Do you think Steven Crowder got lowballed?

[Anonymous]

For those who don’t know, he got offered 50mil for four years with DW. I don’t think it accounted for all the employees that Crowder has either… let me know!
and stay out of the comments with that “idc” shit please 💀

[BCA6010]

Steven would've been a moron to sign that contract as is. However, this situation is being blown up by both sides for dumb reasons.

For starters, you have to keep in mind that it was the DW that approached Crowder, not the other way around, and the offer was a blueprint open for negotiation. Giving benefit of the doubt, this contract was a generic offer not specifically tailored to Steven (probably sent by a corporate rep), and it's very obvious that Steven and Jeremy didn't discuss it together at all, but both are trying to claim some kind of high ground without having actually negotiated anything.

12.5 million dollars each year for four years with the understanding that all operating costs would be Crowder's responsibility is way below his value. If Crowder ran independently on a $10/mo model just for the people who follow and subscribe to him personally, he'd be making approximately 3x that number, and probably more as it gets established. This is also before taking into account the fact that he has an entire staff of his own, and more importantly, funds investigative journalists of his own that frequently go after stories the DW doesn't want to touch at least until someone else does. It's an offer that would make sense if it was directed at a logistically smaller operation. To put into perspective how expensive investigative journalism can be, most of the big name media companies don't even do it themselves anymore, at least not thoroughly enough to be of value.

An issue that Jeremy never clarified however is the alleged collusion with big tech, and the fact that a lot of the numbers don't add up. DW pays Facebook and YouTube huge chunks of money to advertise the company, and specifically Ben Shapiro's show. At the same time, Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles address and attack subjects that get smaller channels (or larger ones including Crowder) banned on Facebook and YouTube. Whether intentional or not, those companies are basically culling the DW's competition for them. The contract also outlines which tech platforms Steven would be able to publish, and divides the pay per episode by arbitrary percentages rather than actual proportionate viewership numbers. It also inflicts a penalty greater than the full value of one episode just for not plugging all of the day's advertisements. Crowder is famously successful on Rumble, and runs his business model entirely off of Mugclub subscribers and one advertisement per episode, but neither paid subscribers or the actual ratios of viewership factor in. It's pretty hard to not acknowledge that Crowder is 100% correct regarding how DW is treatings it's viewers as product for advertisers with how this contract is set up. Steven would also have to basically surrender all

The problem with Steven's side however, is that he wants to retain pretty much full autonomy of his show and how he always did it on the Blaze. The Daily Wire is pretty openly trying to compete directly with mainstream media companies like Fox News, and wants to keep everyone on a traditional corporate leash, and really the Blaze is the only right-leaning media company that is more hands-off - except Steven just left them due to dissatisfaction with some other aspect of the business. Ultimately, he's going to have to go independent and start his own company to get what he wants because probably nobody is going to give him an acceptable offer. I've watched him enough to know that he has pretty much known this for a while and wants to devote at least some of his time to hosting debates and elevating newer creators, so why he even bothered putting Mugclub out as free agency and listening to offers in the first place is kind of puzzling.

[Asker]

Yeah I also thought it’s possible they expected a counteroffer.
12mil wouldn’t cover much, if you conciser his production costs and employees salaries, and that doesn’t even account for the value to buy Steven himself. It’s expensive to wanna buy out a person whose well known and doesn’t wanna be bought out.

[BCA6010]

Considering they've known and collaborated with each other for years, I'm also surprised that they didn't discuss terms directly beforehand, either, and just sent a contract to be re-negotiated. From what I've heard, this is standard practice in media and Hollywood type industries, but from the outside looking in, it seems like this entire thing was easily avoidable just by common business sense. I also think it's very likely that the DW doesn't want the entirety of LwC and just wants him to run a stripped down show and the occasional Change My Mind or other special shows, similar to how their other big names do, which again, anyone who knows Crowder would know he'd never agree to that.

[Asker]

Apparently Steven told them to make a better offer, waited three months, and then was hurt cuz they never reached back out again

[Anonymous]

It’s $50M for him and his business. At first, it sounded like a great deal but the expenses alone would only net him a 5% margin, which is insulting if you’re even entertaining the notion of hiring a well known figure. They also explicitly stated that if you are boycotted by the advertisers, you immediately get a 25% cut in pay, which is insulting too because DW says they fight the cancel culture mob just by being in business. DW has a lack of awareness when their subs think that they share their values but then go and use what you stand against to their advantage. This is hurting DW a lot more than Crowder, considering that most every personality on DW is addressing the issue when it could easily just be ignored.

[Uannoyme]

He also makes money from Mug Club, merchandise sales and some sponsors. I think he'll be fine.

[Asker]

Yeah but the contract probably would’ve taken away his abilities to monetize his own name. He’ll be fine cuz he turned them down.

[Uannoyme]

Clearly he feels like he was low balled if he turned them down. I'm not up to date on the situation.

[Asker]

They offered him basically 12mil a year which would likely be expected to pay for all his employees, and production costs… which is wild. That’s really low. Especially after four years of inflation.

[Uannoyme]

Just watched a video of him talking about it. He said the issue isn't really the money, it's the penalty for demoneitization on YouTube.

[Asker]

Yeah I’m sure an even bigger part is he doesn’t wanna be managed either. At blaze that was basically just an open platform for him

[Anonymous]

I’m confused

[Asker]

What

[Opinion Owner]

How is $50M a lowball?

[Asker]

That’s what I’m asking. But 50mil is spread over four years so really it’s only about 12mil a year. And he employes a lot of people who probably mostly make six figures each. People are mocking him for saying he’ll hardly break even if even, but realistically that might be true

[Opinion Owner]

Unless he is employing thousands, I would say he is fine.

[Asker]

Um… if he was employing thousands, he would need to be making a lot more than 50mil… a LOT 💀
2k people would mean 25k a year… and leave zero for crowder. It’s pretty easy math you can even use the calculator on your phone. And that’s if he used up 50mil in one year… but it’s not, that’s over four years. So really they’d be making like 7k each. Doesn’t include production costs either and crowder has always had very high production quality.
Let’s say it’s 12mil… I don't know how many people he employs, but put it at 100 people. That’s 120k each person; and still doesn’t account for paying crowder or production costs which is at least a couple million for crowder (he works very hard and did start the company; despite how you feel about him) and I’m sure a couple million for production for the year. Some of his workers are co-hosts, big comedians, lawyers, accountants, and tech nerds… who’d be easily making over 120k in the regular job field. Let’s take 4mil off that 12 mil, which I really don’t think is enough but let’s go low as possible. That’s only 80k each. The 12mil a year also doesn’t account for potential inflation. He definitely would hardly be breaking even if even.