Warner Bros. Entertainment and Turner Sports have invested $15.8 million in NBA superstar LeBron James’ multimedia site, Uninterrupted. Funds from the Time Warner companies will be used to expand the offerings on the year-old Uninterrupted platform, which specializes in offering athlete point-of-view content, it was announced Wednesday.
“The best thing about Uninterrupted is there are so many creative opportunities for athletes to tell their stories,” James said. “I’m excited to be partnering with important, innovative companies like Warner Brothers and Turner to keep building Uninterrupted as a place for athletes to go to connect with fans and share their stories in a different way.”
The investment comes on the heels of NBA star Kobe Bryant announcing his retirement Sunday through another website for athletes, Players Tribute, which resulted in the site nearly crashing. Former Major League Baseball star Derek Jeter launched that site in October.
“Whether it’s through real-time videos, original digital series or documentaries, Uninterrupted provides that creative outlet for athletes to share their stories in a way they can’t anywhere else,” Uninterrupted CEO Maverick Carter said.
Uninterrupted, which is self-financed by Carter and James, launched a year ago on the Turner Sports’ Bleacher Report site with a specialty in athletes offering point-of-view videos such as NFL star Rob Gronkowski.
Craig Hunegs, president of business and strategy for Warner Bros. Television Group, said, “LeBron and Maverick bring incredible energy, focus and creativity to everything they do and are excellent partners with us in TV, film and digital. Joining forces with LeBron, other world-class athletes and Bleacher Report to aggressively build Uninterrupted was an easy decision that’s great for fans and great for Warner Bros.”
In addition to having an equity stake in the company, Turner Sports will now serve as the primary sales arm for Uninterrupted. Part of Wednesday’s announcement included a new multi-year deal with Verizon’s mobile platform go90 to provide content, original series and exclusive athlete point-of-view videos.
