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Legacy publisher Field & Stream, which was spun off from the media company Recurrent Ventures in January, is capitalizing on its brand equity through a slate of novel brand licensing initiatives under its new ownership.
Beginning this year, the company that now owns the editorial title, Field & Stream IP LLC, will lend the Field & Stream branding to between 20 to 25 newly built or converted hotels across the country, according to president Doug McNamee.
The company is also debuting the Field & Stream Music Fest this October in South Carolina, unveiling a newly expanded biannual print magazine, a series of membership products, and merchandise offerings.
“The value of the Field & Stream brand is that people trust it,” said McNamee, who previously helped transform Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia brand into a universe of lifestyle products. “We would be remiss to ignore that opportunity, but we also want to make sure the subject matter stays core to who we are.”
Despite the relative accessibility of licensing—Dotdash Meredith generated $31.5 billion in licensing in 2023, per License Global—publishers looking to diversify beyond advertising must be careful when choosing their potential partners.
“The search for all of these media brands is to find super-formats—the ideas that can be broken down into atomic units, then spread to multiple touchpoints and brought to life in different ways,” said brand consultant Ben Dietz. “The danger is that you confuse any touchpoint for the correct touchpoint and overextend into places that don’t make sense.”
Licensing, media, and retail rights assemble
For Field & Stream, a primary challenge to building its licensing business was that different companies held several of its core licensing rights: Recurrent Ventures held its media rights, Dick’s Sporting Goods held the retail rights and private equity firm Starwood Capital Group had the lodging rights.
In March 2023, a group of private investors coordinated to create Field & Stream IP LLC, which they have since used to acquire and consolidate these disparate licensing rights under one company.
This investment group includes the country music stars Eric Church and Morgan Wallen, as well as Ben Leprin, a partner at AJ Capital Partners, and Barry Sternlicht, the chief executive and co-founder of Starwood Capital.
Leprin and Sternlicht are the architects of the hotel concept, Field & Stream Lodge Co., a separate company that will pay Field & Stream IP LLC to license its hospitality rights.
