MrBallen is building a stable of storytellers.
YouTube‘s preeminent teller of “strange, dark, and mysterious” tales has launched his own management arm, Ballen Management, under the umbrella of his content production company Ballen Studios.
Ballen Management has already co-signed its first two creators with UTA: Nick Crowley, who has 1.7 million subscribers watching his “mysteriously spooky” videos; and Nexpo (2.8 million subscribers), who explores “the internet’s dark side.”
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For those not familiar with MrBallen (aka John Allen), he’s a former Navy SEAL who’s racked up 7.5 million subscribers and more than a billion views since launching his YouTube channel in 2020. He also runs a weekly true crime podcast, has an exclusive first-look content deal with Amazon covering film, TV, books, video games, merch, and more, and in 2022 founded his own nonprofit to financially support victims.
“John and I worked hand in hand to scale his unique style of storytelling and build a writer’s room, and eventually a full-scale media company around him as a storyteller,” Ballen Studios CEO Nick Witters said in a statement. “Throughout the process, we saw a real need for organizations that have the ability to service storytellers and help them scale their businesses, so we decided to build that organization.”
Witters adds that Ballen Management “aims to work with the most talented storytellers in the world and provide infrastructure that will allow them to scale.”
Ballen Management will work in conjunction with UTA to build creators’ businesses, including “aggressively expanding their digital content and storytelling across a range of verticals including television, film, publishing, live touring, merchandising, audio, additional digital-first ventures, and more,” the companies said.
Allen will serve in an advisory role to all creators signed with Ballen Management.
