Happy Friday. This week Facebook launched a newsletter product that looks A LOT like Substack and FaZe Clan took action against some of their biggest creators for promoting cryptocurrency scams. Today Max is breaking down the next big wave of creators: athletes. Enjoy ✌🏻✌🏽.

In Today’s Issue 💬

→ Breaking down why student-athletes can finally become creators

→ The details behind Amazon’s creator economy strategy

→ Instagram is developing a new way to monetize

The Next Big Creators: Student-Athletes

College athletes can finally start building their own brands and businesses 

The wait is finally over. Earlier this week the NCAA, the governing body for all college sports in America, announced that student-athletes could sign endorsement deals. Contracts started rolling in almost immediately after the change, with notable highlights include two Nebraska basketball players getting sponsored by a local bar, and twin basketball players from Fresno State signing with Boost Mobile & Six Star nutrition. 

Now some of the biggest collegiate creators like LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne and Oregon women’s basketball player Sedona Prince, are expected to bring in millions of dollars. It’s a welcome end to an era that’s forced countless creators to choose between a career in sports or content.

The Best Defense Is A Good Offense 

College athletes are the ideal creators: they have massive distribution, mainstream attention, and huge fanbases. With less than 2% of eligible basketball players getting drafted and even fewer ever making it big in the league, building a creator business allows athletes to make something that can last well beyond their playing days.

Our Take

Even the biggest athletes are already looking at life beyond the game. Whether it’s live streaming or vlogging, the exposure playing sports at a high level brings student-athletes lends itself to creating some of the most monetizable creators in the world. With brands like Barstool Sports already signing talent, expect to see competition for athlete-creators heat up as we see more content, collaborations, and commercials. 

Amazon’s Creator Economy Gamble

The ecommerce giant is diving headfirst into the Creator Economy

Amazon has been actively recruiting creators to use a variety of new content offerings, including its podcasting platform Wondery and its live-streaming shopping site, Amazon Live. The tech giant is also reportedly exploring a creator-brand marketplace as well as an advertising network that places creators in shoppable ads across social media and gives back a cut of the sales.

But How Serious Is Amazon About Creators?

$80 million → The amount of money the company spent on exclusive rights to SmartLess, the podcast from Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes

$300 million→ The reported cost of Amazon’s acquisition of Art19, a podcasting tools platform

1%→ The minimum commission rate Amazon offers creators who sell products on their live streaming platform. That’s a fifth of the rate of Facebook’s own shopping platform.

Our Take

Creators don’t think about Amazon when creating content, and consumers don’t think about Amazon when consuming it. Without a culture of content creation and consumption Amazon faces a big barrier to bringing on creators and audiences.

Instagram’s Latest Bet: Paid Content 

The photo-sharing app is developing a pay-to-view feature for creators

Move over Patreon. Instagram confirmed that the company is developing Exclusive Stories, a feature that allows creators to publish content to paying followers. Users get access to the content, which can’t be screenshotted, through monthly subscriptions, and can bundle their best-paid content into collections to show off anytime on their profile.

Our Take

OnlyFans and Patreon are proof, fans will pay for exclusive access to creators. When Instagram rolls out Exclusive Stories, they’ll work immediately.

🔥 In Other News

• Josh Richards signed on as a special advisor to the NHL 

• TikTok launched a very familiar-looking new video filter

• Facebook launched their new newsletter platform, Bulletin 

• Ludwig, the streamer with the record for the most subscribers on Twitch, launched a new podcast

• 100 Thieves, the esports creator collective, announced their latest apparel drop, which goes live tomorrow at 12 pm PST

Earlier this week we sat down with popular YouTuber Airrack to talk about his life after growing from 0 to 1 million subscribers in one year. 

Here are the three biggest takeaways from the conversation:

1. While regular businesses are capped by costs, creator businesses are only capped by your willingness to sacrifice, and your willingness to work

2. Building great creator businesses requires great teams. Hire people who can do one thing better than you, and empower them to own it.

3. You don't have to reinvent the wheel to succeed on YouTube – just take interesting ideas and turn them into your own. Check Out The Interview