Good morning. Throttle House’s Thomas Holland and James Engelsman and trainspotting creator Francis Bourgeois are putting pedal to the metal as the new hosts of BBC’s car review show, The Grand Tour. With a lineup that good, we might just become car people.

By the way: Tickets for Press Publish NYC are now live. Join us in Brooklyn on September 4 for our one-day summit for the creator economy.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

MLB Invests in Top Creator-Led Sports Brand

Major League Baseball recently purchased a minority stake in Jomboy Media, the creator-led media brand known for its sports commentary shows and Warehouse Games like Blitzball and Floorball.

The pitch: Jomboy’s audience grew 63% year-over-year in Q1 2025. Last year, Jomboy totaled 93 million engagements on social, placing it in the top 4% of all digital publishers. Its baseball podcasts, Talkin’ Yanks and Talkin’ Baseball, regularly top sports podcasts charts.

The MLB, which bought out shares from some of Jomboy's early investors in the transaction, won’t have a board seat or editorial oversight with their investment. But they will partner with Jomboy on content and business opportunities in a bid to get in front of more fans. 

“[Jomboy founder Jimmy O'Brien] is still the majority shareholder and still controls the board, and I think that’s really important for a creator-led company especially when you are the face of the company and you are the main product,” Jomboy CEO Courtney Hirsch told us. “These are very personal businesses because they are fueled by creators…and you have to scale the right way.”

Here’s what fans can expect from the partnership →

The content: MLB players will participate in Jomboy’s Warehouse Games, and Jomboy commentators will appear on MLB programming. Jomboy can now participate in major MLB events like the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby.

The business: Jomboy will gain access to MLB league and team IP, opening doors to sell branded merchandise and collaborate with MLB official sponsors.

“We can make official shirts with the Yankees logo and all the team logos and we can extend that into home goods and physical products. So that opens up a whole revenue side for us in merchandising,” Hirsch said.

Zoom out: Most major sports leagues have made inroads with creators—the NBA’s Creator Cup series, the PGA’s Creator Classic, and now the MLB’s tie-in with Jomboy. Why does it work so well? 

“Creators are smaller, more nimble. We’re at the center of content consumption and community and I think larger organizations can really benefit from partnering with creators who really know how to reach people where they’re at,” Hirsch said.

Horror Creator Becomes A24’s Youngest Director

After two years in development, A24 greenlit The Backrooms, a horror film directed by VFX YouTuber Kane Parsons. At 19 years old, Parsons is the studio’s youngest director.

How he got here: 

• Parsons began uploading short films to YouTube in 2017 to hone his VFX skills. 

• As he improved, Parsons began building out a cinematic universe based on an urban legend called “the backrooms,” a liminal space where mysterious creatures lurk in vacated offices. 

• Since Parsons created Backrooms, the series has racked up almost 200 million views.

Parsons' feature adaptation of The Backrooms is slated to film this summer, with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve set to star. 

Read the room: A24 continues to give creators a platform to tell their stories. Parsons joins Talk to Me creators RackaRacka, Eighth Grade’s Bo Burnham, and Marcel the Shell With Shoes On’s Dean Fleischer-Camp in A24’s creator-focused filmography.

Corridor Crew Shares the Secret to Their Success

This week, Colin and Samir sat down with Niko Pueringer, co-founder of VFX YouTube channel Corridor Crew. Here are the top takeaways ➡️

On finding a format that works: “Right now, it feels like YouTube is saturated,” Pueringer said. “But it’s not saturated at all [...] It’s so easy to break out on YouTube as long as you can find that blind spot.” 

On paid creator-run streaming services: “The idea that more streaming services are a problem is pretty misguided,” Pueringer said when asked about Corridor Crew’s paid streaming service, Corridor Digital. “I think it’s great that people are now directly paying the people making the media that they want to see and removing these middlemen gatekeepers.”

On staying relevant for another 15 years: Pueringer wants to expand into feature films and educational videos—maintaining the tone of his channel while incorporating new formats, media, and projects. 

🔥 Press Worthy

• Education creator Tom Scott posts for the first time after a yearlong hiatus, asking his viewers what he should do next.

• Creators For Peace is hosting a trans rights charity livestream benefitting Point of Pride this Sunday.

• LTK and Pinterest ink a partnership to feature high-performing LTK posts on Pinterest feeds.

• Prediction marketplace Kalshi airs the first fully AI-generated commercial.

• Instagram announces that users will soon be able to customize the post order on their grids, regardless of when the posts were published.

📚️ Thank You For Pressing Publish

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

• Read: Phone Time newsletter writer Kristin Merrilees writes an ode to the iBeer app and the nostalgia of the early iPhone era.

• Watch: YouTube channel 2.06am vlogs an average day as a 21-year-old truck driver.

• Listen: Australian nature podcast That’s Just Wild dives into how sharks develop friendships and why we need parasites.