Axios Launches Entertainment Division, Lines Up First TV Project With Amazon (Exclusive)

The digital information outlet Axios is making a giant wager within the leisure house, launching a brand new studio division that may develop and produce unique nonfiction movie and sequence programming.

The brand new division, Axios Entertainment, is led by Erica Winograd and has initiatives in improvement with Tom Brady’s Shadow Lion, Chrissy Teigen‘s Huntley Productions, Guy Ritchie, Mark Wahlberg’s Unrealistic Concepts, Ample Entertainment, and Maven, the corporate says.

Different members of the Axios Entertainment group embody editorial director Raisa Zaidi and director of improvement Juliet Bartz.

“Entertainment programming is a natural next step for Axios, using engaging documentary storytelling to make audiences smarter, faster about the ever-changing world around them,” says Axios co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei.

It additionally has its first sequence pickup: The Cash Sport, at Prime Video. Produced in partnership with Campfire Studios and Shaquille O’Neal’s Jersey Legends, The Cash Sport will have a look at the affect of Identify, Picture and Likeness (NIL) offers via the eyes of a handful of athletes at Louisiana State College, together with gymnast Olivia Dunne, basketball stars Angel Reese and Flau’jae Johnson, and soccer star and Heisman winner Jayden Daniels.

Axios has explored video earlier than, most notably with its news-driven sequence Axios on HBO, which ran for 4 seasons. Axios counts Cox Enterprises, which is within the cable and publishing companies, as its majority proprietor.

The media firm based by Politico veterans VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz has additionally expanded into new areas lately, together with a neighborhood and regional information effort in Axios Native, and the subscription-focused Axios Professional. It additionally spun out a communications software program enterprise known as Axios HQ final yr.