Why the Future of Creator Businesses Is Offline

**Samir** (0:00)
As 2025 comes to a close, something really interesting is happening across the creator landscape right now. Creators are obviously turning into big media companies, but those companies are not just focused on videos or not just focused on physical products or digital brands, but actually starting to build physical worlds that the audience can step into. Tours, pop-ups, live shows, one-day summits, like what we did with Press Publish NYC in September, even as far as a 45-day theme park in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And yes, I'm talking about Mr. Beast and Beastland, and we get into that in this episode. So I've been kicking around this term that we're entering the experience economy for creators. And whether it's completely intentional or not, the biggest creators are following a roadmap that we've seen once before in the history of media, and that's Disney. Disney proved that if you can build stories and characters that people care about and love on a screen, you can extend that relationship into the real world. You can turn online IP into offline destinations, and you can turn viewers into visitors of those destinations. And that shift really changes a lot in a creative business. When creativity is your product, it can be pretty up and down and pretty volatile. And in a moment when digital attention is more competitive and honestly, more volatile than ever, this move towards offline experiences isn't just a creative choice. It's not just a strategic choice. It might be the necessary choice for the longevity of creator brands. So in this episode, we talk about why exactly creators are moving into real world experiences and what that looks like. We talk about how this trend of experiences mirrors the early moves of legacy entertainment companies. And we talk about this concept of Disneyfication, what that actually means in the context of creators. Now before we get into this episode, if you do want to come to one of our experiences, we really enjoyed putting on Press Publish NYC in September and plan on doubling down on events for 2026 So if you want to make sure you know about our events when they're happening, all that, subscribe to our newsletter The Publish Press, just go to thepublishpress.com. All right, let's get into the episode.
All right, I'm in New York this week, Colin. I just drove through a wintery mix.

**Colin** (2:11)
Wintery mix, that is part of my childhood. That's kind of the only weather we get in central New Jersey.

**Samir** (2:17)
I had never really experienced it, but it was actually not very easy to drive from upstate to the city in a wintery mix, I'll tell you that.

**Colin** (2:24)
No, it's actually pretty dangerous. I think you would rather legit snow than a wintery mix.

**Samir** (2:30)
Well, I made it here to New York, and I'm actually here for a couple of different events, one being the New York Times Dealbook Summit. And I bring that up because that's kind of the theme of our episode is the experiential part of a media company. This concept of Disney. Disney has brought up so much in our world. Obviously by us, we bring it up all the time. We talk about Disney synergy maps. We talk about how different creators could become Disney. And we've seen headlines this year, like when Stephen Bartlett raised his capital in the last round at a $425 million valuation, the headline was, In order to become the Disney of the creator economy. So I think it's important first to start with this concept of experiences, events, theme parks, to take a step back and understand some of the secret of what makes Disney Disney. Disney's fiscal year just ended on November 13th. And I'm bringing that up because when their fiscal year ends, they reported their revenue.
And that was a lot of the research for this episode, was done around this point of Disney and how Disney makes money. And I actually was totally surprised by this. But Disney has a few different areas they make money, most notably in entertainment and then experiences. Experiences include their cruises and their theme parks, obviously Disneyland. And entertainment made $42 billion in revenue and $4.6 billion in operating income. Theme parks made $36 billion in revenue and just about $10 billion in operating income. Experiences for Disney are more profitable than their entertainment. I found that to be one of the more interesting things, that Disney is essentially an experience company that also has a media arm.

**Colin** (4:18)
Yeah, kind of not what you would expect, considering everyone has a screen for the most part, but not everyone can get themselves to Disneyland or Disney World.