with marketing muscles approach the movie studios to use their films in advertising. When I worked closely with McDonald’s I was aware that they would offer the studio to promote a film across various of their platforms from paid media, to happy meals, to in store promotion, to social media and public relations. The offer was that McDonald’s didn’t pay a fee but that the value was in their promotion.
MrBeast could use the same logic. As a result of MrBeast’s incredible reach and ability to connect with fans directly through his massive content and multi channel distribution platforms, the benefit to the Charlotte Hornet will be enormous. I would imagine he’ll be staging some of his content shoots at the Spectrum Center where the Charlotte Hornets brand will be integrated.
This ground breaking deal sets the stage for athletes and content creators to demand far more value than in the past because they are not only media companies but multichannel content and marketing machines. MrBeast can take a bow and has positioned himself to become the Godfather ushering in an era where influencers can become icons.
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