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Trending The Market
Can A Creator Put A Division 1 Basketball Team On The Map?
Robert Morris University tapped creator Cullen Honohan and his All Hail Bball digital-media brand as its official media partner.
The Big Pitch: Both professional and collegiate sports franchises are realizing that influencers have the reputation of a celebrity and the power of a broadcaster. While there have been at least a half-dozen creator sponsors in recent years, RMU is hoping that striking a deeper relationship with Honohan can help the university’s Division 1 basketball team tell its story to the world.
The Fine Print: With nearly 2 million followers across social platforms, Honohan and All Hail Bball have the reach to put RMU Colonials on the map, according to Tubefilter.
Honohan will create content on the court and behind the scenes, with the angle of turning the Colonials into “the next Cinderella story in college basketball.”
The creator and the university both hope that the partnership grows their respective brands, demonstrating how mutually beneficial deeper partnerships can be.
Honohan is a Pittsburgh native, which is why he decided to partner with the university. He believes that, while Pittsburgh is a big sports city, its basketball franchises have been largely ignored. He hopes to expand this type of partnership to other teams across Pittsburgh sports as well.
The Analysis: Honohan joins a growing list of creators who are taking their influence to athletics.
Dude Perfect became Burnley FC's junior & academy official shirt partner
MrBeast’s Feastables became an official jersey sponsor of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets
Logan Paul and KSI’s PRIME became a sponsor of Arsenal
It’s proof that the tie-up between creators and sports franchises are just getting started… and may even give some mid-tier teams the opportunity to get some much-needed attention to take their performance to the next level.
Together with Consumable
Audio For The Outcomes Era
Most media plans treat audio as a few line items: a streaming buy, maybe a podcast sponsorship. But the audio ecosystem is far bigger than that… and much of it is going untouched.
Mobile apps, addressable podcast audiences, and creator-led content extended across platforms — these are spaces where attention is intentional and trust already exists.
Consumable opens up that ecosystem.
The tool helps you reach 210M+ Comscore-verified monthly users across formats and channels.
It’s powered by listener intelligence, precision targeting, and modern identity infrastructure.
Every audio impression is measurable, addressable, and tied to real outcomes.
Consumable lets brands reach audiences wherever they listen, with the same precision and accountability marketers expect from their best digital channels.
Through immersive ad experiences that combine audio, visuals, and interactivity, brands can finally turn listening into engagement and business impact.
Building The Stack
Vertical Video Hits A High Note
A new report from Owl & Co. found that the vertical video market will hit $150 billion this year — a 42% increase from last year. The report considered advertising, consumer and shopping take-rate revenue across social apps, microdramas, and live-shopping platforms. And here’s the most-fascinating part: that figure is not counting China, which has the biggest short-form video market in the world. No wonder Owl & Co. founder Hernan Lopez called the format “the third audiovisual language.”
Disney Wants A Dose of Dhar Mann
Disney is on a mission to bulk up its digital-creator content for Disney+. Its latest move is signing Dhar Mann Studios to an exclusive deal that will see the titular creator make 20 episodes of original content for the streaming platform. Considering that Mann’s shows (which are typically short, scripted dramas about moral dilemmas) generate roughly 300 million views each week, Disney+ could be getting a major engagement boost.
Kick Founders Open Club
Kick has been one of the few livestreaming platforms not from a major social-media company to actually take on Twitch. Now, founders Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven are taking their talents to fandom monetization with a new app called Club. The platform is dubbed “a home for superfan communities centered around individual creators,” per Tubefilter. Creators can manage everything from paywalled content to subscriptions in one destination — a consolidation of revenue that could be catnip for brand partnerships.
Will you be following Cullen Hollohan’s coverage of the Colonials?
Social Updates
Meta launched an app called Pocket that allows users to vibe-code interactive games.
TikTok will now let users send payments via DM.
Patreon rolled out several new features that are meant to give smaller creators an algorithmic leg up.
Reddit is testing a new AI tool that turns text threads into vertical-video clips.
Wrapping Up
That's the week in the brand-creator economy. We'll be back in your inbox next Tuesday.
A reminder: Authentic, the Brand-Creator Summit, is coming to New York on November 18th… and it’s going to be an event you don’t want to miss.
A single day of curated conversations with decision-makers across brand marketing, creator platforms, talent, agencies, and investment — all in direct conversation about what's driving the future of the brand-creator economy.
This is the first time we're bringing the community this newsletter is built for into the same room, and we intend to make it the kind of gathering worth coming back to year after year.
If you want to be one of the first to know when tickets go on sale, request a notification at authentic.aivanta.io
— The Authentic Team