Spain Won the World Cup. The Internet Won the Content.

0:00Jasmine Enberg: Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy. I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters. Viking Road Champs, Erling Holland, and Tourists Discovering America. There was so much to love about the 2026 World Cup on social media. The least interesting content actually came from the creators who attended the matches. Even Mr. Beast was posting like a general lifestyle influencer. We explain why. Later in the show, we're also joined by Tony Cohen-Brown, a Formula One commentator and creator.

0:34Jasmine Enberg: We talk all about the creator economy's impact on F1 and why Netflix's drive to survive doesn't deserve all the credit for thrusting F1 into the spotlight for Americans.

0:47Jasmine Enberg: Hi, Jasmine. Hi, Kaya. And hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in to Scalable, our weekly show about the business of the creator economy. Spain may have won the World Cup this Sunday, but the other big winners were athletes, fans, and brands who behaved like creators on social media. Meanwhile, the creators who were invited to attend the World Cup produced some of the most, while boring, content. The shots of the stadium or of their great seats were uninspiring, especially when compared to all the Erling Haaland memes or his own presence on Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. Today, we're going to break down who we think are the World Cup's biggest winners and losers.

1:21Jasmine Enberg: We'll also give our take as to why FIFA's creator strategy felt so lackluster or disjointed compared to what we've seen from the NFL, the NBA, and even NBCUniversal at the Olympics earlier this year. Sticking with our sports theme, later on in the show, we're joined by Toni Cohen-Brown, a Formula One commentator and creator. She explains why Netflix's Drive to Survive doesn't deserve all the credit for putting Formula One on the map for Americans, and why she disagrees with the backlash against Alex Earle and Jake Shane's presence on the Aloe Yacht at the Grand Prix this year in Monaco. That Aloe spot on the boat was for someone with millions of followers who is going to help with brand marketing awareness.

1:58It's a marketing play. Whether it's gifted by the team, one of the sponsors, an adjacent, that was never going to the casual or diehard fan. We have different roles to play.

2:10Jasmine Enberg: Okay, but back to the World Cup. Let's start with our winners. First up are the athletes themselves. In first place is none other than Norwegian striker Erling Holland, who was arguably the breakout star of the World Cup this year. He gained about 30 million followers on Instagram during the tournament, including me. And my feed was filled with fan videos of him. And my favorites were from a beauty and hair influencer called Emma Kate Willman, who people said looked like Holland. They aren't completely wrong. And here's a clip. So apparently I'm Erling's twin. And hey, not mad about it. The man has great hair.

2:44Jasmine Enberg: I feel like once I do this, you guys will really be able to see if I actually do look like him or not. But it wasn't just his hair and his distinct features that made Holland a social media star, though it didn't hurt, obviously. Fans were drawn to everything from his skills and his lax demeanor on the field. He scored seven goals, which is just one less than Nessie, to his cheeky sense of humor online and shockingly large Birkin collection. That was definitely a surprise for me. But this guy truly had something for everybody. Yes. And the memes truly ran the gamut from people comparing him to a bouncing green onion to turning him into a bride with an up to and the catchy Holland chant that spread across social media didn't hurt either.

3:27Jasmine Enberg: That song is still stuck in my head. At one point, I couldn't open my social media apps without hearing it blasting or without seeing nonstop Holland memes. And I honestly loved every second of it. I was also getting push alerts on Snapchat when I added him as a creator to a level that I feel like I have never gotten when I followed other creators. But I think what worked so well, too, is that Holland fed into it and he encouraged so much of it. I mean, he really was behaving like a creator in the sense that he wasn't just posting videos on social media. He was also engaging with fans in comments.

4:01Jasmine Enberg: And I think that just made him so much more funny and more relatable. He also got called out by Jimmy Kimmel for not responding to a DM from actor Tom Holland, which was inviting him to dinner. And so after a clip of an interview between Jimmy Kimmel and Tom Holland went viral where they were talking about this, Holland then posted a comment saying, dinner invitation accepted, a little late, just name the place. So he really just is a good sport, bad pun intended. It is worth noting though that he didn't come out of nowhere. He already has had a very successful soccer career and a following of about 40 million on Instagram going into the World Cup.

4:40Jasmine Enberg: He also went in with a YouTube strategy. He launched a YouTube channel back in October 2025, where he shared some of the behind the scenes of his life, including training at Manchester City and for Norway's World Cup qualification. But he was not well known in the US at all or at the same global scale outside of, you know, football fandom as he is now. So the World Cup really put him on the global radar. Holland's bromance with UK's Jude Bellingham also is part of what made Bellingham another favorite athlete of the World Cup, as well as people just thinking he was really handsome. A GQ article called him the World Cup's, quote, biggest crush.

5:14Jasmine Enberg: And Bellingham gained nearly 1 million Instagram followers after each of England's quarterfinal and semifinal matches. And his name was one of the top 30 trending hashtags in America on TikTok. talk. Speaking of handsome soccer players, there was also David Beckham. I actually think he was probably the most visible person at the World Cup, including at the first game in LA, which I attended. To be entirely fair, though, I mean, David Beckham is already the face of the soccer in the US. He has been for a long time, but you literally couldn't open the TV, you couldn't open Instagram, you couldn't read about the World Cup without seeing him or his name.

5:51Jasmine Enberg: And he has not played in a World Cup since 2006, which is 20 years ago. And here's what is even wilder to me. According to the Financial Times, he's estimated to make$25 million from advertising during this World Cup. He's got partnerships with everyone from Stella Artois to Bank of America to McDonald's, so definitely a big win for him here. And most importantly, he is not attending the World Cup alone, Victoria Beckham, who will forever be posh spice to me after having lived in England in the 90s, was also there. And to me, she's also forever going to be a soccer icon in her own right. And together, of course, you know, the Beckhams are a brand and they put that to good use during the tournament.

6:37Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, their kids were there. And we don't have a royal family in the US. And they're definitely in the running for being pretty close to it up there with the Kardashians. We would also to be remiss to not mention one of the most viral stories on social media of the World Cup, the 2007 photo of Lionel Messi bathing a five-month-old Lamine Yamal, who is now a Spanish star for Barcelona, which was part of a charity photo shoot for UNICEF. And it's just so improbable that this would happen, that they won that raffle to be in that photo shoot, that people had to verify it wasn't AI. Yamal's global profile also rose dramatically similar to Holland's through this World Cup.

7:12Jasmine Enberg: But this photo definitely helped raise that even more. And then couple that with Yamal's three-year-old brother cheering him on at the World Cup and looking so excited. It was just so incredibly cute. So he definitely won Best Fan for me. Back to the baby photo, so much content spurred out of this from media outlets and individual creators and users dissecting the meaning of the number 19 from the photo being taken 19 years ago to the July 19th date of the final to Yamal's current age being 19. It was crazy. But the real winner here is the photographer Joan Monfort, who has certainly gotten his 15 minutes of global fame considering all the interviews he's done over the past few weeks.

7:51Jasmine Enberg: But I'm sure he's also dealing with lots of headaches over people using the image without credit or payment to him. For sure. And I gotta say, I saw that photo several times on my feed, and I thought it was so uncomfortable and improbable that I just kind of swiped past it. So I'm not surprised to hear that other people also thought it might be AI. But okay, we cannot not mention Zlatan Ibrahimović, the former Swedish soccer star. He really had a moment hosting the Fox studio with Thierry Henry, another former football player, Alexi Lalas and Rebecca Lowe. I would actually go so far as to say that he was the reason to tune into their coverage.

8:27Jasmine Enberg: I mean, his dry, deadpan humor and wit really got me and it helps that he is a Scandinavian. He actually has a very similar energy to Holland, and the two of them teamed up on a few funny videos. Here's one about their hair. Where did the hair go? I had to cut my hair so he could shine, or else we were two. There is no place for two. There is place only for one. I had my time. I step aside, I sit, and now he's shining. So hair was a surprisingly big theme this year. Mark Cucurea, who's a Spanish player, is another example. He has this mane of curly hair that he wears down when he plays, and he was memed all tournament to look like a cat.

9:07Jasmine Enberg: And even Google got in on the action with an animated cat with long hair when you Google his name. But he even had a song to go along with all the memes, similar to Holland. Take a listen.

9:20Jasmine Enberg: but that takes us to our next category brand winners um Zlatan I don't know if I'm pronouncing it as well as you know Zlatan okay also teamed up with DoorDash which was an official FIFA sponsor and it was among the funniest ad campaigns this year he roasted eliminated teams throughout the tournament which culminated in a final ad aimed at Messi who likely just played in his last world cup You look good, eh? Have you been doing some exercises or what? Hey, my friend, I'm talking to you. I think we don't speak the same language. For those of you listening, the video shows a happy retirement banner with blue and white balloons, the colors of Argentina, and an actual goat.

10:08Jasmine Enberg: Though maybe it's an AI goat. Who's to know at this point, but the caption reads, no one roasts the goat except Zlatan. The caption is not wrong, only Zlatan. And maybe now Holland could pull that off. Anyway, DoorDash also aired another ad with Brooklyn Beckham that did not go over quite as well as the Zlatan content. I was honestly shocked when it popped up in my feed because it seemed to mock his feud with his parents, David and Victoria Beckham, which to be fair, has been highly publicized. For those of you who haven't seen the ad, it shows him getting a delivery with DoorDash saying something like, you're probably wondering why I'm watching the World Cup alone at home.

10:46Jasmine Enberg: No, Brooklyn, I don't think anybody is wondering that. Anyway, he has gotten a lot of backlash for it, although he may not be that concerned given that he reportedly made a million dollars for the partnership. In fairness, David and Victoria Beckham haven't been spared on the media about this either, with lots of people saying that they put the Beckham brand first over their own family. But what was interesting about the brand winners this year is that was a mix of official sponsors and non-official ones. And by some measures, non-official brands actually did better than the official sponsors in the ramp up to the World Cup.

11:18Jasmine Enberg: Collaborations from non-sponsor brands generated nearly double the engagement of official sponsors, reaching roughly 61 million engagements compared to 33 million, according to data from research firm Muttwater, which is cited by CNBC. See, and even the brands who you would have thought might take an L here found a way to turn it into a positive. Take Levi's and Gillette because neither one of them was an official tournament sponsor. FIFA actually made them cover up their branding on the stadiums that they put their names on, which is pretty ridiculous. Levi's Stadium is in Santa Clara and Gillette Stadium is in Massachusetts.

11:53Jasmine Enberg: Levi's ended up wrapping their logo in this plain white covering, which actually ended up generating more buzz for the brand. And Gillette did something similar but made their cover look like a pile of shaving cream foam. Levi's CMO, Kenneth Mitchell, said that it ended up being the most commented and most shared post in the brand's history. And they didn't have to pay for a sponsorship. Which, by the way, reportedly cost$200 million for a full four-year cycle sponsorship. So that is an insane amount of money for pretty much any brand to be paying. But our favorite brand moment was actually also from a non-sponsor.

12:27Jasmine Enberg: Norwegian Air challenged British Airways to swap Instagram logos if Norway beat England. And this was all done organically and according to the Lincoln Bio newsletter with no coordination with British Airways beforehand. So they literally had no idea that it was coming. And I think that helped it feel more real and also more real time. Norwegian Air later went through on its promise after Norway lost and the initial post got about 325 likes and more than 25 million views. The Lincoln bio newsletter also spoke with a social media specialist, Nora Bernstein, at Norwegian, and she gave a little bit of the behind the scenes of how it came together.

13:03Jasmine Enberg: So normally an obvious move for airlines is to do something like fly with us to the World Cup. The problem was that Norwegian, which is a budget airline, doesn't fly to any of the host countries, although it used to fly to the U.S. I remember when this was. And that forced them to think outside of the box. And they really wanted to do something because Norway hadn't qualified for a World Cup since 1998. Yeah, she also said that it took about 30 minutes from the initial idea to publishing the first post. So it just goes to show you that often the best videos or campaign really are spur of the moment and don't always require so much planning and work.

13:39Jasmine Enberg: We also have to give honorable mention to the TSA who got in on the fun. There were so many tourists that were raving about ranch dressing on social media. So they posted a few funny tweets advising people on how to take it home with them. Here's a good one. Quote, please avoid chugging your ranch outside security. The airlines will check it for you. This was because people were really trying to put ranch in their carry-ons. I really don't get the ranch obsession, but I can attest to the fact that it is a thing. Like so many of my friends in Finland love ranch and you can't get proper American ranch there.

14:14Jasmine Enberg: So I can see this happening. And I love the TSA's reaction on this. But it also wasn't just the ranch dressing that foreign fans were raving about. There were so many videos that I saw of them outside of the stadiums talking about their newfound love for Americans and for America, including all of the things that people criticized the US for, like fast or unhealthy food being the big one. People were raving about Raising Cane's, about Chick-fil-A, and also Texas barbecue, which actually leads us nicely to our third winner, which is the U.S. I mean, obviously, we know that Team USA lost to Belgium in the round of 16 and were eliminated.

14:54Jasmine Enberg: That was very hard for me to watch. But the World Cup really gave Americans a makeover and boosted our reputation worldwide. And honestly, we kind of needed that. Totally agree. I have been thoroughly enjoying my Euro summer, but I've gotten some of the European perspective on the U.S. while I've been here. And there's definitely more warmth. But I have to say two things people abroad didn't appreciate as much. Oh, no. One was the halftime show and two was the hydration breaks. Halftime shows are such a uniquely American experience, not something that normally happens during soccer matches. And some fans also saw the hydration breaks as just another money grab for FIFA.

15:31Jasmine Enberg: And also they were worried about like the cool down periods for players and that being too long. But personally, I know you and I didn't mind the hydration breaks because it gave us a moment for a bathroom break or to grab a snack. I also don't think it's a World Cup without Shakira. And being a foreign-born American, one of my absolute favorite things about this place is that Americans always know how to put on a show. So I'm advocating for a halftime show in every single World Cup going forward now. So I honestly thought the World Cup always had a halftime show. I mean, I was trying to Google who it was four years ago because I was like, this is wild.

16:04Jasmine Enberg: There's so many elements to this, but it makes sense that they brought in Ted Lasso. Like, they really did it big. Justin Bieber, my God. No, it was great. But you know who did have a halftime show in the year 1999 was the Women's World Cup because I was there. And it was, I think it was the opening game, if I remember correctly. And it was the US versus Denmark. And you'll never guess who performed. Who do you think it was? I have no idea. Like, what are the boy bands? It had to be. A hundred percent. It was NSYNC. And it was one of the highlights of my childhood. And dare I say, my life so far.

16:36Jasmine Enberg: Clearly, this is a core memory. It is. Anyway, on to our final category of winners, creators. And no, we don't mean the creators who were invited to attend the games. We'll talk about them in a minute. Who we're really talking about are the creators and the fans who weren't there and made killer World Cup content anyway. So if we take the creator who I was talking about before, Emma Willman, She gained nearly 125 ,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, where she now has over 400 ,000 followers, according to an article about her in The Athletic. Her videos about being Holland's doppelganger, alongside tutorials on how to emulate his hairstyles, also attracted the attention of Kalshi, which then hosted a Holland lookalike contest with her in Miami and sent her and a winner to the game.

17:25Jasmine Enberg: So this was definitely a big win for her. I mean, free tickets to a game are always a win, so that's for sure. Other creator winners also included two live streamers who had real access to the games, iShowSpeed and Brazilian live streamer Passimiro Miguel. iShowSpeed had an official partnership with FIFA, which also included him live streaming matches with Fox Sports and YouTube. He was highly visible throughout the tournament, and he's long been a soccer fan, so that content really stood out. MrBeast also joined him on one of the live streams. Then there was Miguel, who has more than 30 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, Kaze TV, and he nabbed the exclusive broadcast rights to all 104 games in Brazil, beating out local broadcaster Globo, which only aired about half that amount of games.

18:05Jasmine Enberg: So this obviously is a very different approach to working with creators than we've seen from the NFL and NBCUniversal at the Olympics, which have wide-scale coordinated creator strategies. It's worth mentioning that the NFL has live-streamed also with Kaze TV in the past, but that's not really a core part of their creator strategy. And while FIFA did partner with TikTok and YouTube, it just felt fragmented and disjointed. And then you throw in the other brands who had boxes and invited creators, but there was no real connection between any of these programs. There wasn't, you know, shared messaging or anything that was really a through line between all these things.

18:39Jasmine Enberg: Yeah. And I mean, big picture in terms of the approach, like with these partnerships with live streamers, what it suggests is that FIFA is more focused on distribution when it comes to their creator strategy, not marketing the World Cup or soccer more broadly. And then there's the obvious argument to be made that FIFA doesn't need creators to promote the World Cup or expand soccer's audience the way that the NFL does for American football. I mean, soccer is the most popular sport worldwide. And this year was already going to be the biggest World Cup yet with 48 countries participating. Apparently, it could be 64 in four years, which is just insane to think about.

19:14Jasmine Enberg: And an estimated 1.8 billion people watched the final game on Sunday. That was up from 1.5 billion in 2022. And these are estimates from The New York Times. And that's like one in five people in the entire world, which is just crazy to think about. 20 % of the world's population watch the same event. It's wild. But there's also no question that the way people are watching sports content is changing. And that includes the World Cup. I mean, everything we just talked about is proving that. And FIFA needs to keep up with that, no matter how popular the sport is. And it's also just a sign that there is still more audience to reach, even at soccer's massive scale, right?

19:50Jasmine Enberg: Like one out of five people is still not the entire world. Like there's still more people they can get in. You know, we both got so invested in the World Cup for the first time. And so did so many of our friends. And so much of the commentary we saw online was people that were really first time fans. So, you know, it just goes to show you, even with the biggest sport, one, you have to keep that momentum. And two, there's always ways to expand. The one thing I would say, though, too, is obviously the World Cup was a huge breakthrough moment for soccer in the U.S., but it feels like they've been priming Americans for soccer for a really long time.

20:24Jasmine Enberg: I mean, you have Beckham, who's been here promoting the sport. We have Messi, who's also been here playing. And, you know, I feel like the time was just right for this moment right now. And clearly there was a strategy behind that as well. But it's just interesting because you have so many people who've like finally woken up to soccer, but there has been this kind of longer term strategy behind putting it on people's radars before the World Cup even started. Anyway, we shall see if the fans stick around between World Cups. I know I definitely will be, but you never know. Moving on to our losers, as we've alluded to, the least interesting content we saw was from creators who actually attended the World Cup.

21:02Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I mean, so much of it was just videos panning the stadium or like photos of them posing in front of their great seats or the box that they were in, there was very, very little creativity. Some thanked the brand that brought them there and seemed genuinely excited to be there based on the captions that they wrote. But it really just didn't go beyond that. I mean, Diary of a CEO host Stephen Bartlett attended an England game and didn't even bother to caption the story that he posted. And then you had Mr. Beast, who was posting like a general lifestyle influencer, which just felt so off brand for him.

21:34Jasmine Enberg: We don't know which brands invited them there, but whoever did, it honestly does not feel like a great trade-off given the amount of money that tickets cost and just how fun the shoulder content from creators and other people who weren't there was. I mean, the comparison was pretty striking. Obviously, though, it was still a huge win for the influencers that they got to attend. But yeah, on the brand side, I mean, Casamigos, Marriott Bonvoy, and Snapchat were a few of the examples that came across my feed that just felt pretty basic. I mean, creators tagged them or thanked them for inviting them.

22:03Jasmine Enberg: Even some of them were really excited in the videos. And obviously, of course, you're excited to be at the World Cup. But besides showing some of the, you know, fancy boxes, it just didn't really go much further than that. That was also our general pulse on things. Obviously, there are some exceptions. Corporate bro attended with Lenovo and brought his funny bit on being a sales guy to the game. You're a global account executive. You don't call it soccer. It's called football. What's up, Brian? Yeah, now's the perfect time. I'm just walking into the office. You think the people World Cup is pressure?

22:30Jasmine Enberg: Driving a quota. I got a ton of scholarship offers to play D3, but I was like, I think my talents are just better served as sales. I mean, I guess you could say salespeople are like the world-class center midfielders of business. Another example, Angelo Colino, who attended with Dove, which was another official Viva sponsor along with Lenovo. He interviewed male fans outside the stadium about their feelings, which was cute and also just different than all the other man on the street videos outside asking people, you know, how much they paid for their ticket, the amount of videos I saw about that.

22:59Jasmine Enberg: But I think in general, like why the stadium content just fell so flat is because it also just felt quite out of touch. I mean, there's just nothing exciting about seeing an influencer show off a comped expensive ticket and then sharing nothing unique about the experience. I think whereas what we saw at the Winter Olympics, Cleo Abram, for example, did some really interesting videos around curling and what are the fastest sports and other creators took us inside the Olympic Village. And I just think also part of it is like the novelty of having creators at these major events is wearing off of it.

23:30Jasmine Enberg: Like it just has to be more interesting. Yeah, totally. I mean, it felt like 2016 aspirational Instagram influencer content. And I thought that we were past that era now. Yeah. And it just felt like a missed opportunity to do something more exciting. When I think about some of the brands I saw most visibly flash on the field, right? Like Lenovo AI was one of them. In a blog post, the company explained how its referee view gave fans this unique view that's supposed to show kind of the eyes of the referee. And one video from a creator that they partnered with that I saw nodded to that. But I didn't really learn a lot about Lenovo's role in the tournament from the creator partnerships.

24:05Jasmine Enberg: And I was thinking back to 2019, when I attended the US Open as media with IBM and their box. And IBM has been a partner of the US Open for more than 30 years. And they took us down to their war room during a match where they showed how they were protecting the US Open's digital platforms against cyber attacks. And look, Obviously, there are many security considerations here with how much can be shared and filmed. But I was just thinking back to that. And I was like, a creator could bring a story like that to life in a really interesting way for FIFA and the World Cup and show some actual interesting behind the scenes of how the tournament works.

24:36Jasmine Enberg: As a side note, because you brought up referees, like I think there is such an opportunity there. I got so sucked into some of the referees' stories because I knew nothing about how you become a referee at the World Cup. And many of them have regular jobs. I mean, one of the ones that I looked up was, I think, a CRO or another executive at like a tech or a SaaS firm. So these, you know, they're obviously not refereeing all the time. They're actually doing other work as well. But I just had no idea. And I'm like, this could be such a fun content series. And to that point, like, I think what we've seen from the Olympics and some of these big sporting events is that the winners, like, yes, the brands and the fans and all that stuff is fun.

25:12Jasmine Enberg: But it's really like the athletes and the people working these events, everyone from the referees to the janitors. There are so many people that bring this to life and their stories and they can act like influencers in their own right, just like Starbucks is tapping their own employees to be ambassadors. So I wonder if we'll see that kind of shift over time. To be fair to the creators and the brands who attended, it might not be entirely their fault that their content was a little bit more boring. I mean, from what we've heard, FIFA is extremely restrictive in terms of access and what partners can and can't post or say.

25:42Jasmine Enberg: And so I imagine that also limited a lot of the creators themselves. And there's the question of broadcast rights. I mean, creators have global audiences, but every country has different rights holders to the game. So they have to be really careful not to violate that by showing too much of the match, for example, unless they also have rights, which I don't know, except in those few live streaming examples that we shared, seems really unlikely. And then the companies and the platforms like TikTok and YouTube that have invited these creators also have to be careful because we don't know what was included in their deals with FIFA either.

26:15Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, it's so true. And this is something that NBC had to think a lot about with its creators at the Summer and Winter Games. In this case, NBC does have the exclusive rights to the games in the U.S. through 2036, but they still need to make sure that creator content didn't cannibalize TV viewing in any way. And they also had to make sure that the creators they brought to the games didn't violate rights holders in other countries like Canada. Here's what Gio Karapetian, Senior Vice President of Olympic Partnerships at NBC, told us on a previous episode. We have to maintain the special nature of the Olympics.

26:44Jasmine Enberg: The largest guardrail that we provided to creators was that you couldn't include field of play, so no competition footage. We didn't want one that starts to blur the line with our own coverage, and we didn't want to provide an alternative means to view the games. At the same time, NBC wanted to give creators access so that they could create compelling content, including taking people inside the Olympic Village, which is heavily restricted. We were able to do something that even we had never done before. And that was to go into the athlete village and record content in there. And we had to really work very closely with our colleagues at the IOC and then the organizing committee to secure this access.

27:27Jasmine Enberg: And what are the parameters under which the media rights holder is going to go in and be in the athlete environment? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not an easy situation to navigate, but NBC shows that it can be done. So hint, hint FIFA. But the craziest thing to me about what Gio said was that he reviewed every single piece of content himself during the Olympics. Luckily, though, he said there wasn't all that much, if anything, that needed to be flagged. But still, that seems like an insane amount of work. But next category of losers, teams and players. First up is Gerard Piquet, a former Spanish soccer star.

28:04Jasmine Enberg: The man had to sit there and watch his ex Shakira perform at halftime, which may actually be some form of justice considering all of the cheating allegations that have been swirling about him. Obviously, the internet was also very quick to pick up on all of this. And my favorite meme said, quote, PK is too old to perform in the World Cup, but Shakira isn't. Well played. So good. So obviously, Argentina lost in the final, but the team's overall reputation took a massive hit throughout the tournament. I mean, public opinion felt like it really soured, even with Messi on their side. There was a lot of criticism online about how Argentina played really dirty throughout the World Cup, and there was lots of allegations from fans about FIFA seeming to favor them as well.

28:48Jasmine Enberg: The moment that sticks out most to me is one of the players from Argentina, Leandro Paredes, appearing to grab the neck of the Spanish captain. This was during the final. Yeah, I mean, that was tough to watch. But Messi wasn't the only legendary player who didn't get the ending that he wanted. Cristiano Ronaldo is leaving his career without one major achievement, which is a World Cup win. Fun fact, Ronaldo is actually the most followed person on Instagram, second only to the official Instagram account. He is then followed directly by Messi, so their rivalry even extends onto social media. Finally, Team USA was another loser.

29:24Jasmine Enberg: While the US as a whole got a vibe boost, as we mentioned, the Team USA just really did not deliver. They also got quite a lot of slack because of alleged meddling by President Donald Trump, which we'll talk about in a little bit. And I just don't think that that helped their game against Belgium either. So there was this Turkish commentator who reportedly took a swipe at Team USA and Trump after the final whistle in its game against Belgium saying, quote, and the match is over unless there is a change at the last minute. The USA has said goodbye to the tournament. I don't speak Turkish, so I'm not sure how accurate this translation is or how he intended it.

30:02Jasmine Enberg: But people online took it as a swipe at the U.S. and all the controversy surrounding Trump, and it went viral. Speaking of President Donald Trump, I keep coming back to what former CNN anchor Don Lemon told us on a recent episode. Donald Trump, fortunately or unfortunately, whatever, however you feel about him, he inserts himself into everything. He takes over whatever's in the zeitgeist. This was on full display at the World Cup. What you were alluding to before was Trump personally calling FIFA president Johnny Infantino to review U.S. striker Balogun's red card. Balogun was later reinstated for the next game and able to play.

30:40Jasmine Enberg: That also certainly didn't help Team USA's reputation either. And the whole narrative would have just been like, oh, well, USA rigged. Obviously, I wanted them to win, but it would have been they would have had the allegations that they cheated. And that doesn't feel good either. There's a dark cloud hanging over them, unfortunately. But anyway, nothing tops the final, which Trump attended alongside Melania and the president of Mexico, who he has been feuding with. Similarly to the Knicks game, Trump was booed. Some Spanish players also refused to shake his hand after the game. But the worst part was that he lingered on stage with Spain after presenting them the trophy, even as Spain's captain Rodri and FIFA's president tried to move him out of the photo.

31:24Jasmine Enberg: And then when Spain posted a photo of their team on social media, Trump seemed to be removed from the image. You just cannot make this stuff up. No. And also just look at the White House's official Instagram account, which captioned a video about the final, which, of course, heavily features Trump in the video. They said, quote, no one does it quite like President Trump and America. OK, it is not an inaccurate caption, but I don't think that's the way that they intended it. But why is his name first? It should be no one doesn't like America. But on the fan side, let's talk ticket prices. The prices were really insane.

32:04Jasmine Enberg: Tickets for the final at MetLife Stadium were officially listed at nearly$33 ,000. And some resale tickets went for more than$2 million, according to the BBC. Now, we highly doubt anyone actually ended up paying$2 million. Even FIFA's president made fun of that. But just the fact that they were listed for that is pretty wild. And from all the videos we saw outside the stadium of people revealing how much they paid for tickets, they certainly paid thousands of dollars each to be there. I went to the first US game here in June in LA, and I honestly loved every minute of it. It was expensive, very much so, but it was also a once in a lifetime experience to have it here in LA where I live.

32:44Jasmine Enberg: And so for me, it was really worth it. And judging by the energy in the stadium, a lot of fans felt the same way, though obviously it's clear that there was a lot more fans who were priced out. So FIFA's president Infantino and FIFA also got a lot of backlash for those ticket prices, as well as their really lax attitude toward it. To be fair, though, the World Cup is not the only sport that has gone out of control with their ticket prices. We actually talked about this quite a bit with Tony because Formula One has also gotten a lot of criticism recently for inviting influencers and creators while real fans can't afford to be at any of the races.

33:21Jasmine Enberg: And so a lot of that backlash was, of course, directed toward Alex Earle and Jake Shane and others who were partying on the Aloe yacht. So here's a little of what she said. That Aloe spot on the boat was for someone with millions of followers who is going to help with brand marketing awareness. It's a marketing play. Whether it's gifted by the team, one of the sponsors, an adjacent, That was never going to the casual or diehard fan. We have different roles to play. Okay, last but not least, we have FIFA, which is both a winner and a loser. FIFA generated a record$7.6 billion from the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.

33:58Jasmine Enberg: As of us recording this podcast, the figures for this year's World Cup have not been released, but they are expected to top that. And like us, it just felt like so many more people, especially in the US, who haven't been invested in soccer tuned in this time. Just look at the data TikTok put out. The social app said that there were about 24 billion views on just the FIFA World Cup account during the tournament. And TikTok also called the FIFA World Cup TikTok's biggest content moment to date, which is saying something. TikTok has had a lot of big moments. At the same time, though, not all of the content about FIFA was positive.

34:32Jasmine Enberg: I would say many of the posts and the online conversations in general were critical of FIFA from decisions like overturning the red card for Team USA, like we mentioned before, to things like fans dissecting referee calls or accusing the organization of corruption and favoritism toward Argentina. I think also awarding President Trump the first ever FIFA Peace Prize also didn't help the situation. And some senior FIFA officials privately said that they were, quote, embarrassed about it, according to The Guardian. But still, I think overall this was a net positive for FIFA. And I know that I'm already counting down the days until the next World Cup.

35:11Jasmine Enberg: Same. I'm so sad it's over. I'm like, what are we supposed to do now? What am I supposed to watch? All right, but sticking with our theme of sports and the creator economy, now it's time for our conversation with F1 commentator, Toni Cohen-Brown. Hi, Toni. Welcome to Scalable. Thank you for having me. We're so excited to have you. It has been a huge year for Formula One. It feels like it's really having a moment in the U.S. And I remember watching it as a kid. I mean, it was in the 90s. It was the time of the Mika Hakkinen, Michael Schumacher rivalry. At that time, though, I mean, basically all of the commentators and all of the fans were men and they were not based in the U.S.

35:44Jasmine Enberg: So what drew you to Formula One and what makes your commentary different from what else is out there? In my household, the only sport we watched was actually Formula One. I was born in France, grew up in Brussels, Belgium, British bypass sport, first language French, at home English. And my dad just loved Formula One. And that was the thing that was on TV. Back in the day, it was also a really affordable sport. By affordable, it was like maybe a hundred, couple hundred for a three-day pass experience. My dad would always drag me along. I was way too young, I think, to fully understand where I was going.

36:15I've lost so many baby teeth at Formula One races. And to answer your question of how I actually got into it, it's interesting because my dad was part of, he used to work in the European Parliament, and was part of the whole campaign to ban tobacco advertising across Europe. And obviously, back in the day, tobacco advertising was some of the biggest sponsors across Formula One. Some teams, their whole entire reason of being able to run was because of Marlboro or PMI, you name it. So my introduction into Formula One was always through a policy lens. And he used me as an example when he made that case in the parliament of, look, I have a six, seven-year-old daughter.

36:49I can show the red chevron to without Lugger, without branding. She's six and she knows that that is tobacco and she associates with sports and she associates with coal. We've got an issue here. And then it was one of those sports that I fell in and out of love with. I was a student selling merchandise at these race weekends, whether it was France or the UK or Belgium. Then I did my policy politics. I did my tech. And then I sort of tripped and fell into it. And I really do say it was the right time, right place. I'd moved to America as a tech exec. The boom of Formula One was happening. We had the second season of Drive to Survive.

37:24TikTok was happening and the creator was happening. Or the creative economy was happening all at the same time. And then I think the commentary that made it different is just like, I like telling stories. For me, it's not about the stats. It's not about the facts. I don't emotionally attach or associate to breaking down facts and stats like that, but I attach to storytelling. And I think at that time, that was the gap that was missing.

37:45Jasmine Enberg: So do you think Drive to Survive was what sort of thrust it into, I know it was globally so popular, but in the U.S. especially, I mean, it's gone to a level of cultural phenomenon that it wasn't before. After Survival, I need a disclaimer that if you decide to watch this show, you will alter the course of your entire life and become obsessed because one day you're turning on a show about race cars you've never heard of. And the next year, we're in a Formula One TikTok account and spending all of your money going to Grand Prix's. One hundred. And it's been so fun to watch. I don't know if you have this in the great economy as well, but you're like, where did it start?

38:14Who owns the genesis of this whole thing? The one thing I will say is way too much credit has been given to Drive to Survive and Netflix. Not because I want to take away from the credit of what they've done. They did such a phenomenal show. But the reason that no one has been able to, whether it's tennis, NASCAR, golf, replicate this show is because it happened during a pandemic. We were all stuck at home. But I think the thing that brought people together is we're dying for a sporting event. That wasn't happening. Rise of the creative economy. So many journalists were leaving their institutions to go and create their own economy.

38:43So that broke down the middleman. And then we had the rise of TikTok, which was the first ever app not built by Americans, with Americans in mind. And they were thriving in all things sports commentary. Essentially what happened was Drive to Survive, which was people discovered season two as it came out. And they're like, wait, there's another whole other season I can now binge watch. And then they went to TikTok to talk about it. And that's where I think the young female fandom came in, is because yes, the storytelling was great, but then they were discussing it on TikTok. They were creating, you know, fan groups and fan bases and all that cool stuff.

39:11And that you've got to credit to young female fans and creators. So I kind of say, yes, it was the catalyst, it was the spark, but the entire thing would have not blown up in the way it did if we didn't have that perfect storm.

39:22Jasmine Enberg: You're in this really interesting position because you're both a reporter and a creator. So you partner with a lot of brands at events. You also go there to cover the events as a journalist. Is there a difference in terms of access when you're there as a journalist versus a creator? And how do you kind of balance both of those roles, especially during a race weekend when you're there doing both? The question about access is one of my favorite ones because with Formula One, I think it's the biggest paradox that we have is with. The more accreditation you get, official press media accreditation, the less you can actually talk about the score and the further you feel away from the score.

39:56So for example, if you get a media accreditation for written media, you can't actually film in the paddock. You can't pull out your phone and start filming. You need, funnily enough, I'll pull this out. You need to be given a sticker like this that says video on it and that allows you to then film. But that is a different accreditation because most of the accreditation sits between the FIA, which is the governing body in Formula One. So it was an interesting one because when I started, I initially said, okay, I'm going to need, if I want to do this properly, I'm going to need accreditation. Applied for accreditation.

40:26They very politely declined and said, absolutely not. You don't fit our criteria. The criteria is very old school criteria. What's your publication numbers? Where are you publishing? How many magazines print? All of that. I was like, well, this isn't digital. Do you not have a section for digital? No, they didn't. And this was maybe six, seven years ago. And that's how when Aston Martin said, well, we're not bringing you in as media, we're bringing you as friend of the family. And so when you're a friend of the family, you can shoot whatever you want because you're a guest of the team. You're not there reporting.

40:52And so I didn't fall under the same regulations, but then you would have people coming to me going, wait, you shouldn't be allowed your media. And I was like, well, I applied for media and you told me I didn't fit the criteria for media. Now it's a hybrid of there's days that I'm an influencer and I'm paid to help a brand promote something. I'm very clear on what that is. I'm very clear on the access, what I can and can't film. Then I go and put on my media hat and I'm there to write a story. But do you play both roles on the same weekend? on the same day ever or is it? Never at the same time.

41:19So I couldn't do that because my brain doesn't function like that. I'm way too, I think, scattered. And so my race weekends are generally 200 emails. And it's like, okay, who's going to give me access? Is there a team that I can work with? Because I have a couple of stories and I'm like, just give me access. And I'm coming in as a friend of the team. Who's going to actually pay for the trip? Because at the end of the day, I need to be paid. I will never go in. And I'm very careful with this because I will never go in with the same two passes at the same time. You clock in with one, clock out with another.

41:47But I love those weekends. I get to do the three things that I love. And all three give me something different. Some give me access, some give me financial stability, and others give me, I get to sit and listen to the sport that I love so much. I see a space that I think is gonna be built up in the next year or so, which is Formula One, the FIA looking at this and going, oh, we need a creator academy, or we need a creator space, or we need a whole different pass for this, because right now you've got influencers and celebrities coming in. They're filming everything about the sport, but they also don't know what they're talking about in the best way possible.

42:19They're having a great time. And they're filming sometimes behind the car. And you're just like, oh my God, you can't actually film the engine. The car's being pulled apart. But they don't know what they're filming because obviously it's not their industry. Just like I wouldn't know if I was sent to a basketball court.

42:31Jasmine Enberg: How do you feel about that? Because we saw at the Grand Prix in Monaco, just a few celebrities. Alex Earl was there, Jake Shane. These are not creators that you associate, right? So how do you feel about that? Because you do have this deep roots with F1 and you have a lot of knowledge about it. How do you feel about them bringing in kind of other types of creators? I think it's brilliant. I put them in the category and I think that I don't know what language I need to say this in for fans to understand when they get mad and give tickets to real fans. That ticket was never for you in the first place.

43:03That Aloe spot on the boat was for someone with millions of followers who is going to help with brand marketing awareness. it's a marketing play. Whether it's gifted by the team, one of the sponsors, an adjacent, that was never going to the casual or diehard fan. We have different roles to play. The Allo boat took away from no one's experience who went there, sat in the grandstands and wanted to watch the race. And then there was absolutely the people on the boat that go like, wait, what's happening? Is that a race? And you're like, I love that you're oblivious because you're on an Allo trip. And it just so happens that the race is your backdrop.

43:36In my world, the Allo boat was the backdrop. And we were on the Tag Heuer boat, which is Formula One of Formula One's biggest sponsors. We could see the Allobo and we're like, these are two worlds colliding. And I think people don't realize, and I especially get this with middle-aged white men who are used to the whole world being catered to them. And so when they see something that's not for them, I'm like, not everything is built and for you. These women aren't talking to you. This content was never for you. Just swipe out. And I think that's a hard thing for the diehard fans. They were so used to having one type of content.

44:04Jasmine Enberg: Yeah. The NFL got a lot of flack for showing Taylor Swift too much during the games. And I'm just like, if that is the thing that's going to ruin your experience, that says so much more about you than it says about the industry and the sport, in my humble opinion. And it's so hard to understand the mindset of, you know, it's not taking away from anything else. It's additive. And I remember with the Taylor Swift example, I'm a diehard Taylor Swift fan. Okay, I love this. Like, you were actually watching football games. I was actually watching the games. I was watching the football games with my sisters.

44:28Jasmine Enberg: And we had never watched American football before. And my dad would complain about it because we would never watch with him on Thanksgiving. Then we were texting with him, you know, having full conversations at the football games. And so it brings people closer. And there were so many stories like that, especially with like fathers and daughters. And I'm just hoping this whole new world up and helped bond and build relationships. The amount of daughters and fathers who will come up to me and go, we're here. And I literally, I cannot not cry every time someone tells me one of those stories. I'm like, I need to go into an interview.

44:57I'm just sat here bawling my face. They're like, oh, this is, my daughter got me. I never watched a race in my life and my daughter loved it. And now we're here and we're watching this race together and I'm getting to spend time with my daughter. and you can see the dads are like in awe. So who is your audience primarily? Is it mostly women or is it a mix? I've got a 50-50 split, which is so interesting because every time I talk to an agent, agencies, they're like, get, you need your audience to be, which is the most insane paradox. And I know you two know this better than anyone else, but they always tell me like, get your audience at least 80 % women, 90 % women, because they're the people buying, they're the people celebrating you, they're the diehard watchers, consumers.

45:33I'm like, that is wild. that again, we have a whole world catered to men. And yet we are saying this to each other, that it's the women that move the needle. It's the women with the spending power. And the way I explain it in Formula One is when a woman enjoys the sport, and you've just given this example also with the NFL, when a woman enjoys the sport, she's not just bringing the plus one. She's bringing a plus three, a plus five, a plus 10. We're organizing, we self-organize, we bring more people together. So it's just that weird thing in Formula One where it's like the moment you cater to women, your numbers are gonna 10X, not 2X, because that's what women do.

46:03So audiences, young women, even though it's still, I'd say, like a 60-40 to men split. And then it's a lot of tech execs. So I joke that I really do bring Gen Z to the boardroom and boardroom to Gen Z because it's another one of those gaps. How does that then impact your business, right? Like walk us through your business. Is it mostly brand partnerships? And that is a very unique mix of audience. I love saying that when you look at deliveries and the sponsorship on F1 Cars, it kind of gives you a really good understanding of where we are as a society. So back in the day, tobacco. Tobacco was everywhere.

46:34Marlboro was everywhere. Then it was kind of alcohol. So the martini liveries and all of that. Then we kind of had banking. So big banks were huge sponsors. Then we had a little dip into fashion with Benetton. And we had a couple of other brands. And then we had tech. Then we have crypto. And right now we have AI. And what they were realizing is, wait, there's a hype happening right now. All eyeballs on Formula One. So many people want to get in. But the likes of Salesforce, AWS, Google are already there. And you could tell they had a moment of, wait, we need to tell people that we were here, that were here, that was, but they didn't, couldn't figure out how to tell the story.

47:05And I was like, wait, this is my opportunity. This is my gap. I understand tech and I understand formula one and there's money in tech. So while everyone that is coming in the creative space of the past six years, I think we're chasing lifestyle, fashion. I was like, there's no money in lifestyle. There's no money in fashion. There's a lot of money in beauty, which I've discovered recently. And I knew that there was a lot of money in tech. So my business model initially was working a lot with the tech companies, either consulting, which is what I call happens under the iceberg, which you don't see.

47:33And then a lot of just like, I can tell that story. I can tell the story of Juniper Networks and how you set up a data center and a database and how that data comes from the cost of the servers, how you set up the servers, how the servers talk to your HQ. I was like, those are, and for me, those are nerdy, really, really cool stories. And they're not the stories that you normally hear when you think about Formula One. So is that the majority of revenue? So that has shifted now over time, but now my revenue is kind of, it's a split of come and host a panel for us. And there's great money in that.

48:03It was just like, we need someone who understands tech, who can sit on a panel, actually talk about AI, bring our tech execs in. So a lot of me of doing public speaking panels, all of that, that's a big chunk now of my finances. So that's a chunk of the business. Brand partnerships, content, but I try and avoid doing those. I'll do them with brands that I absolutely love. And I'm like, my audience will look at this and go, yeah, that attracts. That is absolutely you. So what's an example? Antropic, Claude. AWS was a little bit more out there. But again, like I know big data and I did a, they allowed me to do a 45 minute interview with Carla Sainz and Charles Leclerc when they were both still at Ferrari.

48:42And then I'm now also the editor at large for S's magazine, which is this cultural magazine that sits at the intersection of fashion culture and Formula One. And so that's maybe the first time that I've had like steady income coming in, which is fun. And then out of all of this, you're trying to be uber transparent to everyone. I turned down, I would say, 80 % of the deals that come my way, even though they're good money, because I'm like, I can't do a good job for you. I don't understand your business model. I don't understand your product. I would feel like a charlatan, just like, you know, pushing something out there, which goes back to the Alex sales and all of that.

49:12She is as long as she doesn't pretend that she knows about Formula One. that if she all of a sudden gets, which is what I loved about Morgan Riddle. She got into tennis, did very similar to me in tennis, what I was doing in Formula One. What do you think about the accountability piece?

49:24Jasmine Enberg: Because we've also heard from creators that they're like, oh, well, if a guest asks me to edit something out, I'll do it, right? Like, whereas as a journalist, you have kind of stricter roles. So we're seeing what we've been tracking is a lot of celebrities, politicians, they're going on podcasts hoping for a friendlier kind of reception. So what do you think about that? Because you mentioned before it's marketing. So what is the responsibility of creators? It's so funny because now my calls, I will ask them, do you want Tony, the creator? And this is a paid collaboration. And I probably don't have complete control of the end content.

49:53And I realize I'm being paid. Do you want Tony, the journalist who's going to come in and you're going to give me access and I'll write whatever the hell I want to write? Or do you want Tony that is a pay as a service? I'm here to host a panel or moderate. Even on the different panels that I'm doing this weekend, there are some where I'm just like, I didn't even write the questions. And I'm like, okay, it's not going to be the most interesting panel, but I'm here to service a thing and do a job. So my conversations about Star is, which Tony are you talking to and what do you want? Is there one Tony that's more popular than the others?

50:20The one that's feisty and that speaks, interestingly, that speaks to home opinion. But I think they realize it just comes off better with the audience. It's more interesting. And it comes off more authentic. I've been really harsh on Formula One. Like, I probably have a much better relationship with the Federation and with the teams than I do with F1. You know, that has cost me sometimes.

50:39Jasmine Enberg: But it gives you credibility, I'm sure, because you're not just boosting the sport. And again, it's a very small paddock and everyone knows who gives you the access and everyone knows that you better write a pretty good story. And it's been interesting watching that evolution over the years. And it's why I have deep respects for the journalists who go out there every day and go, yeah, I'm going to write what I see. And it's been really cool to see F1 respond to influencers and creators and realizing you don't control the messaging anymore. Absolutely. You know, it's it's out, out the door. Whereas I think before you could potentially control the 10, 15 journalists who got access to this, which is kind of cool.

51:12But the accountability is an interesting one. It's interesting that I think I have seen, whether it's politician, C-suite, exec, everyone's gotten a little too comfortable of not being asked hard questions. And I see it when I have a couple of spicy questions. And here's my thing is, I love this sport. So I'm not there to take it down, but I am there to see like, hey, I'm curious about what's happening over there or when there's nicotine sponsors and they're changing up delivery in different countries. I'm like, can we talk about the fact that it's because you're banned in that country? Let everybody do their job.

51:41Like our job is to ask the hard question.

51:43Jasmine Enberg: And then your job as the politician, as the C-suite executive is to say, I don't want to talk about that or figure out a way to pivot it. And it's not difficult to say, A, I don't have an answer. A, two, I don't feel comfortable answering, which again, I feel like is a lost art. I think in a sport like Formula One, we each have a job to play. Yeah. And Alex L has a job to play. I know what my job is to play. The fans have their own job to play. The fans who are professional fans in filming have their own job to play. Like we're all doing, playing our role and our part. and I think it's similar with just like consumers and media.

52:13We have a job to play. Do your own research. Know what you're looking at. Understand if you're watching media. And so when I ask the same question of which Tony do you want, my second question after that is what's your goal here? Because sometimes they'll say I want Tony A and the goal is this. I was like, those don't match up. You want marketing, but you've asked me to be a journalist. I can't give, the journalism is not going to give you the marketing that you want. I'm fine with that, but you need to be okay with if you want that Tony, it's going to either give you credibility or awareness or for leadership, it's not going to give you the marketing numbers that you want.

52:43Also, I don't have the numbers of an Alex Elr. This is why I always say I'm the worst influencer. I'm not going to push a product for you. I'm not going to get people excited to buy. I'm terrible at that. We've talked a lot about the positives

52:54Jasmine Enberg: of all of this. But what are some of the cons of this? I think sports leagues in general, they have less control. You talked about the balance and that some of the hardcore fans should just ignore it. But are there cons to this? There's two things that I see. One is the popularity and the rise of a sport just makes everything more unaccessible, more expensive. And again, it's a paradox. There's way more ways to get engaged during a Monaco GP. Allo yacht, Tagua yacht, from the top of the mountains, from your own boat, grandstand, like this. So, which I love. Again, diversity, everyone has their own unique experience.

53:26But that also means the prices do rise absolutely everywhere. The second thing that I don't know if it's a con, and I think it's just absolutely fascinating. There was this trend that happened a couple of months ago of AI generated that you would take yourself and you jump yourself in like the iconic shot that everyone wants of, oh, I'm inside the Ferrari garage with my headset or I'm being scanned on Sky Sports and there I am in the crowd. That for me was fascinating because that was when I had a realization of this is why I monetize my brain, not my lifestyle because your lifestyle just got a hell of a lot easier to replicate and a hell of a lot cheaper.

54:01And so my mind went to the brands that are truly paying for beautiful, mostly young women, creators, influencers to come in, just to take that iconic shot, to look beautiful in association, whether that's in the Ferrari garage, whether that's in the, say, wherever that is, why pay for a creator's travel? Why pay for a creator's hospitality? Why pay for their accommodation? And if I was a brand, I'd look at this and go, yeah, why am I working with a content creator that's gonna cost me X amount of money? If at the end of the day, and we're not there yet, but who's gonna be the next Alex Earle, who is gonna be the AI-generated and just people want the association?

54:35And so that got me, for me personally, And I was like, and that's why I monetize my brain, because no one can do the two years of laws, the five years of politics, the working in policy, working in political campaigns, being a tech exec, my weird little brain, my upbringing. No one can replace that. So that's what I bring to the table. I think that is a perfect note to end on. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

55:27Jasmine Enberg: We'll be right back. Don't wait for the next attack. Secure and accelerate your business at rubric.com. Again, rubric.com.