Maverick's Ambitions, Bitcoin Bears, and the Next Disney Happy Monday, and welcome back to The Daily Courant, our afternoon bulletin highlighting the latest and most remarkable journalism being published at Puck.
Today, we direct your attention to Matt Belloni's interview with Maverick Carter, the hugely ambitious media mogul (and LeBron James business partner) who passed on a potential deal with Blackstone to build something even bigger. “I have a lot of respect for Kevin [Mayer] and Tom Staggs," Carter says. “We wanted to go this direction, but I wish them the best.” Wonder what Reese Witherspoon thinks about that.
Plus, below the fold, William D. Cohan opens his notebook on the collapse of GE, once America's most valuable company. And Belloni goes another round with Netflix over the Dave Chappelle controversy—and what it could mean for Reed Hastings.
At a time when legacy media companies are trying desperately to appeal to younger, more diverse audiences, SpringHill has a clear—and startlingly ambitious—vision. Much has been made lately in Hollywood, and on Wall Street, of the value of talent-based production companies. That’s partly because former Disney executive Kevin Mayer has been running around with $2 billion of Blackstone’s money, trying to purchase and roll up these entities. Add to that the eyebrow-raising $900 million value ascribed to Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine shingle this summer when she sold to Mayer’s group—even though, as I attempted to explain at the time, the price tag wasn’t really $900 million.
It’s a sign of the times that the very famous person’s mantra has morphed from What’s my quote? to What’s my valuation?
Maverick Carter, C.E.O. of SpringHill Entertainment—the entertainment, marketing, and activism company fronted by N.B.A. superstar and very famous person LeBron James—has been at the center of much of that chatter. So when I saw the news on Thursday that Springhill had rebuffed sale offers and raised another round of funding that valued the L.A.-based company at around $725 million, I figured I’d give him a call to chat about it...
FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT 
From the beginning, Hastings has operated Netflix like his employees are part of a small family in a quiet Silicon Valley utopia. With the Chappelle flap, that doesn't appear tenable anymore. MATTHEW BELLONI 
The Virginia gubernatorial race is always a fetish for politicos—an off-year Rorschach test and harbinger of the general mood. This year’s iteration is more indicative than ever. PETER HAMBY 
After years ensconced in Disney's house of brands, Bob Chapek has asked some of his closest deputies to explore the strategic rationale for potentially spinning off ESPN. DYLAN BYERS 
The lessons of the collapse of GE, once the world’s most valuable company, include a warning for C.E.O.s inviting activist investors into the corporate henhouse. WILLIAM D. COHAN 
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