The Conservative Movement Doesn’t See the Crumbling of Free Speech (or Their Hand in It)
the importance of the feud between Steven Crowder & The Daily Wire
The following was adapted from my Instagram stories series published January 25, 2023.
One of my biggest concerns in observing the feud between Steven Crowder and The Daily Wire, in addition to a term sheet that no one should ever sign, is how few in the Conservative, Free Speech, and Anti-Establishment movements recognize the threat this is to free speech as a whole. They are so blinded by the $50M price tag that they can’t understand the bigger picture. It has prompted me to question their perspectives and assessments on the rest of what they say while also differentiating the YouTube stars from those with actual business acumen.
FREE SPEECH
I hadn’t intended to continue discussing the feud between Steven Crowder and The Daily Wire (or go as in depth as you’ll see I have), but I’m not seeing adequate coverage of some of the key points. So we’re going to address it. This conversation matters, and most folks who have responded to it are so fixated on the money that they’re missing the point altogether.
Regardless of who you relate to in this back and forth (or if you find all of them repugnant), I urge you to take a minute to understand what is actually being addressed by Crowder. Free speech, or lack thereof, is at the core of all of this. Yet The Daily Wire and friends have masterly framed the issue as monetary.
We are in an environment where tech overlords determine what we can and can’t say. Guidelines are vague. Strikes come with no explanations. Speech comes with its own set of ready to use eggshells. Compounded by companies like The Daily Wire creating contractual obligations that further penalize those using their voices, free speech is going to disappear altogether.
This needs to change.
WHY THIS MATTERS
There are a ton of voices adding their two cents on this conflict, but the majority are missing the point — intentionally or otherwise. So let me lay out the framework as I see it, complete with commentary.
All of the videos I reference are rounded up into one handy dandy folder if you wish to draw your own conclusions from the same viewing. Feel free to start there.
Don’t for a minute think that the rampant censorship does not impact you. This is bigger than some beef within the Conservative movement. Choose a topic that’s close to your heart and imagine this through that lens if it helps. Take conservative politics out of the mix entirely.
As one who speaks about things on the fringe of society, these penalties could easily apply to me if I irked the wrong person. The Orwellian nature of devaluing language by changing definitions and meanings heightens everything else that is in play here.
THE REAL ISSUE
Steven Crowder is by no means the first to pull back the curtain on contracts that thwart free speech or lock talent into unreasonable obligations. Rewind a couple of months, and you’ll remember that Kanye was railing about this regarding the music industry. Jump all the way back to 2006 when Dave Chappelle walked away from a $50M contract with Comedy Central. (Oh how dare he!)
As Chappelle put it, “I wasn’t walking away from the money. I was walking away from the circumstances that were coming with the new found plateau. It takes a while when you punch through to adjust to the atmosphere.”
He goes to say, “I felt like in a lot of instances I was deliberately being put through stress because when you’re a guy that generates money, people have a vested interest in controlling you.”
If Chappelle has taught us anything, and this should be the real takeaway here, it’s that one can walk away from these exploitative contracts and build something different that doesn’t conflict with your morals or your peace of mind. He has remained one of the highest paid, most influential comedians of our time. Plus it’s nice to see that Chappelle continues to stir up controversy and make people uncomfortable. That’s a major role of comedy.
Choose your outrage. Netflix specials? SNL monologue? (Wow has this been scrubbed from the internet.) He’s pushing the limits intentionally. That’s why he left Comedy Central in the first place.
We’ve all come to expect these contract dynamics in Hollywood and the music industry. The difference here is that The Daily Wire claims to be railing against these things. “Down with Big Tech!” they shout. Yet as we learn, their contracts are just as predatory. I’ll break down numbers in a bit to show you why.
It’s the way the people around you position themselves around you to get in your pockets and your mind.
Big Tech doesn’t have to censor if these contracts are preemptively doing it for them. Companies like The Daily Wire are curtailing free speech whether they’re willing to admit it or not. If a company like this that purports to protect free speech is actually curbing it, what else is happening behind the scenes? It raises an awful lot of questions.
As we’ve learned over the past few years as the temperature on censorship has been cranked up, those with significant audiences can migrate anywhere and have the bulk of their audience join them. What about those still establishing themselves? The little guy can’t. They need the exposure that comes with YouTube or Instagram without having their hands tied by a punitive contract if something unexpected impacts their reach.
Contracts like the one proposed via the Term Sheet from The Daily Wire to Steven Crowder tie the hands of the up and comers so that they can be controlled. This is the real issue. The Daily Wire doesn’t want that to be addressed because they are the ones actively enforcing the limitations on free speech that YouTube has already put in place. Instead, they’re doing a brilliant job of redirecting the conversation to focus on money.
Curtailing free speech is the actual topic at hand.
While initially I was shocked by the proposed terms, what concerns me the most is how this feud has exposed the lack of critical thinking amongst those claiming to fight for our freedom. Rest assured, these types of contracts and worse are happening elsewhere. If folks like The Daily Wire who are “rallying” for free speech are proposing such sharp penalties, imagine what those who embrace censorship are doing. I’ve seen far too few folks address this.
I don’t know if Crowder is a standup guy or not. He’s not always my cup of tea, but this topic is something on which we strongly agree. There are an awful lot of people maligning his character. Maybe someday I’ll bump into him and find out for myself.
The reality is that none of that matters. Crowder doesn’t need to be doing this altruistically in order for his point to be sound.
TIMELINE
I’m willing to guess that the vast majority of you reading this haven’t a clue what I’m discussing and don’t have twenty pages of notes strewn across your floor as I do. Fear not! We’re about to do a brief-ish summary.
Knowing that there are a lot of moving parts, I’ve compiled all of the relevant videos as well as a few responses from others in the space into an easily referenced YouTube folder.
Crowder Exposes Term Sheet Anonymously
On January 18, 2023 Steven Crowder released a video titled, It’s time to stop… In it he reads excerpts from an anonymous Term Sheet that he received during his time fielding offers as he separated from TheBlaze. Based on the conditions therein, he asserted that some of the major conservative players are in bed with Big Tech and enforcers of censorship.
The World Speculates
The internet was abuzz with speculation as to who Crowder was referencing. Tim Pool and company lay out the most compelling debate over who it might be and why.
The Daily Wire Responds
A day after Crowder released his initial video, The Daily Wire outs themselves as being the ones behind the documents by responding with a video of their own. In it Jeremy Boreing, Co-CEO of the company, reads through the entirety of the Term Sheet offered to Crowder explaining each clause as he goes.
Candace Inserts Herself Into the Controversy
Furious that Crowder has brought her into this, which really he hadn’t, a day later, Candace Owens throws her hat into the ring, never one to shy away from the publicity of a good controversy.
She claims that it was obviously The Daily Wire. Why? Because she recognized the contract as one she had signed. Part of what I appreciated about the Tim Pool conversation was the range of scenarios that were feasible even if people did have a sneaking suspicion Crowder was referencing The Daily Wire.
Candace’s History of Clout Chasing
I’m going to pause for a moment on the timeline and introduce the notion of clout chasing. It was a new term to me when I stumbled across it a few months ago. Will Reusch describes the brilliance of Candace’s technique to broadcast her message through this means in his Instagram video.
The concept of clout chasing is an incredibly important piece of this puzzle. In essence, Candace sets her eyes on someone with more notoriety than she has and attaches herself to that person to elevate her profile. In some instances it’s positioned as friendship, as we saw with Kanye, while in others she straight up attacks them, as she did with the Kardashians and Chrissy Teigen. This week her sights are set on Crowder.
Crowder Responds
Sliding up to his desk with a smirk that rivals the cat that ate the canary, Crowder responds to The Daily Wire’s response. He airs segments of a recorded phone call with Jeremy Boreing regarding the nature of the contracts that The Daily Wire is offering rising talent. If you watch none of the other videos, please take a moment to watch this.
One of the big questions circulating is why would Crowder secretly record his friend? It’s worth noting that Boreing is the one that referenced Crowder as a friend, not the other way around. But the real reason to record someone is because you knew your words would be taken out of context. You do it to protect yourself when you sense something is off. You do it so that you are not misrepresented.
It’s also been mentioned that there is a performative aspect to what Crowder is doing. Of course there is. He’s an entertainer and a comedian first and foremost. But don’t be misled. Boreing in his video is doing exactly the same thing when reading through the terms. The amount of feigned confusion rivals Tucker Carlson.
There are also those saying that you don’t do this to a friend. Boreing and his team are the ones saying that he and Crowder are friends, not Crowder. What great protection so that the public perceives you as the standup guy in this back and forth.
It seems to be common knowledge that the two have supported each other through the years. Friends? Business colleagues? Hard to say. I would argue that the minute a friend sends you a Term Sheet as abysmal as the one Crowder received from The Daily Wire that the friendship ended then and there.
A lot of folks have questions about timing. As one who sits on things to give myself room to ruminate, nothing about the gaps in action are suspect to me. It is important to note that Mug Club Forever, Crowder’s current email list, came to be because as his contract with TheBlaze expired, TheBlaze would not release his existing subscriber list to him. He is rebuilding it from scratch.
There is a possibility that this is a publicity stunt, as many have speculated, but to me it does not energetically read as such. It feels like one more way that the curtain is being drawn back. The Daily Wire’s staunch defense of their terms demonstrates that they don’t see the harm they are doing.
If we’re going to change the landscape, those claiming to be building a new way forward have to create something different than what already exists. The Daily Wire is replicating the rot and perpetuating it. Be innovative! Find a solution where there’s a genuine opportunity for all to thrive.
One of the things that I find noteworthy is that Candace Owens appeared on Tim Pool’s show the evening after Crowder released his response to the response. She beat Crowder there by three days. It would have been one thing if Jeremy Boreing were the guest or Ben Shapiro, as co-founders of The Daily Wire. Nope, Candace.
Throughout the interview, Candice hides her ignorance by speed of speech. It’s exhausting. And for someone who claims to hate mudslinging, she is doing an awful lot of it.
Babylon Bee Wins the Internet
Meanwhile, The Babylon Bee does what The Babylon Bee does best.
BALLPARK REVENUE
The Daily Wire, as well as a lot of the right leaning commentators, is claiming that this is all about the money. Great! Let’s put some real numbers to it. Because if we do want to talk about the money, Crowder has every right to be insulted by the proposed terms. The Term Sheet from The Daily Wire offers a Fee of $50M over a 4 year Term. That’s $12.5M per year, not inclusive of Fee Reductions or production costs. We’ll get to that.
I’m ignoring the 2 year Renewal Term because it would be an extension of the original contract at the sole discretion of The Daily Wire and is really just more of the same.
It might help if we do some projected calculations based on the Term Sheet that The Daily Wire proposed to Crowder. The following numbers are derived from what the Term Sheet would stipulate and Tim Pool’s breakdown of the industry, as he has been one of the most level headed voices in the room.
Also note that DailyWire+ has a $12 per month subscription fee to watch content behind their paywall.
So to all of those commentators saying that this is all about the money and Crowder isn’t standing on principle, let me break down some figures and make a few projections. Mind you, The Daily Wire should be able to craft numbers even stronger than what I am about to offer based on the subscriber and conversion rates of the new talent they have added to their roster in the past few years — Candace Owens, Jordan Peterson, and Brett Cooper.
If The Daily Wire can’t project their own more comprehensive figures based on their existing talent and Crowder’s numbers, they have bigger problems than this public feud.
And remember, these terms are based on percentages so while they sound particularly atrocious with a $12.5M payout, they’re equally antagonistic to someone earning less.
I’ve consolidated subscriber counts for YouTube and Rumble since so much of the Term Sheet focuses on YouTube monetization. I’ve included Crowder and all of the talent under The Daily Wire umbrella and thrown in some bonus folks like Joe Rogan and Alex Jones along with Tim Pool, since I keep referencing him, as well as Glenn Beck, founder of TheBlaze.
Mug Club Projections
Now we’re going to do some Mug Club projections, meaning the revenue that Crowder would bring in through subscribers without ANY YouTube revenue. Between YouTube (5.94M) and Rumble (1.11M) he has roughly 7.05M subscribers.
Let’s assume there’s some overlap between the two platforms and that some of them are bots. Great. We’ll go with a very conservative estimate of a 5% conversion rate. Crowder would establish 350,000 new subscribers in the first year, a figure he references to Boreing. Not a coincidence.
Using The Daily Wire’s subscription model of $12 a month for full access to media and Tim Pool’s assumption of a churn rate of a year, that’s $4.2M in monthly revenue or $50.4M annually. I remind you, this is all without sponsors, ad reads, or YouTube monetization. Hopefully you’re beginning to understand why even the $50M offer is insulting.
But chances are those numbers are incredibly low. Instead, let’s examine the 1.11M subscribers that Crowder migrated to Rumble from YouTube (5.94M). That’s more like a 16% conversion rate which would bring the monthly revenue to $13.2M and the annual revenue to $159.8M.
The Daily Wire offered Crowder over a four year period, what he would be bringing in his first year based on modest projections. That’s not even considering what a long form documentary or stand up special (both stipulations of the Term Sheet) would contribute in additional revenue. Nor is it taking into account that Crowder is responsible for all of his own production costs so none of that would come out of The Daily Wire’s profits.
Additionally, the company revealed that its razor subscription business, Jeremy’s Razors, has sold over 100,000 razor subscriptions. The media juggernaut — which has nearly doubled its growth year-over-year every year since its 2015 founding — will continue that trend in 2022, projecting nearly $200M in revenue by the end of the year. The company reported $100 million in revenue in 2021.
Based on their own press release, The Daily Wire projected a revenue of $200M in 2022 and is aiming for $400M in 2023. Let’s assume that they hit the 2022 target. That means that on the conservative end Crowder would match 25% of their existing revenue, and on a slightly more optimistic model, he would match 75% of their 2022 revenue. He alone would also allow them to double their year-over-year growth as they aim to do.
You don’t think that The Daily Wire was hoping to hang their continued expansion on Crowder’s ability to increase their revenue do you? (Yes, that’s rhetorical and dripping with sarcasm.)
What Is a Woman? Documentary
We can slice it yet another (and slightly absurd) way since Crowder would be required to produce an Entertainment Special as well as a Feature Length Political Special annually. If Matt Walsh brought in 300,000 new DailyWire+ subscribers with his documentary What Is a Woman? yet has a YouTube following of 69K, that’s a 434% conversion rate.
What it actually tells me is that people were interested in the documentary and not Walsh himself, which means that the churn rate is going to be higher than our assumption of a year. Likely people will sign up for a month to watch the documentary and then cancel the subscription. This creates spikes in subscribership instead of long term sustainability.
Conversely, Crowder has proven that he can keep his numbers up and has the largest audience of any of them on a regular basis and has an enduring draw. Let’s ignore that for a minute and entertain these hilarious projections based on the figures of the What Is a Woman? documentary.
If Crowder were to have the same success as Walsh, that’s a 434% conversion rate. Apply that to Crowder’s YouTube subscriber count (5.94M) and that lands The Daily Wire with 25.6M new subscribers. At $12 a pop, they’re making $307.27M in revenue for a single month. Unlikely but worth pondering.
Let’s say Crowder is half as successful as Walsh with his annual obligations and only has a 217% conversion rate. That’s 12.8M new subscribers and $156.3M in revenue for a single month. Yet Boreing openly says that The Daily Wire wasn’t sure how they were going to get the money to pay Crowder. Hearing the CEO of a company say that he wasn’t sure how to fund a talent acquisition should be concerning in the first place, even if you haven’t crunched the numbers.
Part of the reason Crowder can’t definitively tell Boreing his current subscriber rates and view counts is that TheBlaze won’t disclose this to him. As mentioned before, they’re not even releasing his existing Mug Club email list for him to take when he leaves. He is rebuilding from scratch. This further illustrates why Crowder would be incredibly leery of signing terms that would recreate his current predicament but actually be worse.
One million active subscribers makes us one of the most successful conservative media companies of all time,” said Boreing. “It took us five years to get our first 100,000 active subscribers. But we doubled down, reached higher, pushed harder and, just two-and-a-half years later, we’ve 10Xed that number.
Mind you, DailyWire+ didn’t top 1 Million subscribers until 2022, only a year ago. Based on these projections, Crowder would be bringing in more subscribers in his first year with the company than The Daily Wire was able to bring in over a fire year period. Plus a third of those subscribers were from Walsh’s documentary and will fall off during 2023. And you wonder why The Daily Wire is mad?
SETUP FOR FAILURE
Vox Adpacolypse
In order to grasp the full picture, you have to understand that Crowder has had a target on his back for years. That’s part of what led to the Mug Club subscription model in the first place, one that Boreing readily admits he replicated for The Daily Wire in the form of DailyWire+. Unfortunately, The Daily Wire tried to make the Mug Club model work and failed.
The Daily Wire can’t recreate Crowder’s Mug Club model even though they tried because they don’t have the talent to support it. To drive that point home, I’ll quote Boreing not realizing what he said, “No company spends more money than The Daily Wire directly marketing its talent. We spend tens of millions of dollars every year helping our talent grow. Marketing our talent with real dollars.” You only need to market on that scale when the talent isn’t attracting its own audience. Become more interesting, spend less on marketing.
Three years ago, Crowder experienced the Vox Adpocalypse. I would link you to those videos but they’ve been removed by YouTube. (Yes, that’s a jab and underscores the overarching point.) In a coordinated effort, all ad revenue was pulled from his show, and he was deplatformed.
Resulting from that incident, Crowder has been demonetized on YouTube for the past three years and faces regular strikes and bans. It’s part of why so much of his audience has migrated to Rumble or become Mug Club subscribers at BlazeTV.
So for The Daily Wire to offer a Term Sheet with penalties for demonetization and deplatforming was an egregious insult, and they knew it. If, as they claim, they were ignorant to all of this, then they need to do better research on their talent acquisitions.
TERM SHEET BREAKDOWN
Because there has been so much mention in the response videos about the Term Sheet from The Daily Wire being perfectly good and a great offer, I’m going to dismantle it in painstaking detail. The fact that most people in the free speech landscape do not see the harm in this offer is incredibly telling. I don’t want to see anyone fall prey to conditions such as these. No one.
Here’s the other thing, if I am able to assess all of this as a casual viewer of Louder with Crowder, one who watches the occasional episode when he is discussing a topic that is of interest to me, how does no one in his shared space see this? For Boreing to claim that he and Crowder are friends and then send him this tone deaf of a Term Sheet is a slap in the face. This isn’t about the money, but if it were this is still a terrible offer.
Boreing begins his 52 minute response video saying, “I think there are a lot of misconceptions about the nature of the offer and the nature of the points. I think that Steven misunderstood a lot of the points.” My hope is that after reading through these breakdowns, that you grasp that this is not a misunderstanding. These are predatory contracts if one accepts the conditions of these Term Sheets.
First and foremost, this whole Term Sheet should have been approached with an assumption that Crowder would not be monetized on YouTube. Unfortunately, The Daily Wire is addicted to the YouTube revenue and ad fees. Boreing can’t fathom another model that could ever work, part of what breeds his resentment for Crowder.
I continue to be struck by the lack of creative or critical thinking at play. People are so locked into a YouTube revenue model that they can’t conceive of any other options. This issue has provided a clear distinction between those who are YouTube influencers and those who are building scalable businesses.
In this breakdown, I’m going to take the conservative estimates we calculated in the last section to apply these next figures to The Daily Wire revenue stream for Crowder specifically — $4.2M in monthly revenue and $50.4M in annual revenue. The Fee Reductions (aka penalties) are pulled directly from the Term Sheet that Jeremy Boreing, the Co-CEO of The Daily Wire, presents in his rebuttal video. (I’ll save my strong opinions about the idiocy of Co-CEOs for another day.)
I’ve included screenshots of the Term Sheet that Boreing shares onscreen throughout this video. If they were really interested in sharing the Term Sheet, I would have loved to see a downloadable version to read in its entirety. Regardless, each section is included with corresponding commentary. Because of the way that it is presented by Boreing, I might have missed some terms but have done my best to address them all.
By the way, this is another video I would love to see The Behavior Panel dissect because Boreing’s body language and micro-expressions are subtle but telling.
Toward the end of his response video, Boreing asserts that —
I’m sure he thinks he’s standing on principle. The problem is, you might even think that — first of all friendship is a principle. You might think, yeah, but some things have to be more important in the public space than friendship. I don’t know if that’s true, but let’s say that it is true — you have to be right if you’re going to burn one of your friends the way that Steven burned us. And Steven is wrong.
Except, Steven Crowder isn’t wrong when it comes to these terms. Here’s why.
Production Costs
Note that the Production Costs for Crowder’s show would come out of his Fee. This becomes relevant because even though he is paying for the production, The Daily Wire is claiming ownership of that work product in perpetuity. You pay for it, but we own it. Oh, okay.
No other talent at The Daily Wired is mentioned as having to carry the burden of their own production costs. While Boreing claims it is so that Crowder can maintain control, it’s one of the many ways in which The Daily Wire attempts to shirk all burden or risk.
Content + Work Days
This is where Boreing’s delivery becomes incredibly deceptive, preying upon talent’s naïveté. It is so disingenuous to say that The Daily Wire is only requiring 192 days of work in asking for a 1.5 hour Louder with Crowder show 4 days a week.
What about show prep?
What about monthly content?
What about quarterly content?
What about annual content?
What about Change My Mind?
What about investigative reporting?
While Crowder may not be airing a show on Fridays, per these stipulations, it does not mean that he is not working. Let’s add the additional work product back into the mix.
52 days for show prep
4 days for All Access Live Member Q&A (Monthly Content)
4 days (or more) for a Major DW+ Promo Video & Photo Shoot (Quarterly Content)
4 days for a Backstage Episode, Major Live Event, or VIP Experience (Quarterly Content)
10 days (or more) for an Entertainment Special (Annual Content)
10 days (or more) for a Feature Length Political Special (Annual Content)
??? for Ambiguous Additional Crowder Content (that may or may not be developed in the next four years)
That adds an additional 84 days to the 192 work days that Boreing is claiming for a total of 276. That surpasses the 250 days per year that Boreing says that most Americans work. Breaking it down even further, that means that there’s a daily rate of $45,289. This becomes incredibly relevant when we address the demonetization and deplatforming penalties.
Back Catalog
Crowder is expected to license the entire back catalog of episodes to The Daily Wire for the four year term without any additional residuals from that content. The Daily Wire is profiting off of work that they paid nothing to produce without compensating Crowder in any way. This becomes relevant when looking at how The Daily Wire wishes to handle ownership of work product created while Crowder is under contract with them.
Ad Reads and Promo Reads
Crowder regularly discusses how important it is to the format of his show that ad reads and promo reads are kept to a minimum. Currently these are capped at one per show or often don’t occur at all. To increase this to four or five per episode would drastically change the nature of the program.
It would also introduce sponsors that do not share the same beliefs as Crowder, a point he has emphasized numerous times as being of great importance to him. The Daily Wire would also cap his ability to reject sponsors to 10%.
Just because Boreing reads all of this dismissively does not mean that they are sound terms.
Ownership
Per the Term Sheet — ”DW will own all of the content contemplated to be created herein, and will own all DW-created channels and brands created by DW during the term. To be clear: DW can exploit those channels, brands, and content in perpetuity at its sole discretion.”
This next point is crucial to understand. The Daily Wire has spent nothing on production costs while Crowder has shouldered the entirety of them. Yet, The Daily Wire will continue to generate revenue off of them in perpetuity (i.e. forever and ever). Meanwhile, they absorb Crowder’s entire back catalog for four years without having to pay a dime for it. Shady.
This is key. It also means that Crowder owns none of his work product for the four years he is with The Daily Wire, despite having paid to produce it. Nor will he have access to it when the term ends. Even in the land of sitcoms that’s unfathomable. Royalties are the reason that the casts of shows like Friends or NCIS or Law and Order or Frasier will be set for life.
What is even worse is that Boreing goes on to explain this clause saying —
Just like all of the back catalog that Crowder would have been bringing over, we would have a license to have that all over at DailyWire+ during the 4-6 years that Crowder was here. At the end of that 4-6 years, he would take all of that content with him. Little bit different with the content that we’re paying tens of millions of dollars for during the course. That content would always stay with us. We would have a perpetual right to monetize that even after Crowder would leave.
This is not how that legally reads. If in fact that content were to be licensed to The Daily Wire, where does it say that? There is no language around licensing at all in this clause. It does not distinguish between content created with production costs paid for by The Daily Wire versus content where production is funded by Crowder. I would argue that this is intentionally ambiguous in hopes of having complete control while feigning that this was not their intent.
I’ll go a step further and say that for the level of control that The Daily Wire desires, this Term Sheet is insanely vague.
Adaptation Rights
Funny how The Daily Wire recognizes how important it is for Crowder to control his own production but assumes that they can adapt and monetize anything he says without requiring additional approval from him. I’m sure that will go over swimmingly.
Merch Rights
This is so minor relative to the rest of the revenue and penalties in this contract that I’m going to shrug and say, “Fine.”
[Update] Having watched the breakdown by Shad Brooks regarding the terms, I have shifted my perspective on the Merch Rights. While I still don’t think that they are as significant as other line items in this proposal, they hold more weight and revenue impact than I originally thought. Shrug withdrawn.
Email List
Remember how TheBlaze is not releasing the Mug Club email list to Crowder as they sever ties? Here’s that same arrangement. Your email list is ours. We aren’t sharing. Yet again Boreing frames it as The Daily Wire being such good guys for removing the burden of having to manage an email list. Yeah. That’s not what’s happening.
Social Media Management
Same objections to this one that I have to the Adaptation Rights. Moving on.
Exclusivity
Fine. I’m sure this would get some tweaking in a final draft but is not an unreasonable expectation.
Fee Reductions | Daily Content
This section opens with Boreing claiming, “Now here’s this section that I know that Steven was very offended by. I think he misunderstood and therefore misrepresented.”
Stop. Just stop. Boreing knows full well that this is an utterly objectionable offer and that Crowder has every right to be offended. The Daily Wire and Boreing personally are embarrassed that they were called out for the nature of their contracts and will do anything they can to save face and obfuscate the truth.
Remember when I told you that it would become relevant that per this Term Sheet Crowder’s daily rate actually breaks down to $45,289 per day? It’s relevant! Per this agreement, if Crowder fails to produce a single show of the 192, he faces a “$100,000 reduction in the Fee per instance.” That’s more than twice his daily rate! Are you beginning to understand how this contract is predatory?
And by the way, The Daily Wire is absorbing no production costs so they’re not actually out any money, they’re simply not accruing more revenue that day. So the amount of money they’re losing per episode missed is negligible.
Disability
The concept of disability is then addressed in Boreing’s response. As one who has all too much personal experience with this can of worms, let me tell you that disability and a sick day are not and never are treated as the same thing. A disability is by definition ongoing and would not be taken into account for a single day missed. Stop obfuscating the true nature of this agreement.
Oh, and by the way, there would still be a Fee reduction but on a pro rata basis instead of a daily Fee Reduction, from which Crowder might still be paying his production team out of his own pocket.
Monthly & Quarterly Content Fee Reductions
Reading this section again, my mind is blown. If Crowder misses a single ad read, he is docked $250,000. That’s a threat, plain and simple. There’s nothing good faith about it.
Annual Content Fee Reductions
Annual Content counts for 4% of Crowder’s output (10 days out of 276), and I’m being generous and rounding up. That’s around half a million of a $12.5M annual contract (disregarding that production costs for 192 shows come out of that). That means the penalty is double what Crowder would actually be earning on that aspect of his work.
Reduction of Fee for Lost Revenue or Boycotts
This is the crux of this entire debate. No part of what Crowder or anyone else who objects to the parameters of these terms objects to is publishing content on YouTube. Great! Publish there for as long as they will have any of us. We’re all at the whim of Big Tech.
However, Crowder has been demonetized for three years and been deplatformed (i.e. banned) from YouTube four times in the past year, all while attempting to stay within the Community Guidelines of the platform. It’s not that Crowder is suggesting that people say whatever they want on YouTube. He is exposing that even when you guard yourself, there are times when it is out of your hands.
The Daily Wire is further penalizing their talent by issuing fee reductions for scenarios that an individual cannot prevent despite attempting to play within YouTube’s guidelines. Knock on wood and hope this never happens to you, because if it does, you’re screwed.
As Boreing gets into this next section, pay attention to how he begins to pick at his hands and become more fidgety than any other point in the video. He is nervous, and it is showing. Also take note of when he breaks eye contact with the camera.
Ad Drop
I’ve read this section so many times and cannot get it to make sense. If your advertiser drops you and that happens to be 50% or more of your advertising revenue, even if you replace that advertiser revenue the following day, there is a fee reduction of 25% for the next 90 days. What?
This magnitude of loss is not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, The Daily Wire suffered such a major blow when Harry’s dropped them that they retaliated by launching a competing brand, Jeremy’s Razors.
Also, that’s a $8,561.64 reduction a day. So at minimum Crowder is facing a $770.5K fee reduction regardless of whether or not he replaces the sponsorship money immediately.
Boreing repeatedly says that “This isn’t about punishing the content creator.” No, to him this is about money. Money. Money. Money. Boreing, and so many of those coming to the defense of The Daily Wire, are myopically fixated on money. To their minds, YouTube ad revenue is the only feasible business model. Instead of having the backs of their employees and talent, they are upholding the already restrictive gauntlet of YouTube censorship.
What they are saying is, not only will YouTube censor you in whatever ways they can, we’ll dock your pay even further because we lack the gumption to create an alternate business model. Crowder is 100% correct that with this mentality the rising generation of creators are screwed.
“Obviously if the show makes less money, then Steven has to make less money,” Boreing claims. Except Crowder is taking on all of the risk — especially given his YouTube track record and current lack of revenue from there — instead of sharing it between Crowder and The Daily Wire. There are other options for how to structure this agreement that benefit both parties. I’ll get to that.
With contracts like this, there will be no future of free speech.
Creators will do such a fine job of censoring themselves for fear of financial ramifications, that YouTube and the rest of Big Tech won’t have to lift a finger.
The entire premise of these stipulations is that there is free speech on YouTube and that with fancy footwork you can avoid the land mines. This simply isn’t the case. There are no clearly defined rules of what can and can’t be said. No matter how nicely you toe the line, YouTube may come after you, and currently has the protection to do that under Section 230.
This Term Sheet also assumes that the only way to create revenue is through YouTube. False. Create a better model, one that does not impune the voices of tomorrow.
If this is what The Daily Wire is presenting to Crowder, someone at the top of the game, what are they doing to the burgeoning talent? Boreing is recorded saying, “They’ll just be wage slaves for a little bit. Come over and make a salary and grow their brand.” He’s earnest in that sentiment.
Content Strike
Crowder has had four Content Strikes on YouTube in the past year. One was for something a guest said on his program, another for a member of the team directly quoting the CDC, and the other two were unknown. Mind you, it’s not uncommon for YouTube to give strikes on 2-5 month old videos so you really don’t know what you said that offended their sensibilities.
Tell me how in good conscience The Daily Wire can include this stipulation. This is on top of the past three years of Crowder’s demonetization. The Daily Wire’s lack of ingenuity does not make YouTube monetization the only option.
Boreing deflects claiming that this is the type of thing that would be adjusted in negotiations. What it tells me is one of two things, neither flattering. Either The Daily Wire did not do their due diligence to know the background and situation of Crowder, the talent they were actively recruiting, or they included this in hopes that he would overlook it and not object.
Ban
This is where my mind melted. The likelihood of any one of these impediments happening as a stand alone is wholly unlikely, which means there is a cascading effect where you could be facing fee reductions of up to 60% for cumulative bans along with still shouldering production costs. What if that’s in conjunction with an Ad Drop? Now you’re out 85% + production costs. None of that is unfathomable based on the current censorship landscape.
Here’s the irony. If Crowder were to get deplatformed by YouTube AGAIN, it would actually drive more revenue to DailyWire+. An increase in subscribers behind the paywall has been an observable trend every time Crowder has faced YouTube kicking him off the platform.
Infrastructure
Boreing repeatedly mentions Infrastructure, Technology, Marketing, Legal, and Compliance. He keeps presenting this like somehow it’s Crowder’s responsibility. It’s not. This applies to the business as a whole, not one individual talent. It is a risk the business shoulders. The bulk of these expenditures are happening whether Crowder comes on board or not, so stop knowingly pretending that your costs increase astronomically because of his addition to the team.
After reading through my dismantling of this Term Sheet, can you understand why Crowder might respond that he won’t even redline this and that The Daily Wire needs to try again with an entirely new set of terms?
THE BENCH
My focus on this is not Crowder specifically but what it means for others who address topics that are deemed fringe or unwanted in society. I’m not immune to this as I poke at aliens and shine light into the darkness. What about those speaking about human or child trafficking? Can we all still agree that those things are unwanted in society even if coverage of them is being grossly censored? The ramifications of what we’re seeing play out between Crowder and The Daily Wire impact everyone with a unique voice and perspective.
It’s a Catch-22. You have to have the following in order to migrate elsewhere. In order to get that following you need to be on the big platforms with the abysmal amounts of censorship. We need to build something new.
While someone like Crowder might be able to manage and even bounce back stronger when the perfect storm hits and a sponsorship drop coincides with a ban or a strike and you need to take a day to regroup to move forward, imagine the impact on rising talent. Would someone starting out be able to shoulder this as easily? Would it crush an entire career? In no way is it inconceivable to have a sponsor withdrawal, incur a ban, and miss a show because of the maelstrom all occurring simultaneously.
This doesn’t get mentioned. This doesn’t get discussed. This is why Crowder went a different way and proved it could work.
Look at Kanye. Look at Chappelle. Look at Crowder. All three of them bucked THE system within which they worked and the system came after them. They were all told that they were foolish and that there was no other way. Yet there are alternate approaches that can in fact work.
What’s so important to understand here is that this is coming from The Daily Wire who claims to be supporting divergent voices. Agree with that or not, it’s their claim. Yet this is the type of contract that they’re offering, one with punitive action for upsetting the balance with Big Tech.
If this is what The Daily Wire is doing to a person that they admit is at the top of the talent pool, Crowder, (while purporting to support free speech) what do their offers look like to those at the start of their careers? If this is what they’re bold enough to do to someone who has his own production team and lawyers, imagine what they’re doing with rising talent who hasn’t been burned enough times to know better. It sickens me.
Boreing explains that this is The Daily Wire’s standard template that they send to all talent that they’re recruiting. What he doesn’t say is that they offer it with the hope that up and coming voices are uninformed enough to sign it.
ALTERNATE CONTRACT APPROACHES
I’ve made the claim that there are other viable approaches. Let me back that up in contrast to Boreing, who treats this Term Sheet like there is no other way.
Folks at The Daily Wire, I’ve done the work for you. Here are some feasible alternatives that distribute the burden of risk while also sharing the reward of success, you know, the kind of terms an actual friend might present during a business negotiation.
The fake sincerity when Boreing claims of Crowder that, “He’s not looking for a business relationship. He’s looking for a benefactor.” No. He’s looking for terms that come even close to not being insane. The Daily Wire continues to ignore the point entirely that this isn’t about the money. Terms like these are stifling to free speech no matter what price tag accompanies them.
Professional Athlete Model
If we’re talking performance based contracts, let’s focus on elite athletes. A common format for professional athletes is to have a Base Salary + Performance Incentives (Individual + Team). Your team goes to the playoffs, you get paid more. Everybody wins. Worried about your hire earning too much? Include a salary cap.
In this model, not all players are paid the same. It’s based on talent and past performance. If an athlete gets injured, he still makes his Base Salary but forgoes any of the Incentives. That’s a risk the team is willing to absorb based on the health of their business. Have a look at some NFL player contracts.
Sales Model
Another straightforward model comes from the world of sales, Base Salary + Commission. In this case, the Commission would come from show revenue and after having production costs deducted from it so that Crowder and The Daily Wire would share the expense. Then a predetermined split would be applied to the remaining revenue. Plan the split to cover the infrastructure costs that Boreing is so deeply concerned he needs to address.
Real Estate Model
Want a contract that candidly puts all of the risk on the employee? Adopt a Straight Commission + Fees model like we see in the Real Estate industry. The brokerage firm carries the cost of licensing and advertising so either gets a straight fee or a commission split. In this model, if you don’t sell, you don’t get paid. The risk is readily apparent instead of buried in Fee Reductions and other vague terms.
There are alternate models out there that can work, especially as base templates to use as launching points to create ones that are even better. The issue is that Boreing is convinced that he is right. He’s stuck his heels in and isn’t going to budge to even entertain that there might be a mutually beneficial contract where everyone flourishes.
As the Term Sheet currently reads, The Daily Wire is asking its talent to shoulder all of the burden of risk without any of the upside of reward. For as many punitive terms as there are in there, where are the bonuses for exceeding certain thresholds? Where is the support from The Daily Wire saying, try to play by YouTube’s rules, but if you get deplatformed, we’ll absorb the cost of the legal battle and back you every step of the way?
The great thing about all of the models that I’ve offered is that they are scalable. They work for high performers like Crowder as well as those at the start of their careers. The Daily Wire is able to make a calculated risk while also reaping great reward. This is how we continue to foster talent for emerging creators.
SOMETHING BIGGER AT PLAY
Knowing the crowd who congregates here, let me preemptively address a few conspiratorially leaning questions.
A Coordinated Effort
There are some glossy talking points circulating. It looks a lot like the liberal media that so many of these commentators claim to despise. Pay attention to those focusing on the issues compared to those framing this as a character assassination.
Would I be surprised if this were a coordinated effort between TheBlaze and The Daily Wire to take Crowder down? Not in the least. It’s exactly what happened to Andrew Breitbart, one of Crowder’s mentors, at the hands of the mainstream media prior to Breitbart’s untimely death.
Crowder was a huge name grab for The Daily Wire and would have brought them an incredible amount of subscribers. Boreing admits in his video that he didn’t know how The Daily Wire would pay for this talent acquisition. It didn’t stop them from pursuing him.
Controlled Opposition
Can I entertain the notion that Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens are controlled opposition meant to undermine the conservative movement? Sure. After watching all of this unfold, it’s not a stretch. For the “Facts don’t care about your feelings” crowd, there are a lot of inaccuracies being thrown around inflamed by heightened emotions.
You made it to the end! You might want to consider subscribing.
For me this isn’t about the specific dispute but the larger direction that we’re facing when it comes to curtailing free speech. It’s part of an ongoing conversation as our freedoms disappear in front of our eyes.
As with all things, I encourage you to engage with the materials yourself. Form your own conclusions. Listen to views that validate your perception of the world and ones that push against it. Be open to new information and changing your mind.
Don't forget that you can find all of the videos and more here.
P.S. I thoroughly enjoyed this take by Katie Hopkins.
