Moneyball for Creators
Artificial Intelligence, Activism, and Playing to Win When the Rules Keep Changing
If you work in entertainment right now, it can feel like you’re playing a game that keeps changing the rules while you’re still at bat. Budgets are shrinking, studios are consolidating, and the so-called “golden age of streaming” is now just a trickle.
Through it all, creators keep hearing the same message from the industry’s upper tier: “Hold the line. Don’t sell out. Protect the art.” It’s good advice if you already have a seat at the table, a steady check, or a back catalog paying the bills. But for everyone else, those words sound less like integrity and more like insulation.
Once again, though, the conversation has turned to money and, more specifically, where it’s coming from.
A decade ago, Hollywood was quietly reshaping films to appeal to the Chinese market. There were concerns voiced about human rights, censorship and influence, but, as far as Hollywood went, those were mostly confined to, with some exceptions, to polite interviews and award show soundbites. Today, similar concerns are being raised about investment from the Middle East, where large sums are flowing into sports, music, and television and film production. The outrage feels louder now, but also more selective in terms of where it’s coming from in the industry—the top tier.
It’s easy to make moral declarations for others when your rent is paid. Harder when you’re trying to keep a project—or youself—alive.
This is where Moneyball comes in.
Billy Beane didn’t reinvent baseball because he wanted to. He did it because he had to. The Oakland A’s couldn’t compete with the Yankees or Red Sox using the same playbook, so Beane threw the playbook out. He used data to find undervalued players everyone else ignored and built a winning team out of what the system had left behind.
That’s the position today’s independent creators are in. The big players are still using old math while insisting it’s the only “right” way to play. But the game has changed. The economics have changed. The audience has changed. And the tools of creation have changed too.
When people with stable deals and powerful allies insist that embracing new funding sources or new technology is “selling out,” what they really mean is “stop changing the rules I’m comfortable with.” But innovation has never asked for permission—it just keeps happening, whether the gatekeepers approve or not.
The truth is, entertainment has always been shaped by the flow of money and technology. When television threatened film, the studios adapted. When home video threatened theaters, they adapted again. Now, AI, automation, and globalization are pushing the next evolution forward. The question isn’t whether it’s happening. The question is who’s willing to learn how to play this new version of the game.
For creators, this isn’t the time to freeze—it’s the time to experiment. AI and digital tools are not replacements for imagination; they’re multipliers for it. They can help you storyboard faster, write smarter, prototype cheaper, and reach audiences directly without waiting for a gatekeeper’s approval. That doesn’t make you a sellout. It makes you strategic.
The ethical questions still matter. They always will. But there’s a difference between discussing responsibility and policing survival. When you’re hanging by a thread and someone higher up the industry food chain says you shouldn’t use AI to make your film or that you shouldn’t take money from a controversial sponsor, they’re not offering moral clarity. They’re offering judgment wrapped in privilege.
Just as Billy Beane didn’t destroy baseball. He found value where others refused to look. That’s what creators can do now. Find the undervalued opportunities the establishment dismisses. Find the platforms that let you build an audience directly. Find the investors who see potential where the old guard sees (or fears) risk. Find the technologies and opportunities that let you make something out of nothing.
If the traditional system won’t back your idea, build it anyway. Use the tools at your disposal. Tell your story on the platforms that want to hear it. Take smart money when it comes your way, and use it with clear intent.
The goal isn’t to win their version of the game. The goal is to stay in it long enough to change the rules.
Because in the end, the creators who will shape what comes next aren’t the ones waiting for permission or their latest royalty check. They’re the ones already on the field testing new plays, taking new swings, and proving that creativity isn’t about playing safe. It’s about playing smart.
Mark Haynes lives and works at the intersection of entertainment, communications, and technology. He’s developed stories for audiences and solutions for companies for over a quarter century and he’ll do it again, too — complete with em dashes like that one because they’re legit part of the language, so get used to it. You should hire him so he can feed his cat and pay his very overdue rent. Find out more at markhaynescommunications.com or visit his LinkedIn.
Excellent insights on all of this. Reminds me of when Coldplay suggested that everyone should give their music away for free, but they were already megastars, and could easily afford to do this without any financial pain. No hate to Coldplay, but for musicians who were struggling to make ends meet, that wasn’t exactly practical advice. Most people’s privilege colors the lens they see through until it’s nearly opaque. It takes a special kind of wealthy or wildly successful person to empathize with those artists who are struggling to simply survive, and still trying to make their art anyway.