Goldman Sachs: The New Agency in Town?

  

It’s unlikely that many had an investment bank giant move into representation on their cards, but here we are. With a new majority stake in Excel Sports Management, the entertainment landscape has a new talent backer in play- and notably, that growth is once again in the sports market. Brandon Blake, our entertainment lawyer Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A., looks at the news and what it could mean for the talent agency business.


                                                          Brandon Blake


 

Goldman Sachs Acquires Major Talent Agency Share

 

The deal for the majority share has not been fully released, but is set to cost the investment bank almost $1B. The deal itself was with  Private Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, their private equity arm. We’ve seen private equity’s interest in the entertainment industry increase since 2020, but this will be one of the biggest shifts yet.

 

Notably, it is again happening on the sports side of talent representation. For Goldman Sachs itself, it’s not an illogical entry point into talent representation, as they are already pretty active within sports matters and launched a dedicated sports advisory in 2023. However, the real question is- will they consider traditional entertainment agenting? And if not, what does that say about the current state of “entertainment” for Hollywood?

 

Sports and Entertainment: An Uneasy Pair

 

As the ability to offer live sports streaming also seems to be crowding out more traditional entertainment among platforms, we could be seeing an “entertainment crisis” rising for Hollywood.

 

We’ve seen sports representation increasingly take a share of traditional agency representation as well. We’re even seeing sports rights acquisition take priority over entertainment spending from leading streamers, including Paramount and Disney.

 

Entertainment is an industry built on change, with audience tastes and even underlying technology almost constantly in flux. But as the fight for subscribers and revenue becomes the driver for most mature streaming platforms, we are facing a very real scenario where the original entertainment at the heart of Hollywood is being sidelined as less profitable than sports streaming, and a rising disinterest in film and movie nurturing over sheer profits. This may simply be the signs of another shifting trend, or it may be a warning Hollywood needs to hear. For now, we cannot know, but one thing is clear- it’s time to start paying attention.

 

 

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