Author: Sara Guaglione

USA Today Co.’s AI licensing deals helped drive meaningful year-over-year revenue growth in the first quarter of this year, despite pressure on referral traffic and programmatic advertising.

According to the publisher’s latest earnings published Thursday morning, “other” digital revenue — which includes digital content syndication, affiliate, content and AI partnerships, and licensing revenue — grew 125.6% year-over-year to $33.75 million in the first quarter.

While the company did not break out what percentage of this revenue was from AI licensing deals, USA Today Co. CEO and chairman Mike Reed said in the earnings call on Thursday that these deals had a “notable impact” on the company’s first quarter revenue.

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Baller League has something rare in creator economy business circles: a plan that doesn’t end with it becoming a media company. Instead it wants to become a sustainable sports league. 

That’s not as obvious as the name suggests. Most creator-led sports properties have ended up caring more about the entertainment wrapper than the sport inside it – the spectacle, the IP and the media rights. Baller League. The six-a-side indoor soccer league where creator-managed teams stream free on Youtube and Twitch, thinks the sport itself is the asset worth building. 

“Being a sports league is the priority,” said CEO and co-founder Felix Starck. This [soccer] is the most played sport in the world and we want to give it a stage.”

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