FEATURED STORY
The Creator Gold Rush Will Create The Next Media Empires
The 2026 creator business gold rush is strikingly similar to how the first media companies were ever made.
Just in the past six months, we’ve seen three blockbuster creator-led business deals:
Billionaire Starbucks Founder, Howard Schultz, made a strategic equity investment into former NFL player Ryan Clark’s sports media company The Pivot.
TBPN - the “bro-ey” daily tech talk show sold to OpenAI for $100M+ just 18 months after launching.
Alex Cooper, the Founder of Call Her Daddy, raised at a $500M valuation for her company, Unwell, from Patrick Whitesell’s WTSL.
This concept isn’t new. But the growth is mouthwateringly shocking.
Now, businesses are projected to spend ~$44B on creators this year, venture capital firms are rushing to invest millions into creator-led businesses, and legacy media isn't moving fast enough.
Anyone acquiring, investing, or doing business within the media & entertainment space should be closely following the creator business revolution.
If you want to find the next ESPN, Dow Jones, or Axel Springer, we must learn from how media juggernauts first started.
Creators are now what the newspaper once was…
History Always Repeats Itself
Traditional newspapers became America’s first media conglomerates.
This is the best analogy for creators building modern media empires.
Technological Breakthroughs → Mass Distribution.
From 1880 to 1900, the number of American daily newspapers more than doubled, from 971 to 2,226.
Modernized printing presses and the introduction of the Linotype machine dramatically lowered the cost of scale, while interstate railroads helped local newspapers reach mass circulation.
Fast forward to today: the creator’s printing press is the smartphone, and their railroad is social media.
High-quality media production is approaching zero marginal cost, as creators can now film, edit, and publish directly from their phones.
They can also scale cheaply across distinct audiences through different platforms. The top 1% are matching the output of major media companies by distributing across long-form / short-form / live / vertical / horizontal formats on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Beehiiv, Substack, etc..
Advertising → Revolutionizing Economics.
Advertising was the great economic unlock for media.
By 1900, newspaper and periodical advertising revenue in the U.S. had reached $95.9M, surpassing revenue from subscriptions and sales:
Advertising (1860-1900): $39.1M → $95.9M, +145%
Subscription (1860-1900): $49.9M → $79.9M, +60%
Once brands realized they could scale targeted reach through newspaper advertising, publishers had every incentive to chase larger circulation because greater reach made their ad inventory more valuable.
That’s exactly what we’re witnessing right now with creator-brand partnerships. It wasn’t until the early 2020s that brands fully realized they could partner directly with creators to achieve large-scale, targeted reach, rather than simply buy ads on social platforms.
Building Complimentary Businesses → Media Empires.
Your favorite media conglomerate doesn't just make money from subscription and ad revenue through their content.
They’ve successfully built ancillary businesses to monetize their reach and trust:
Dow Jones (WSJ): Expanded into enterprise data and intelligence products like Factiva, Risk & Compliance, and energy analytics.
The New York Times: Built subscription products like Games and Cooking, alongside Wirecutter’s affiliate-commerce platform.
Barstool Sports: Using social influence to launch clothing lines, alcoholic beverages, sports properties, and even virtual restaurants on Uber Eats & DoorDash.
Now creators are attracting investment by following the same playbook: leveraging their existing audiences to build skincare brands, food and beverage companies, apparel lines, media networks, investment funds, and consumer apps.
Creators = 21st Century Gold
We don’t make the rules. Just look at the data.
Businesses are already pouring billions into the creator space.
In 2026, businesses are projected to spend $43.9B+ on U.S. based creators. That’s a 216% increase since 2021…
While breaking it out by channel, we’re seeing that creator and social media marketing are the fastest growing segments of advertising spend.
What’s equally as fascinating is that company marketing departments are reshaping their hiring needs around those experienced in this exact trend.
Global creator/influencer marketing roles are becoming the hottest jobs and hiring across seniority levels grew 208% from 2019 to 2025.
But here’s the thing, enterprises and brands are not the only ones who are directing their efforts towards creators.
Venture capitalists are too.
Last month, Steven Bartlett, Host of “The Diary of A CEO”, partnered with Authentic Brands Group to deploy up to $400M into creator-led businesses.
This summer, CAA launched Compound Creative Holdings – a $250M investment vehicle to scale creator companies.
In late 2025, Slow Ventures announced a $64M fund to take minority equity positions in creators’ holding companies.
So…creators are not only becoming the #1 marketing spend for businesses, but they’re now also attracting investment capital.
Seems awfully familiar…
Will Creators Disrupt The Legacy Media Platforms?
All answers are pointing to: “Yes.”
But, the most successful media conglomerates will leverage creators and add them to their arsenal. This way, they’re able to reach new audiences, expand to content formats in the cultural zeitgeist, and adapt to the ever-changing platform algorithms.
People don’t follow brands, people follow people.
Two exciting trends we’re seeing with the best creator businesses are:
Their audience is potent. The largest reach by numbers doesn’t equate to the best. High-trust, hard-to-access, ideally affluent, and more niche followings are becoming increasingly attractive. Brands get targeted exposure and creators build a flywheel of habitual monetization across their followings.
The ability to stand-up complimentary businesses. Alix Earle’s successful launch of Reale Actives, her consumer skin care product, is directly comparable to how The New York Times’ expanded from pure media into daily games. The creators that end up becoming the next big media empires will have a suite of businesses – not just a single revenue stream from their content.
The next time you’re scrolling through your social media feed (and reading through your favorite newsletter 😉) , just know there might be a media empire in the making.