longstoryshort
The Town with Matthew Belloni cover art
The Town with Matthew Belloni
The Ringer Friday, October 2, 2026 39 min 3 minutes Deletes in 27 days

Why Every Agency Wants a Piece of the Creator Economy

Talent agencies and traditional producers are racing to insert themselves into the $250 billion creator economy, chasing equity stakes and new revenue streams as their legacy TV businesses shrink.

Key takeaways

  • Agencies have shifted from merely booking brand deals for creators to acting as equity partners—CAA now runs a $250 million fund to invest directly in creator businesses, mirroring how old TV packaging fees once gave agencies ownership stakes in shows before the Writers Guild forced those fees to end.
  • The three major agencies are pursuing different creator strategies: WME is funneling creator talent into its sports leagues and live events, UTA is signing lifestyle-focused creator businesses, and CAA has doubled down on both its creators division and its new investment fund, even hiring pioneer Brent Weinstein away from UTA to lead the charge.
  • Unscripted TV production is being squeezed because streamers and networks now favor proven, YouTube-tested formats or big celebrity names (citing Beckham or Messi) over newly pitched ideas; shows like American Idol and America's Got Talent are even relocating production to cut costs as budgets shrink.
  • Specialized firms are professionalizing creator channels by reducing reliance on a single personality: Electrify brought traditional TV producers into Veritasium, using AI and new formats to wean the audience off creator Derek being in every video, growing the channel beyond one person's face.
  • Successful investment targets share traits: a loyal, passionate audience (even if small), a founder with real vision for scaling, and often an origin story where the creator stumbled into IP by accident; like the Spud Bros, two UK YouTubers who started filming themselves making baked potatoes and grew it into ten restaurants and a retail line without selling to private equity.
  • Platforms are enforcing exclusivity to protect their investment: YouTube CEO Neil Mohan stated publicly that creators who also post full shows on Netflix risk losing monetization and promotional opportunities like brand-cast stage slots on YouTube.

Notable moments

  • Belloni opens by noting 101 Studios just put $25 million into food-influencer platform Yes Cheff, illustrating how constant these investment announcements have become.
  • Goldberg's Mad Men analogy: digital agents are today's Harry Crane; once a dumping-ground assignment, now running the show because "the money is there."
  • WME's Ben Davis needling CAA in the New York Times: "We see the greater opportunity in providing the services that help talent own more of what they build."
  • Goldberg comparing today's creator deals to the "Wild West" of late-'90s reality TV format deals done on napkins.
  • The Veritasium case study, where Electrify used producers and AI to scale the channel past its single on-camera host.
  • Discussion of Chicken Shop Date being rejected by every UK broadcaster before succeeding independently online; proof creators no longer need gatekeeper validation.
  • The call sheet segment closes the episode with Belloni and Horlbeck sparring over box-office predictions for Verity and Mortal Engines (sorry, Inarritu's Cruise film) with both agreeing Tom Cruise's $160 million art-house gamble will underperform, tracking as low as the low teens.

Time saved: 36 minutes.

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