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Today’s News

TEE TIME

Topgolf is teaming up with golf creators to promote its sporty new Fortnite island

The buzz: From the PGA Tour’s inaugural Creator Classic to the virality of sports YouTubers like Bryson DeChambeau (who recently played a round with Donald Trump), golf is having a major moment in the creator economy. Brands are eager to tap into the audiences generating that hype—and they’re turning to gaming destinations like Fortnite to make it happen.

Topgolf is the most recent participant in that trend. The sports company has partnered with Fortnite and a handful of creators to introduce a custom branded map designed by Zoned, a full-service marketing agency owned by esports-savvy digital media company GameSquare Holdings.

The promotion: That map will give online consumers a taste of the 80 sports park locations that earn Topgolf more than $4 billion per year. The island is modeled after the brand’s IRL destinations (which span the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, Mexico, Thailand, and the U.A.E.) and includes games like a mini golf speedrun course set in Santa Monica, Dubai, Bangkok, and Las Vegas.

To promote those offerings, Topgolf has tapped pro Fortnite players Bugha (5.5 million Twitch followers), Clix (7.8 million), Nate Hill (1.6 million), and Kazify (962K YouTube subscribers) to visit its island at launch and stream their gameplay live across Twitch and YouTube. All four creators will also give away codes for $15 off gameplay at Topgolf’s brick-and-mortar U.S. locations.

The context: Branded Fortnite maps have gained popularity over the last few years, with brands like Chipotle, Balenciaga, the NFL, Verizon, Timex, Whataburger, and—most recently—Twitch, Peloton, and Domino’s building custom experiences. Those companies also aren’t the only ones benefitting from game-based marketing tactics. Zoned said it expects to earn “over $3 million in revenue” from Topgolf’s Fortnite project and similar, recently-signed partnerships.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• YouTube’s most-watched channel—aka Indian record label T-Series—now sits at 266.8 billion lifetime views after snagging the #1 spot in our latest Global Top 50 chart. (Tubefilter)
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• YouTube Premium subscribers in the E.U., the Middle East, and parts of Asia have reportedly begun receiving alerts from YouTube about upcoming price hikes. (The Verge)

• X has agreed to appoint a legal representative in Brazil and begin blocking extremist accounts in an effort to end the national ban on its platform. (Gizmodo)
  
  

• The International Trade Union Confederation has named Meta on a list of corporations that allegedly leverage “complex lobbying operations” to grow their “own profits by undermining democracy." (The Register)

DATA • GOSPEL STATS 📈

Top 3 Branded Videos of the Week: Tiny homes, gun-swords, and biological machines

Once again, a handful of savvy brands are proving that they know exactly where to lend a financial hand to reach consumers on YouTube. Read on to find out how three digital-first companies—a fantasy sports platform, a mobile game developer, and an online course provider—teamed up with creators to top this week’s Gospel Stats Brand Report:

🥇 FaZe Rug x Underdog Fantasy: I Survived the Tiniest VS Largest House in America! (3.1M views)
FaZe Rug’s partnership with Underdog Fantasy is proving to be a profitable affair. The esports vet/fantasy sports brand duo jumped three spots this week after coming in at #4 in Gospel’s previous ranking. The video responsible for that leap brought in just over 3 million views—a reminder that “this vs. that” content is still killing it on YouTube.

🥈 I did a thing x Honkai: Star Rail: Youtube’s worst blacksmith makes a Gun-sword! (2.7M views)
Alex Apollonov has formulated plenty of questionable creations in his time, but the YouTuber recently swore he wouldn’t make anything resembling a gun again……unless someone paid him a lot of money. Based on his latest sponsored video, we’re guessing Honkai: Star Rail—a new mobile game from YouTube-savvy developer miHoYo—fits that bill.

🥉 Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell x Brilliant: We Need to Rethink Exercise (Updated Version) (2.6M views)
Underdog Fantasy and miHoYo aren’t the only frequent YouTube sponsors in this week’s branded ranking. In addition to teaming up with long-time creator partner Kurzgesagt, online course provider Brilliant threw its financial weight behind nearly 50 other videos in just seven days. A good number of those fall into the same STEM-related category as Kurzgesagt’s, which makes sense given that every single one of Brilliant’s top 20 sponsored videos can be classified as “edutainment.”

Check out our full article here to learn about lucky video #4—or head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube data insights.

BIG INVESTMENTS

A new California law is taking aim at addictive social media feeds

The law: California is tackling the issue of social media addiction among kids. A state bill that regulates social media feeds for minors has been signed into law.

Once it goes into effect in 2027, SB976 will bar social media platform from sending notifications to California minors during school hours and between midnight and 6 A.M. The law also requires platforms to provide underage users with depersonalized experiences on recommendation-based feeds like TikTok’s For You Page.

Kids hoping to circumvent that algorithm-free existence do have one avenue of appeal: parents will have the authority to opt out on behalf of their children. Even so, some researchers are concerned restrictions imposed by laws like SB976 could limit kids’ access to crucial online resources:

The context: Despite those concerns, California’s new bill is part of a growing wave of legislation designed to remove personalization from kids’ social media feeds. The E.U. recently compelled TikTok to roll out a feed devoid of algorithmic recommendations, while Utah and New York have proposed similar protections for underage users. Other states have taken related steps to protect minors operating within the creator economy; Illinois, for instance, now requires proper compensation for child creators.

Some platforms have sought to head off those kinds of legislative measures by enacting their own safety-focused features. YouTube, for instance, has introduced a litany of tools to shelter underage users, while TikTok has debuted sliders that adjust the frequency of specific content types on its FYP

WATCH THIS 📺

Is everything “twice as long as it should be”?

The creator: Over the last decade, video essayist Drew Gooden has critiqued everything from SNL to the questionable decor favored by the uber-rich. Now, the YouTuber is tackling one of his timeliest subjects yet: the sheer breadth of modern content.

In a viral video titled “Everybody wants to waste your time,” Gooden delves into the ways in which Netflix documentaries, YouTube videos, short-form content, and video games have evolved to capture consumers’ attention for as long as humanly possible. You can check out the full video essay here, but be warned—it will take up a solid 30 minutes.

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