Author James Frey writes new chapter on career as CEO of NY Esports Organization Andbox – Deadline
James Frey, author of mega-selling but controversial memoir A million little pieces, has been named CEO of Andbox, a New York-based esports organization.
Andbox owns and operates the New York Excelsior, the city’s premier professional esports team. He has also been involved in the integration, through eSports, of a number of areas of culture and business, including content creation, high fashion, technology and visual design.
The investors behind Andbox are a well-known and influential group. Among them, Thirty Five Ventures, a partnership between NBA star Kevin Durant and manager Rich Kleiman; actor and producer Michael B. Jordan; former Turner chairman David Levy; and executives at Warby Parker, Harry’s, GIPHY and Dapper Labs.
Frey was a producer and writer on the film Queen & Slim in 2018. The following year, Momentum Pictures released a film adaptation of A million little pieces starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Billy-Bob Thornton and Charlie Hunnam, to modest box office returns.
The 2000s were a period of resounding success for Frey, but also made him infamous in some circles. Oprah Winfrey, who then hosted her top-rated syndicated daytime TV show, chose A million little pieces for his book club which boosted sales in 2003, only to berate Frey on the air for fabricating parts of the conspicuous memoir. Marketing of this and other volumes then shifted to fiction, in an effort to appease critics who believed Frey had falsely portrayed made-up episodes as true stories.
In addition to his own work as a writer, Frey founded and ran Full Fathom Five, a YA book packaging company and producer of film, television and digital projects.
The passage to the head of Andbox is not a left turn for Frey. For the past few years, he has been Director of Global Content for 3BlackDot, an affiliate of the Webedia influencer network. He has overseen the company’s content groups, spanning digital, TV / film, games, events, merchandise, publishing and branded content.
“New York is the biggest city in the world, and I’m going to make sure it’s also home to the world’s largest esports organization in Andbox,” Frey said in a press release. “Esport has become a huge focal point for the modern world of culture and entertainment. Andbox will put New York at the very center of this new universe with an array of content series, sartorial collaborations and branded partnerships that no other organization can match.
Frey is Andbox’s first CEO. Putting him in that role “positions us perfectly to grow as an entertainment brand,” said co-founder and chairman Farzam Kamel. “He’s a truly unique talent that will do things unheard of in our industry. That’s what we were looking for in this role, and we couldn’t have found better.
