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If you’re finding value in our Creator Economy newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing to The Information. It contains exclusive reporting on the most important stories in tech. Save up to $250 on your first year of access. Hello! Sara Germano here from The Information’s sports desk. I write The Arena column, where last week I took a deep dive into the increasingly central role that creators play in driving young audiences to live sporting events. For anyone who’s watched the Golf Channel, the NBA All-Star Game, or the Olympics, this trend has been brewing for some time. The rise of influencers in sports coincides with the decline in traditional sportswriting. Sports Illustrated is a shell of its former self. The New York Times disbanded its sports section after it acquired The Athletic. No one I spoke with for my story questioned whether storytelling needs a digital refresh, but as content creators take a larger role at sporting events, there is a definite shift in which topics get covered. The career arc of one of the creators I covered, Instagrammer Tiara Williams, illustrates this shift. Williams, a collegiate track-and-field athlete, started interviewing athletes on Instagram Live during the 2020 Covid lockdowns. But her nascent creator as an Instagrammer didn’t blow up until 2023, during the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. Williams took a low-key approach that made athletes relaxed, such as handing them a mini-fan after their race and complementing the female athletes’ nails. The approach won her interviews with runners who were dodging harsh questions elsewhere: Nigerian sprinter Tobi Amusan, the world record holder in the women’s 100 meter hurdles, declined to answer when a columnist from the Irish Examiner asked about allegations Amusan had recently missed mandatory anti-doping tests. Amusan was all smiles, however, for her interview just a few moments later with Williams, alias @_RealTalkwithTee, where Amusan discussed a recent haircut and showed off her manicure. The Court of Arbitration for Sport later cleared Amusan of the anti-doping charges, and an agent for the sprinter didn’t respond to my questions for this newsletter. But the episode highlighted the different aims for journalists and many social media creators when it comes to covering sports. The reporter who was rebuffed in Budapest, Cathal Dennehy, said he thought creators have brought a lot of good to sports coverage, including improving the diversity across all ages and races in press zones. Conflict can arise, however, when influencers and traditional media are competing for the same small sliver of an athlete’s time after a meet. In such cases, he wrote over email, “everyone in the media should be starting with the essential stuff that the fans want/need to know about before going into the more fun things that show off their personality.” Both Dennehy and Williams told me they believe there is room for creators and columnists to coexist at sporting events. Administrators everywhere from track meets to NBA games seem to agree and are now adjusting their media access policies to reflect these different types of media. I’m a traditional reporter myself so I have some skin in the game. I agree that there should be space for all kinds of coverage of sporting events, both hard questions from journalists and chatty vignettes with influencers. I know one thing: ultimately the fans will decide which coverage wins out. Now over to Kaya Yurieff for what else is going on… See The Information’s Creator Economy Database for an exclusive list of private companies and their investors. The Golden Globes announced it’s adding “Best Podcast” of the year to its awards in January 2026 because the medium has “experienced seismic growth.” Instagram is testing a new feature with the singer The Weeknd which lets users access exclusive content on Reels with a password. The Weeknd on Wednesday will release a previously unseen clip from his upcoming thriller “Hurry Up Tomorrow” using the feature. Facebook launched a new Instagram account on Wednesday called “@facebookforcreators” with product updates and tips for how creators can earn money and grow on the blue app. PodX Group, a podcast company, said it plans to acquire a majority stake in independent podcast network Lemonada Media, whose shows include Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ “Wiser Than Me” and Meghan Markle’s “Confessions of a Female Founder.” YouTube is testing a subscription for its ad-free service YouTube Premium that two people can use at a reduced cost in countries including India, France and Taiwan. American Eagle is the latest brand to launch a newsletter on Substack, which aims to reach Gen Z shoppers. The Tratter Foundation, a new influencer-led philanthropic foundation, launched recently. The groups behind the effort are the Tratter House, a digital collective of creators focused on showcasing Western lifestyle, youth-focused nonprofit Gen Kind and Crowdsurf, a creator agency and investment platform helping creators raise capital and grow their brands. • TikTok projected confidence to advertisers at its NewFronts presentation on Tuesday in New York. “TikTok is here. We are here,” said Khartoon Weiss, the company’s new vice president of global business solutions, according to the New York Times. “We are absolutely confident in our platform and confident in the future of this platform.” The short-form video app also announced new features for advertisers, including making it easier for their ads to appear next to top trending videos or specific content categories, such as sports or beauty. • Snap announced a new advertising campaign called “Say it in a Snap” aimed at showing the “relatable” and “fleeting” moments that “can really only be shared with Snapchat,” including billboards in New York in Times Square and Citi Field. The Snapchat parent company also shared other announcements, including the ability for advertisers to send a sponsored Snap directly from a creator’s handle to users in the chat feed. It also launched “Under the Ghost,” a new music performance series hosted at the company’s Santa Monica studio offering performances and conversations for artists’ fans. Kai Cenat is accepting applications from creators for his “Streaming University,” which he announced in February. Chosen applicants will receive a fully paid trip to live on a college campus for free with other creators, the top Twitch streamer wrote on X. Elle Griffin, an independent writer on Substack, raised more than $50,000 in pledges from her readers to write a new book, rather than seeking a traditional advance from a publisher. Griffin, who has serialized her novels on the newsletter platform in the past, will start sending chapters of the book to subscribers next week. Patrick Janelle will serve as the chair of the top Hollywood union SAG-AFTRA’s first-ever Influencer Committee. Janelle is the founder of digital talent management agency Untitled Secret. Thank you for reading the Creator Economy Newsletter! I’d love your feedback, ideas and tips: kaya@theinformation.com. If you think someone else might enjoy this newsletter, please pass it forward or they can sign up here: https://www.theinformation.com/newsletters/creator-economy | 
