The baseball hall of famer has quietly launched a production company, Cap 2 Productions , which he hopes will take full advantage of the burgeoning interest in sports-related content from TV channels and streaming services.
Cap 2, which is being repped by WME, has quietly developed a slate of projects – many of them baseball-related – with a number of TV and streaming partners.“I’ve always been interested in, for example, where greatness derives from. How people have gotten to the places in their lives, how they’ve overcome failures,” Jeter says of the philosophy behind Cap 2’s slate so far. “I just always wanted to tell those stories, you want to inspire, you want to educate, you want to motivate.
It has become a lucrative area for those connected in the sports world, with those connections leading to access that other production companies simply can’t match. And having a star athlete at the helm also, frankly, makes it easier to get meetings in town, something that has taken on added significance with the ongoing content pullback across Hollywood.
He also argues that the role that athletes play in the public consciousness has changed dramatically since he founded The Players’ Tribune a decade ago. Whereas at the time it was a novel outlet for athletes to share their stories, now many top athletes, musicians and entertainers are social media juggernauts, with millions of followers.
“People have millions of followers but it’s just quick snippets, you can’t really tell the long-form version of it,” Jeter adds. “So that’s where I think Cap 2 comes into play.”Streaming services like Netflix, Peacock and Prime Video have all ordered documentaries and docuseries featuring athletes and sports teams, while traditional TV channels like ESPN are still active in the space.