MrBeast Wants To Turn A Profit

MrBeast, the world’s most successful YouTuber, is making several changes at his company to ensure that it can become a sustainable one.

The Big Picture: Despite the millions of dollars that flow through Beast Industries, the company spends a lot more than it makes. Last year, revenue from YouTube and other media hit $224 million, but costs ballooned to $334 million. MrBeast and new CEO Jeffrey Housenbold are promising investors that the numbers will turn around this year… a shift they say could be key to becoming “the next-generation Disney.”

Behind The Bills: Like Disney itself (and much of Hollywood), Beast Industries is cutting costs to get back in the black.

• It created a team dedicated to figuring out whether a video can actually be produced within budget (racing a sports car against a cheetah isn’t cheap) and is exploring AI as an alternative to hiring more staff (headcount currently stands at 350).
• It’s renegotiated ad contracts (raising rates by 65%) and is pushing brands to provide products for free instead of paying retail (crazy that they don’t already do this).
• It’s also trying to end MrBeast’s practice of discarding finished videos that don’t meet his creative standards.

Check Balance: With “excess” sort of being MrBeast’s calling card, cutting back risks breaking the formula. His entire appeal rests on spectacle — giving away millions of dollars or pulling off impossible, expensive stunts. If the money scale drops, does the audience as well?

His game show on Prime Video, Beast Games,is a perfect example of the tension. Even with a $100 million deal, the show still lost “tens of millions” due to runaway costs. Although the show was renewed for additional seasons, that model isn’t built to last in a belt-tightening entertainment industry.

Projection: Given the success of MrBeast’s Feastables chocolate bar brand, expect him to double down on consumer products as a way to offset media costs.