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It's Monday and here's something for all you former SuperWhoLockians to reblog: Previous Tumblr head Jeff D'Onofrio is stepping in as The Washington Post's new acting CEO. |
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Today's News |
🏈 YouTube creators hit the Super Bowl 💸 Reddit hunts for acquisitions 📖 Spotify gets into the book biz 🎙️ This week on the podcast…
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GAME ON |
 | Creators are scoring touchdowns with NFL content. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) |
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NFL-themed videos snagged 20B+ YouTube views last year |
The creator takeover: Creators took over sports fans' screens in the days leading up to Super Bowl LX. |
YouTube's flag football game featured co-headliners Druski and J. Balvin, TikTokers hung out on Radio Row, Twitch stars played video games against NFL pros in the Streamer Bowl, MrBeast took the reins of Salesforce's Super Bowl ad, and the NFL itself named Dhar Mann as its Chief Kindness Officer. |
So, why is everyone from Marc Benioff to Roger Goodell so eager to team up with creators? Long story short: the NFL is one of the hottest things in video right now. |
The stats: According to YouTube's latest Culture and Trends report, NFL-themed videos picked up over 20 billion views on YouTube in 2025 (much of which was driven by Shorts). That viewership sum is 3.5x bigger than it was in 2020, with a lot of that growth coming from younger generations. YouTube's report cites a SmithGeiger study, which found that 56% of U.S. sports fans aged 14-24 watch or engage with sports analysis from creators on a weekly basis. |
With the big numbers in its Culture and Trends report, YouTube is making the case that it deserves the rights to more NFL broadcasts moving forward. Its acquisition of the NFL Sunday Ticket programming package has endeared it to football fans, and it kicked off the most recent NFL slate with its first exclusive broadcast of a regular-season game. |
The NFL offseason will give the platform another opportunity to flex its growing influence in the sports world, since the months in between the games are a fertile period for football-loving creators. YouTube noted in its report that 30% of NFL-related views in 2025 occurred during the league's offseason. |
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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰 |
 | The front page of the internet wants to get bigger. |
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BOOK BIZ |
 | Music ➜ Podcasts ➜ Audiobooks ➜ Physical Books |
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Spotify is selling physical books (and syncing them with your audiobook library) |
The partnership: Spotify already offers over 500,000 audiobooks. Now, it's teaming up with Bookshop.org to let readers order physical books directly through the Spotify app. |
Once purchased, the books will be synced up with the buyer's Spotify account. Then—thanks to a feature called Page Match—readers will be able to switch between their physical copies and the corresponding audiobook versions. Page Match prompts users to take a photo of the page they're currently reading, which Spotify then scans to find the same point in the audiobook. |
The strategy: In a blog post announcing the Bookshop.org partnership, Spotify noted that physical books accounted for 73% of trade publishing revenue last year. By tapping into that consumer base, Spotify can appeal to Gen Z's long-held affinity for physical books while also giving its users freedom to read and/or listen as they see fit. |
That initiative starts at the local level, as Bookshop.org connects readers to nearby independent booksellers: |
"By meeting readers where they are and linking to Bookshop.org, Spotify is financially supporting indie booksellers with each purchase." | | | | - Andy Hunter, said Bookshop.org Founder and CEO |
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The context: Spotify's "reverse Amazon" maneuver puts the platform in a prime position to pursue more of the creator partnerships it covets. By aligning itself with communities like #BookTok, Spotify has an opportunity to build new cross-promotional opportunities that leverage its expanding monetization ecosystem—if it can successfully navigate the physical book biz. |
TikTok's own attempt to get into publishing, 8th Note Press, ended with a quiet shuttering last year. It's hard to say how much of that demise can be attributed to internal TikTok decisions, but Spotify may need to navigate some pitfalls when its Bookshop.org integration kicks off in the spring. |
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LISTEN UP 🎙️ |
 | Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach has a box office success story. How big can it get? |
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This week on the podcast… |
The episode: On the latest installment of Creator Upload, hosts Joshua Cohen and Lauren Schnipper break down YouTube's $60 billion revenue reveal and what that massive annual sum signals for the future of the creator economy. |
Also on the discussion list: the shocking box office success of Markiplier's Iron Lung film adaptation and Google's quarrel with certain TV measurement agencies. |
Check out the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for all the details. |
The survey: Creator Upload wants your opinion! Take this survey to help us understand who's tuning in and what you want more (or less) of from the show. |
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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, James Hale, and Josh Cohen. |
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