TOGETHER WITH

It's Sunday and here’s a handpicked selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry.

But first, POTUS will probably give TikTok more breathing room…again. According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump is in favor of extending TikTok’s June 19 deadline to divest from owner ByteDance.

CREATOR COMMOTION

Creators are releasing albums, throwing pitches, and selling $100K tours

The pop star: She made a name for herself dancing on TikTok, but now Addison Rae is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged pop star, according to The New York Times. Her first album, Addison, comes out from Columbia Records this week.

The $37K debut: Kick is always trying to prove it’s better than Twitch, and Asmongold is helping spread that message. He joined Kick this week, and within two days and about ~13 hours of live streaming time, had made nearly $37,000. In the previous month on Twitch, he’d made $32,371.

The crossover: The San Diego Padres threw normies a curveball by partnering with gacha video game Goddess of Victory: Nikke. And to celebrate that partnership, Twitch streamer Emiru will show up at the June 10 Padres vs Dodgers game to throw the first pitch–while dressed in full cosplay.

The $100K tour: Beast Games 2 was renewed by Amazon, and before filming even begins, MrBeast is finding a way to (charitably) monetize Season 2. He’s offering a “VIP Experience” where up to 40 donors can pay $100K each. The money will go to his Beast Philanthropy organization, and in exchange, donors will get “an exclusive, immersive weekend designed for people who believe in the power of giving back.”

🔆 PRESENTED BY SPOTTER 🔆

What if you could analyze 50M YouTube videos and create personalized, data-driven thumbnail ideas in seconds?

That question inspired the development of Spotter Studio, a data-driven ideation system designed to help YouTube creators stay on top and make hit videos more consistently. Here’s how it works: 

• Explore real-time Outliers on YouTube: Analyze trends across 50 million YouTube videos based on filters like Outliers size, upload date, subscriber count, or view count.
  
  

• Track top channels: Follow channels in Spotter Studio to measure how new videos perform and stack up to the channel’s average performance.
  
  

• Generate hit video concepts: Save top-performing videos from across YouTube and ask Spotter Studio to generate similar ideas personalized to your channel.
  
  

• Brainstorm thumbnails and titles BEFORE you press ‘record’: Spotter Studio generates titles and thumbnail ideas in seconds based on your unique video ideas, content history, and YouTube optimization so you can visualize your packaging before you press record

Data-driven ideation gets results—just ask top creators like Kinigra Deon:

Since using Spotter Studio, creator Deon (4.6M) has grown her video revenue by 34%. And she’s not alone:

Hit the link below to find out what you can achieve with Spotter Studio:

PLATFORM HEADLINES

This week in platform news…

The lawsuit: Disney speedran losing a lawsuit after trying to keep YouTube from hiring one of its longtime executives. It filed the suit just two weeks ago, on the same day YouTube announced it was bringing in Justin Connolly to manage relationships with major media companies and run its burgeoning live sports division.

Disney accused YouTube of getting Connolly to break his employment agreement, and said Connolly might share sensitive info and trade secrets. But a California Superior Court Judge denied Disney’s request, saying the megacorp “has not demonstrated a probability of success” with its case.

The podcast biz: While YouTube and Spotify battle over which is a better platform for content creators, showrunners are turning to Patreon to monetize their audiences off-platform. It’s rare that we see candid revenue figures from these sorts of direct-to-fan subscriptions, but Business Insider managed to snag some by talking to podcasters making $2K, $59K, and $242K on Patreon per month.

The new hire: Roblox’s burgeoning ad division has a new engineer. After introducing programmatic ads around a year ago, the platform continues building out the offering, from a partnership with Google to upcoming campaign performance metrics from Nielsen. Now it’s tapped former Cabify and Mercado Libre exec Sebastian Barrios as Engineering Lead for User, Discovery, Ads & Brands, and Economy.

THE BIZ

Brands are hiring execs and buying into the digital sports space

The new Co-CEO: Dylan Harari, former Head of Creators at SuperOrdinary (the company that collabs with creators to make custom jewelry merch), has joined direct-to-fan/monetization platform Fanfix. He’ll lead alongside co-founder Harry Gestetner. Fanfix says it now has 15 million active users, and is “approaching $170 million in creator payouts.”

The acquisition: V10 is getting sporty. The company that owns America’s Funniest Home Videos (and runs a thriving business licensing clips to reaction/compilation content creators) has bought Towerhouse, which builds and operates YouTube channels for rightsholders in sports, fitness, racing, and anime spaces.

Towerhouse was founded in 2021 by former YouTube partner manager and WarnerMedia exec Parker Jones, and has nabbed partners like Women’s Sports Network, Comics Explained, Olympian gymnast Ian Gunther, and fitness icon Ronnie Coleman.

WATCH THIS 📺

Usain’s always had speed, but now he has Speed

Speed Goes Pro: At this year’s Brandcast, IShowSpeed used his time onstage to announce Speed Goes Pro, a new project where he’ll receive private lessons from some of the biggest athletes in the world. But even as he preps to train with a cavalcade of athletic all-stars, he couldn’t help but get fanboy-giddy when multi-Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt offered to coach him personally.

Watch the creator react to the big news here.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.