High School Sports Content Studio ‘Mars Reel’ Raises $4.7 Million From Otter Media, Drake, Others

Otter Media has tendered an investment in Mars Reel, a burgeoning digital media company that creates content about high school and amateur sports, with a strong focus on high school basketball.

As part of the company’s first-ever $4.7 million funding round, Mars has also recruited Otter Media to serve as an advisor and strategic partner. Other bold-faced backers include Drake and Dwayne Wade, who join previously-announced investors LeBron James (and his business partners Maverick Carter and Devin Johnson), Kevin Durant, the rapper Nas, Translation CEO Steve Stoute, media vet Bruce Tuchman, Mars Reel’s chairman Jerry Hall, and lead investor Robert Hisaoka.

Mars Reel launched in 2010 with a focus on producing and distributing snackable high school basketball highlight videos across Facebook (391,000 followers), Instagram (234,000 followers), YouTube (41,000 subscribers), and other social platforms. Today, however, it is pivoting toward longer-form content. Mars Reel Chornicles, for instance, is a video diary series about high school basketball stars, while Life On Mars

showcases athletes who have overcome unlikely odds.

Otter Media was jointly owned by AT&T and The Chernin Group until the former purchased the latter’s remaining shares earlier this month in a deal reportedly worth $1 billion. AT&T also purchased Time Warner in June for $85 billion, and is expected to fold Otter into its newly-named WarnerMedia entertainment division. While it does not yet offer a paid subscription service, Mars Reel would seem to fall squarely within Otter’s established portfolio, which includes digital subscription platforms targeting niche interests, including nerd culture and gamer-focused Rooster Teeth and anime-centric Crunchyroll.

All told, Otter says it has more than 2 million paying SVOD subscribers and 93 million unique monthly consumers.