June '21
"Live events are quickly shaping up to be the most lucrative space for musicians in the digital-music era, and for good reason: As listeners become inundated with cheap access to music provided by streaming services, dedicated music fans crave more intimate experiences with their favorite artists. That’s why tours are getting grander and music festivals are drawing ridiculous crowds even if their lineups are all the same. It’s also why concert and ticket companies like Live Nation are growing like crazy." -Rolling Stone
Digital music from Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora has been great for musicians to gain awareness and new fan discovery but not great for solely relying on it to make a living. Instead, musicians use the brand recognition gained via digital music channels to monetize their audiences with in-person events, such as concerts. We believe this trend may be comparable to the future of creators in the fitness and overall wellness industry, where the digital side is important for growing brand awareness, but wellness professionals will earn the bulk of their profits via in-person classes and events. We currently see brands (Peloton, Tonal, Mirror, Future, Beachbody, Apple Fitness) and marketplaces (NEOU, Playbook) utilizing wellness professional creator talent to sell digital fitness content via monthly/yearly subscriptions. Unfortunately, while the brands and the marketplaces profit because they make a lot of money, and the end clients benefit because they get affordable quality content, the wellness professional creator gets the short end of the stick. The digital content is helping the wellness professional build brand recognition and digital followers while delivering little income. The current fitness digital landscape also sounds similar to what has happened to in-person boutique fitness studios over the past decade. The wellness professional employees/contractors create the value while the boutique gym owners capture the dollars. This is not to argue that fitness and wellness content is not worth creating or that at-home fitness will go away. On the contrary, we believe digital fitness content is an essential way for wellness professional creators to build an audience and earn additional passive income. We will use this theory to help wellness professional creators maximize the monetization of their global audiences with services and activities such as:
(1) Provide production equipment (cameras, lighting, sound), services (editing, consulting), and beautiful studios so that our creator's content looks professional. There is a huge gap between content from Peloton and individual creators at home. With so much free fitness content already on the web, any digital content behind a paywall must be polished and personal. *Additionally, we hope these brands and marketplaces mentioned above become Maverick Community customers who use our studios to film and see their clients in person.
(2) Create a network of studios worldwide that allows creators to go on tour, similar to musicians. In addition to how having a plethora of studios benefits the 15-minute city concept that we've written about previously, we believe we can help wellness professional creators earn significant money by enabling them to go on tour to a network of Maverick studios around the world. A tour will give wellness professional creators the ability to monetize their geographically diverse digital audience, and we believe there are thousands of wellness professionals who could generate significant in-person demand.
(3) Support wellness professional creators in sourcing and selling merchandise, from apparel to fitness and wellness equipment.
(4) Assist wellness professionals with creating events and retreats for their most loyal clients.
If this theory proves accurate, whoever can provide flexible, on-demand, and equipped space to creators will enjoy tremendous success.
Shoutout to Farooq Malik for discussing this idea