Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry. This week, we have an MLB team getting anime babes, Roblox bulking its burgeoning ad division, MrBeast (maybe) raising $4 million for charity, and Disney loses its YouTube lawsuit.
The biz
Roblox’s burgeoning ad division has a new engineer. After introducing programmatic ads around a year ago, Roblox continues building out the offering (to the chagrin of some independent game developer studios), 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. That’s a lot of depts to juggle, which says to us that Roblox has high expectations for how this whole ad push will go.
Fanfix gets a new co-CEO. Dylan Harari, Head of Creators at SuperOrdinary (the company that collabs with creators to make custom consumer goods), has joined direct-to-fan subscription/monetization platform Fanfix. While continuing his position at SuperOrdinary, he’ll lead Fanfix alongside co-founder and co-CEO Simon Pompan. Fanfix says it now has 15 million active users, and is “approaching $170 million in creator payouts.”
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
V10 gets 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 sports, fitness, racing, and anime spaces. Towerhouse was founded in 2021 by former YouTube and WarnerMedia exec Parker Jones, and has nabbed partners like Women’s Sports Network, Comics Explained, Olympian gymnast Ian Gunther, and fitness icon Ronnie Colema. Now? It adds a certain sporty something to V10’s portfolio.
Creator commotion
The sports x esports crossover we’ve been waiting for. 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.
Addison gets an album. 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.
Usain’s always had speed, but now he has Speed. At this year’s Brandcast, IShowSpeed used his time onstage to announce his next project, Speed Goes Pro, where he’ll get private lessons from some of the biggest athletes in the world. But prepping to interact with some of the biggest athlete celebs in the world didn’t stop him from getting fanboy giddy when multi-Olympic gold medalist sprinter Usain Bolt offered to coach him personally.
Want a tour of the set for Beast Games 2? That’ll be $100K. MrBeast’s Amazon show was renewed for two more seasons, and before filming even begins, he’s 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.” If all 40 spots are booked, that’s a cool $4 mil for good causes.
Asmongold made what? 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 $40,000. In the previous month on Twitch, he’d made $32,371. Is that run rate (and the 95/5 creator/Kick revenue split it represents) sustainable in the long-term? Who knows–but for now, this shows some Kick creators are raking it in.
Platform headlines
Nice try, Disney. The Mouse House speedran losing a lawsuit after trying to keep YouTube from hiring one of its longtime executives. It filed 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. Better luck next time, buddy.
Trump will probably give TikTok more breathing room…again. The Donald is in favor of extending TikTok’s June 19 deadline to divest from owner ByteDance, according to The Wall Street Journal. That’s a much-needed break, because it looks like ByteDance is unwilling to deal until the tariff situation is resolved. Oops?
Podcasts are making bank on Patreon. While YouTube and Spotify fight over whose audio content roster is bigger and better, 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.
