The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced Thursday that it will sell the rights to the Golden Globes awards to a private company. Through a statement, the organization reported that most of its members have chosen to transfer the management of everything related to the awards to Eldridge Industries LLC, an entity controlled by businessman Todd Boehly, who acts as interim CEO of the HFPA since last year. Boehly also owns significant stakes in the Chelsea soccer club and the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.
It was Boehly himself who proposed that the Golden Globes, mired in a reputational crisis due to internal corruption scandals and malpractice, pass into private hands, with a purchase offer on his part. In this way, the management of the association and the awards will go through different channels.
On the one hand, the HFPA will continue to exist as a non-profit organization to organize events, scholarships and other activities, while everything related to the awards that its members vote for will fall into the hands of a new private company.
"This is a historic moment for the HFPA and the Golden Globes. We have taken a decisive step to transform ourselves and adapt to an increasingly competitive landscape both in the awards galas and in the journalistic market," said the president of the association. Helen Hoehne.
Likewise, the statement advanced that the association will swell its ranks with new members with the right to vote at the Golden Globes, although it did not detail the way in which the awards and the HFPA will continue to be linked to choose the nominees and the winners.
Although Hoehne indicated in the announcement that "he hopes to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Golden Globes" in 2023, at the moment no television network has confirmed its interest in broadcasting this awards gala. NBC, which had broadcast the Golden Globes since 1996, decided not to do so in 2022 after a hundred advertising firms announced a boycott.
The earthquake came after complaints against the HFPA intensified for questionable ethical practices among its members, who took advantage of trips and other promotional opportunities offered by Hollywood studios. But the straw that broke the camel's back was that, in the middle of the year of awareness of racism in the United States, the association did not have any black people in its ranks.
