Good morning. In a few hours, creators will tee off for the PGA’s first-ever Creator Classic—a nine-hole golf tournament to kick off the Tour Championship. Who do you have your money on? Dude Perfect’s Tyler Toney? Good Good’s Garrett Clark? We’re pulling for Gabby DeGasperis, the youngest competitor (and the one with the coolest trick shots).

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

Why These Creators Released a Horror Film Directly to YouTube

Two weeks ago, comedy creators Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson released an hour-long horror film, Milk & Serial, on their YouTube channel. Now, the movie they made for $800 is taking off among horror fans. And Barker has already started casting for his next major project: a feature film.

“Even though we worked really hard for a year trying to get distribution for this thing, we said screw it and threw it on YouTube,” Barker told Variety. “All of a sudden you’re seeing videos that discuss both Alien: Romulus [a studio film with an $80 million budget] and Milk & Serial.”

How they got here: Barker and Tomlinson met at film school in 2018 and started a sketch comedy channel called That’s a Bad Idea.

• The duo posts new videos on YouTube and TikTok every week across scopes and genres.

• Their 2023 horror short film The Chair notched 5.5 million views on YouTube and was nominated for Best Film at Los Angeles Short Film Fest.

Following that recognition, Barker and Tomlinson landed an undisclosed distributor for Milk & Serial. But instead of putting the film behind a paywalled streaming service, they opted instead to upload it directly to YouTube—quickly earning them fans among critics and the Reddit community on r/horror.

“Before, I always felt to be respected as a real movie it has to be on Netflix or Shudder or Hulu or whatever,” Barker told Variety. “But people do respect it and respect that it’s for free.”

Zoom out: From movie critic Chris Stuckmann funding his debut horror film through a $1.7 million Kickstarter to Kane Pixels adapting his Backrooms YouTube series into an A24 film, creators are making their mark on the horror genre.

Kelce Brothers Become Latest Creators to Sign 9-Figure Deal

This week, football stars and podcast creators Travis and Jason Kelce signed a deal with Amazon’s Wondery podcast network for their New Heights show. The deal is reportedly worth more than $100 million.

The three-year tie-in will give Wondery distribution rights to all audio and video episodes and merchandising, as well as exclusive advertising rights.

State of play: The Kelce bros are the latest creators to sign a nine-figure podcast deal this year. 

• Last week, Call Her Daddy creator Alex Cooper signed a three-year, $125 million deal with SiriusXM.

• In February, Joe Rogan renewed his Spotify contract for another four years at $250 million.

• In January, Smartless left Wondery to sign a three-year, $100 million deal with SiriusXM.

Worth noting: These podcast deals look a little different from those of 2021, which were largely focused on exclusive viewing and listening rights. These days, networks are angling to own advertising rights—it’s now less about limiting where viewers consume podcasts and more about making the most of exposure across all platforms.

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Ludwig’s Biggest Streamer Games Takeaways

Earlier this month, streamer Ludwig Ahgren hosted an Olympics-style creator event in LA. Ahgren pulled out all the stops, hiring over 100 staff to produce the event with sponsorship from Red Bull and Streamlabs.

So was it a success? Though Ahgren was vocal about losing money on the event, he said it was more than worth doing again. Here are the metrics he tracked:

• Creators participating. “If a brand wanted 32 creators (for an event), they’d have to pay an insane amount of money. I don’t have to and that’s because [creators] expect to have a generally good time,” Ahgren said in a video. Creator participants also allow for more sponsorship opportunities.

• Audience. “Making sure they have a good time, have food and drink available [is important]. I stayed after both days to take a picture with everyone,” Ahgren said.

• Sponsors. “If I want to do the event next year, I need to make sure they’re happy,” Ahgren said.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Kareem Rahma welcomes Minnesota Governor and VP candidate Tim Walz on his short-form talk show, Subway Takes.

• Instagram rolls out new fonts and stickers for Stories and Reels.

• The Costco Guys are starting a podcast on Twitch.

• Meta is shutting down its AR platform, Spark, next year.

• Creator groups AMP and Beta Squad tease an October soccer rematch in Miami.