Floyd Mayweather takes a new gig charging top dollar on Cameo

This social media age gets tons of flak for encouraging narcissistic impulses, and justly so.

But the explosion of “sharing” platforms does almost as much good as it does harm, arguably.

Me, I love it when the call goes out on Twitter, for example, to identify a sonuvabitch, maybe a face-covering flouter. Twitter gets to it, and the jagoff gets rightly censured, after the Twitter posse gets down to business.

OK, there are better examples of the upsides to social media. Let’s traffic in reality here, and admit that Facebook, for all the old friends it’s helped re-kindle interaction, helps spread fear, ignorance, and lies to push propaganda campaigns in brutally efficient fashion. There’s been no better friend to actual fake news, has there?

But back to the positive side of the coin.

Cameo is a video-sharing service created in 2017 by Steven Galanis, Martin Blencowe, and Devon Spinnler Townsend. Not familiar with Cameo? I certainly am. For Mother’s Day, I asked Tori Spelling to tape a video for the missus.

For my oldest daughter’s birthday, her mom hired Ice T, whom Bella likes from “Law and Order,” to send a birthday greeting.

Tori rocked it, even throwing in a “Donna Martin graduates!” even though I forgot to request that. And Ice T nailed his take to perfection, and cheered up Bella even though her birthday came during peak pandemic time in NYC.

Cameo, basically, plays right into the trending of the age, cutting distance between celebrities and their fans. More than 40,000 famous folks — and yes, the degrees of fame vary wildly in this realm — are available on the platform.

Last week, Cameo added a new “available,” as one Floyd “Money” Mayweather came aboard.

Coming aboard involves you, the famous person, signaling to the Cameo crew that you’d be open to crafting video messages to strangers, for a fee. Cameo determines if there is a market for your services, and either gives you the green light, or doesn’t. Floyd got the green light. So, if you are so moved, you can request Floyd do a video for your dad, son, brother, daughter, yourself, whatever.

The cost? A cool $999, no haggling allowed.

Now, maybe you saw some hype on TMZ a few days ago.

“In true Money Mayweather style, he claims he’s now ‘the most expensive celeb’ on the app,” the news and gossip outlet shared. And then maybe you saw some “fact checkers” weighing in. It was noted that Caitlyn Jennerasks for $2,500 for a taped video.

But no, “Money” wasn’t too exuberant with his proclamation. A Cameo spokesperson told us it’s true, for a “promotional video,” Floyd’s ask is top of the heap.

“Floyd Mayweather’s promotional price is $7,500 which would be the highest price for an available talent on Cameo,” BLH was told by Cameo.

Mayweather is working with a new outfit, called Stardam Images, which says they provide “Affordable celebrity-endorsed advertising.” Michael Vick and Richard Sherman are among the other Stardam notables.

“You know who this is! It’s Floyd Mayweather,” the (ex?) boxer says in a video ad for Stardam. Basically, you can reach out to Stardam, tell them what biz you have. And if they think it’s a good fit for Floyd, for $7,500, you can have “Money” repping your pizza place or what have you. Would he do an ad for, say, Top Rank? Would Floyd accept an ad for a strip club which rivals his “Girl Collection” Las Vegas peel palace? You’ll have to ask for yourself.

In case you are wondering who else from the sweet science scene is doing Cameos, Mike Tyson charges $300, Roy Jones Jr gets $199, Teddy Atlas snags $100 per, and Victor Ortiz seeks $20 per hit. That’s a buck cheaper than Mike Lee, who can give you a quickie pep talk for $21.

And if you’ve been saving up and scrounged your couch for quarters, Manny Pacquiao does Cameo videos, for $1,000. Yep, a buck more than Floyd. Pacman’s two reviews both give him high marks, and the one review for Floyd’s effort was upbeat.

Tooling around the Cameo site can be addictive. Seeing who commands what per video is enjoyable. For instance, did you know actor Richard Dreyfuss also asks for $999 per Cameo? Or that someone named Emma can be had for $1? Or, here’s the story of “The Brady Bunch” gang — only Greg ,aka Barry Williams ($140), is doing cameos, though I’d bet by year’s end, 50% of the “kids” are on board.

This is an All-American business growth story, yes?

“The company’s weekly bookings have grown to 70,000 from about 9,000 in early January, it says,” read an excerpt from a May 24th NY Times piece on Cameo and other direct to consumer outfits, like Patreon and Substack. Galanis told the Times he anticipated bringing in more than $100 million in videos in 2020, one quarter of which goes to the company.

I pondered asking for a “Money” message, and played it out in my head, how I’d expense it to BLH. But when I saw the $999 ask, I shifted gears. I’d already typed out my script request for Mayweather.

Here it is:

—Michael Woods, a Brooklyn based media content provider, hopes he’d command between what “Emma” and Mike Lee get for doing Cameos. Follow Woods on Twitter.