Good morning. In his second game as kicker for the UFL’s San Antonio Brahmas, Deestroying unfortunately fractured his neck—an injury that appears to close the door on his pro football dreams (for now). Dee appeared in high spirits though, saying he’s going to “sit my a** down now and focus on healing up” in an IG story.

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

Dude Perfect Announces Nine-Figure Investment

Trick shot creators Dude Perfect have landed a nine-figure check from investment firm Highmount Capital, a cash infusion that will help the group expand its content output, live events, and product opportunities.

The investment is worth “greater than $100 million,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The why: The Dudes have pursued increasingly ambitious ventures in recent years, including both a family-friendly streaming app and a theme park centered around trick shots.

• Many of Dude Perfect’s growth strategies have been in service of establishing a brand that can develop “other talent from across the world of creators” and thrive even after the original group eventually retires from creating.

• “As fun as it would be for the five of us to still be doing water bottle flips when we’re in our 70s…we [want this to] be something much bigger than just the five of us,” co-founder Coby Cotton said.

The group believes that now is the right time to expand since “family-friendly entertainment [is] in high demand,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Zoom out: Not all creator businesses are meant to grow to Dude Perfect’s size. “If it’s not a billion-dollar path and it’s a $10 million dollar path…that’s a meaningful business that you should be proud of,” Scott Manson, an investor at The Chernin Group, said at The Information’s Creator Economy Summit last week.

But for Dude Perfect, exploring new opportunities such as movies and product lines requires upfront capital.

Night Acquires Rooster Teeth Podcast Network

Night, the talent management firm started by MrBeast’s manager Reed Duchscher, has acquired The Roost podcast network.  

Quick background: The Roost was started by digital media brand Rooster Teeth, which shut down last month after nearly 20 years on YouTube. In the interim, the podcast network was run by Rooster Teeth’s former parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. 

The Roost is home to 47 original shows, including Ludwig’s The Yard and comedian Theo Von’s This Past Weekend, that collectively bring in 20 million audio downloads a month, according to Night. 

Following the Night acquisition, The Roost will continue to operate autonomously and will keep the majority of its staff.

Zoom out: The Roost acquisition will be Night’s first foray in the billion-dollar podcast space, building on its recent expansion into other categories like video production and merch.

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YouTube Creative Duo Head for TV

New York-based comedy creators Alexandra Robinson and Danny Kabouni recently signed with talent management studio and production company Brillstein Entertainment Partners.

What that means: Robinson and Kabouni will expand their YouTube series Bare Minimum. Plus? 

“We’re signed as a writing duo but we’re not limited to just writing—we’ll get into acting and directing, which is why it’s exciting to us,” Robinson told us.

Bare Minimum is currently on hiatus as Robinson and Kabouni prepare to pitch the series to streamers. Robinson and Kabouni credit the YouTube show as proof of concept for their creativity.

“How else would they know we could do this? We wore every single hat: casting, writing, and post-production on zero budget,” Kabouni said.

➕ Community Tab

Given the Dude Perfect news, we’d love to learn more about how you're building your creator business…

🔥 Press Worthy

• OpenAI transcribed over 1 million hours of YouTube videos to train its GPT-4 model, The New York Times reports.

• Lyrical Lemonade is now selling three flavors of lemonade at 7-Eleven and on Amazon.

• From private podcasts to in-house newsletters, generate new income, and quickly get a membership business up and running with Memberful.*

• Design creator Soren Iverson launches his own studio.

• Doug Demuro shares a tour of the Cars & Bids office.

• YouTube introduces new shopping features that let creators curate product collections.

• Rhett and Link appear on How I Built This.

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