The Ah Louis Store in San Luis Obispo, California, turns into a winter wonderland every holiday season.Green garlands, giant nutcrackers, baubles and bows go up in early November on the historic downtown building that houses the gift shop. Inside, customers can choose from over 500 different types of ornaments and a variety of holiday gift baskets.“We really just make it a magical spot,” co-owner Emily Butler said. “Whether you come in or not, we want to make sure that we’re spreading that holiday joy.”But Butler says she and her twin sister-business partner had to work harder this year to turn browsers into buyers and to make a profit. Many of the decorations and stocking stuffers they sell are made overseas and either did not arrive or got more expensive when President Donald Trump imposed unusually high taxes on imported goods, she said.In response, the sisters focused their selection on more profitable items like nutcrackers and gift baskets. They’ve also noticed customers cutting back, selecting a $100 gift basket over the $150 version, or buying one ornament instead of several, Butler said.“We’re definitely seeing more cautious spending this year,” she said.Along with the unpredictable tariffs, stubborn inflation and weak hiring have shaken consumer confidence in the U.S. economy. The vast majority of U.S. adults say they’ve noticed higher than usual prices for groceries, electricity and holiday gifts in recent months, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.A Gallup index that summarizes Americans’ assessments of current economic conditions fell to a 17-month low in November. Consumers also indicated less enthusiasm for spending money on holiday gifts; their estimated gift budgets decreased $229 between October and November, the largest drop Gallup has recorded at that point of the holiday shopping season. The survey was conducted in November, partially during the government shutdown, which might have tempered spending plans.However, the worst-case impact on consumer prices that many economists foresaw from the Trump administration’s tariff policies hasn’t materialized. Some products have been affected more than others. Here’s a look at what has happened with supplies and prices in popular gifting categories.
Games and toys
Game and toys were particularly susceptible to tariff-related price increases since the majority of the ones sold in the U.S. are made in China, according to industry trade group The Toy Association. The tariff rate the Trump administration imposed on Chinese goods became a rollercoaster that started at an additional 10%, peaked at 145% and ended up at 47%.The uncertainty made it hard for toy shops to decide what to order for the holidays. Dean Smith, who co-owns independent toy stores JaZams in Princeton, New Jersey, and Lahaska, Pennsylvania, said the manufacturers in China that he buys toys from did not pass on their tariff costs all at once but he has seen their prices inch higher with every reorder.Smith estimated that wholesale prices for 80% of his inventory went up anywhere from 5% to 20%. Some shoppers who don’t buy toys regularly might be surprised by price increases he adopted in turn, Smith said. A doll that sold for $20 to $25 last year now costs $30 to $35 at JaZams, he said.“For folks with marginal incomes, this is going to be a very difficult holiday,” Smith said.
Electronics
Consumer electronics are mostly made in China and other Asian countries. In 2023, China accounted for 78% of U.S. smartphone imports, and 79% of laptop and tablet imports, according to the Consumer Technology Association trade group.Best Buy said in May that it was raising prices due to tariffs. But CEO Corie Barry said late last month that the consumer electronics chain made sure to stock computers, phones and other products at different price levels, a decision she credited with helping Best Buy attract more lower-income shoppers.“The consumer is not a monolith,” Barry told reporters.Game consoles are always a popular holiday item, and console makers made news earlier this year when they announced price increases. Sony raised the price of the PlayStation 5 by $50 to $550 in August, following Microsoft and Nintendo raising prices for their game consoles.
Jewelry
Jewelry shoppers will likely see higher prices, but that has more to do with the soaring price of gold than tariffs so far, according to David Bonaparte, president & CEO of trade group Jewelers of America.The varying tax rates Trump set for countries that import American goods with a total value less than their exports to the U.S. affected jewelry in various ways. Watches from Switzerland, for example, were subject to a 39% tariff from July 31 until the country struck a deal with the Trump administration last month to lower the import tax rate on its products to 15%.India, which refines many of the diamonds sold in the U.S., rushed in shipments of the gemstones before a 50% tariff on the country’s products took effect on Aug. 27. Higher prices for jewelry made with diamonds shipped from India will likely start to be felt in 2026, Bonaparte said.“It’s really a matter of what happens after Jan. 1,” he said. “If these tariffs are still in place, then prices will probably increase.”
Holiday decor
Holiday decorations are yet another category that mostly comes from overseas, particularly China.Jeremy Rice co-owns House, a home-décor shop in Lexington, Kentucky, that specializes in artificial flowers, wreaths and table decorations. He said the tariffs slowed down production of much of his fall stock and seasonal merchandise like ribbon. Some larger and more expensive items he didn’t order at all because they would have been too expensive to retail.Rice raised prices on the products he did get. The popular red berry stems that House long has carried increased from $8.95 last year to $10.95 due to higher import costs, he said.“We sell thousands of these berry stems, and every time we sold one, I flinched from knowing what it should have been, knowing that our supplier paid more for them, which made us pay more for them, which made our customer pay more for them,” Rice said.
Shopping strategically
For those looking to avoid tariff-related price increases, John Harmon, managing director of technology research at technology consulting company Coresight Resarch, recommends checking out secondhand stores and discount retailers like T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s and HomeGoods. The off-price chains buy much of their inventory from leftover stock that would have entered the U.S. before new tariffs kicked in.Joe Adamski, senior director at procurement services company ProcureAbility, said books, food and beverages are some of the domestically produced goods that make good gifts.
Mae Anderson, AP Business Writer
Rob Reiner, the son of a comedy giant who became one himself as one of the preeminent filmmakers of his generation with movies such as “The Princess Bride,” “When Harry Met Sally ” and “This Is Spinal Tap,” has died. He was 78.Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer, were found dead Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation confirmed their identities but could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.Authorities were investigating an “apparent homicide,” said Capt. Mike Bland with the Los Angeles Police Department. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3:30 p.m.Reiner grew up thinking his father, Carl Reiner, didn’t understand him or find him funny. But the younger Reiner would in many ways follow in his father’s footsteps, working both in front and behind the camera, in comedies that stretched from broad sketch work to accomplished dramedies.“My father thought, ‘Oh, my God, this poor kid is worried about being in the shadow of a famous father,'” Reiner said, recalling the temptation to change his name to “60 Minutes” in October. “And he says, ‘What do you want to change your name to?’ And I said, ‘Carl.’ I just wanted to be like him.”After starting out as a writer for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” Reiner’s breakthrough came when he was, at age 23, cast in Norman Lear’s “All in the Family” as Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic. But by the 1980s, Reiner began as a feature film director, churning out some of the most beloved films of that, or any, era. His first film, the largely improvised 1984 cult classic “This Is Spinal Tap,” remains the quintessential mockumentary.After the 1985 John Cusack summer comedy, “The Sure Thing,” Reiner made “Stand By Me” (1986), “The Princess Bride” (1987) and “When Harry Met Sally ” (1989), a four-year stretch that resulted in a trio of American classics, all of them among the most often quoted movies of the 20th century.
A legacy on and off screen
For the next four decades, Reiner, a warm and gregarious presence on screen and an outspoken liberal advocate off it, remained a constant fixture in Hollywood. The production company he co-founded, Castle Rock Entertainment, launched an enviable string of hits, including “Seinfeld” and “The Shawshank Redemption.” By the turn of the century, its success rate had fallen considerably, but Reiner revived it earlier this decade. This fall, Reiner and Castle Rock released the long-in-coming sequel “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.”All the while, Reiner was one of the film industry’s most passionate Democrat activists, regularly hosting fundraisers and campaigning for liberal issues. He was co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which challenged in court California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8. He also chaired the campaign for Prop 10, a California initiative to fund early childhood development services with a tax on tobacco products. Reiner was also a critic of President Donald Trump.That ran in the family, too. Reiner’s father opposed the Communist hunt of McCarthyism in the 1950s and his mother, Estelle Reiner, a singer and actor, protested the Vietnam War.“If you’re a nepo baby, doors will open,” Reiner told the Guardian in 2024. “But you have to deliver. If you don’t deliver, the door will close just as fast as it opened.”
‘All in the Family’ to ‘Stand By Me’
Robert Reiner was born in the Bronx on March 6, 1947. As a young man, he quickly set out to follow his father into entertainment. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles film school and, in the 1960s, began appearing in small parts in various television shows.But when Lear saw Reiner as a key cast member in “All in the Family,” it came as a surprise to the elder Reiner.“Norman says to my dad, ‘You know, this kid is really funny.’ And I think my dad said, ‘What? That kid? That kid? He’s sullen. He sits quiet. He doesn’t, you know, he’s not funny.’ He didn’t think I was anyway,” Reiner told “60 Minutes.”On “All in the Family,” Reiner served as a pivotal foil to Carroll O’Connor’s bigoted, conservative Archie Bunker. Reiner was five times nominated for an Emmy for his performance on the show, winning in 1974 and 1978. In Lear, Reiner also found a mentor. He called him “a second father.”“It wasn’t just that he hired me for ‘All in the Family,'” Reiner told “American Masters” in 2005. “It was that I saw, in how he conducted his life, that there was room to be an activist as well. That you could use your celebrity, your good fortune, to help make some change.”Lear also helped launch Reiner as a filmmaker. He put $7.5 million of his own money to help finance “Stand By Me,” Reiner’s adaptation of the Stephen King novella “The Body.” The movie, about four boys who go looking for the dead body of a missing boy, became a coming-of-age classic, made breakthroughs of its young cast (particularly River Phoenix) and even earned the praise of King.With his stock rising, Reiner devoted himself to adapting William Goldman’s 1973’s “The Princess Bride,” a book Reiner had loved since his father gave him a copy as a gift. Everyone from François Truffaut to Robert Redford had considered adapting Goldman’s book, but it ultimately fell to Reiner (from Goldman’s own script) to capture the unique comic tone of “The Princess Bride.” But only once he had Goldman’s blessing.“At the door he greeted me and he said, ‘This is my baby. I want this on my tombstone. This is my favorite thing I’ve ever written in my life. What are you going to do with it?'” Reiner recalled in a Television Academy interview. “And we sat down with him and started going through what I thought should be done with the film.”Though only a modest success in theaters, the movie starring Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, André the Giant and Robin Wright would grow in stature over the years, leading to countless impressions of Inigo Montoya’s vow of revenge and the risky nature of land wars in Asia.
‘When Harry Met Sally ”
Reiner was married to Penny Marshall, the actor and filmmaker, for 10 years beginning in 1971. Like Reiner, Marshall experienced sitcom fame, with “Laverne & Shirley,” but found a more lasting legacy behind the camera.After their divorce, Reiner, at a lunch with Nora Ephron, suggested a comedy about dating. In writing what became “When Harry Met Sally ” Ephron and Reiner charted a relationship between a man and a woman (layed in the film by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan) over the course of 12 years.Along the way, the movie’s ending changed, as did some of the film’s indelible moments. The famous line, “I’ll have what she’s having,” said after witnessing Ryan’s fake orgasm at Katz’s Delicatessen, was a suggestion by Crystal delivered by none other than Reiner’s mother, Estelle.The movie’s happy ending also had some real-life basis. Reiner met Singer, a photographer, on the set of “When Harry Met Sally ” In 1989, they were wed. They had three children together: Nick, Jake and Romy.Reiner’s subsequent films included another King adaptation, “Misery” (1990) and a pair of Aaron Sorkin-penned dramas: the military courtroom tale “A Few Good Men” (1992) and 1995’s “The American President.”By the late ’90s, Reiner’s films (1996’s “Ghosts of Mississippi,” 2007’s “The Bucket List”) no longer had the same success rate. But he remained a frequent actor, often memorably enlivening films like “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993) and “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013). In 2023, he directed the documentary “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life.”In an interview earlier this year with Seth Rogen, Reiner suggested everything in his career boiled down to one thing.“All I’ve ever done is say, ‘Is this something that is an extension of me?’ For ‘Stand by Me,’ I didn’t know if it was going to be successful or not. All I thought was, ‘I like this because I know what it feels like.'”
Jake Coyle, AP Film Writer
Platforms from Amazon to YouTubeand, of course, the headline-dominating Spotify Wrappedhave spent much of December rolling out year-end recaps that show users how they engaged with the platforms’ services throughout 2025.
Today, one of the last anticipated recaps of the year makes its debut: Snapchat Recap 2025. Heres what you need to know.
What is Snapchat Recap 2025?
Snapchat Recap is Snapchats annual year-in-review feature for users of the Snapchat app. Users are able to see a special year-end Story that showcases how they spent their time Snapchating throughout 2025.
Snapchat owner Snap Inc. says the 2025 recap features insights and highlights on how a user communicated, connected, and expressed themselves over the past 12 months.
When does Snapchat Recap 2025 launch?
Snapchat Recap 2025 is available today, Monday, December 15.
How do I get my Snapchat Recap 2025?
If youre a Snapchat user, you can access your Snapchat Recap 2025 just like you have your Snapchat Recaps of previous years.
You can see your Snapchat Recap 2025 year-end story by swiping up from the Camera.
There, youll find your Snapchat Recap 2025, which features your favorite memories from the year.
Snapchat in 2025 by the numbers
In addition to releasing its annual Snapchat Recap 2025 today, Snap also unveiled additional metrics about how people used the platform this year, including:
Snapchatters talked to each other for nearly 1.7 billion minutes each daythats around a 30% daily talk time increase from last year.
The heart was the most popular chat reaction in 2025.
The 6/7 Bitmoji Sticker became the most-used sticker on the platform.
Shares of iRobot Corporation (Nasdaq: IRBT), maker of the Roomba autonomous vacuum cleaner, are crashing today after the company announced that it will seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
As of this writing, IRBT shares are down more than 78%and the news is only expected to get worse for common shareholders. Consumers, on the other hand, may be wondering if their Roombas will stop working. Heres what you need to know.
Whats happened?
On Sunday, iRobot Corporation said it has filed for bankruptcy. The Massachusetts-based company is seeking Chapter 11 protection in the District of Delaware.
As part of the process, iRobot has entered into a Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA) with the Chinese company that manufactures its Roomba vacuum cleaners and other products, Picea Robotics.
iRobot was founded in 1990 and was one of the most prominent American companies to popularize household robotics among consumers. Its Roomba vacuum cleaner took households by storm when the product was first released in 2002.
But in the decades since, iRobot has faced heavy competition from other robotic vacuum companies, many of which have released cheaper, superior products in recent years.
Still, iRobot enjoyed strong brand recognition and had a significant foothold in marketshare among robotic vacuums in both America and Japan. Starting in 2022, Amazon attempted to acquire the company, but that deal was ultimately abandoned due to regulatory concerns.
Since then, iRobot has faced mounting debt, increased competition, higher operational costs, and the negative financial impact of President Trumps tariffs, notes Reuters.
By this month, those burdens became too much, and the company decided to file for bankruptcy.
What happens to iRobot now?
If the Delaware court approves the bankruptcy plans, iRobots ownership will transfer to Picea Robotics, the companys primary manufacturer, which is also now its largest debt owner.
In a press release, iRobot says it plans to continue operating throughout the bankruptcy proceedings, and once the proceedings are completed, iRobot is expected to continue operating under its new owners leadership.
However, once the bankruptcy proceedings are complete, iRobot will be owned as a private company by Picea, which has significant implications for iRobots stock.
How does the bankruptcy impact iRobots stock?
iRobots stock will be significantly impacted by the bankruptcy. Upon completion of Chapter 11, iRobot will cease to trade as a public company. That means its shares will be delisted from the Nasdaq and will no longer be available for public trading.
Given this news, its little surprise that IRBT shares have fallen off a cliff since the bankruptcy plans were announced.
As of the time of this writing, iRBT shares are trading down more than 77% in premarket trading. Right now, IRBT shares are at 97 cents. On Friday, they closed at $4.32 per share.
But as if todays cliff-edge price drop wasnt bad enough for iRobot investors, the company issued a dire warning to shareholders alongside its bankruptcy announcement.
If the court approves the bankruptcy plans, iRobot expects that holders of iRobot common stock will experience a total loss and not receive recovery on their investment.
In other words, if the bankruptcy goes ahead, retail investors can expect their IRBT shares to become worthless. In February 2021, IRBT’s shares traded as high as $137 per share. But since then, they have steadily declined, culminating in today’s sub-$1 price.
Will Roombas stop working?
Robotic vacuum cleaners are Internet of Things devices that generally require cloud infrastructure and an online platform to continue operating.
Given that iRobot has announced it is filing for bankruptcy, many Roomba owners are understandably worried that their expensive vacuum cleaners might suddenly become bricked and stop working.
But for now, those fears seem to be unfoundedat least according to iRobot. In a statement announcing its bankruptcy plans, iRobot said there will be no anticipated disruption to its app functionality, customer programs, global partners, supply chain relationships, or ongoing product support.
Public trust in the media and in data has been undercut by information overload, relentless social media cycles, and targeted influence campaigns. Whether driven by politics, social movements, or commercial interests, the credibility of what we see and hear is under threat. By thinking through the ways that we’ve lost our trust, we might find more ways to reverse the trend and bring people back together.
Last month, Gallup released the latest results of a survey on trust in the media that began in 1972. It showed that current confidence in the mass media is at a new historic low. A majority trusting public in 1972 has now flipped to being a majority distrustful public in 2025.
As with most data sets, the subtleties are more complicated. During the first Trump administration, trust rebounded significantlyand then backslid to its lowest point ever after the pandemic. Looking at the data from a partisan lens, overall trust fell across all three groups, with Republicans being the least trusting. But the shock is the growth of the “no trust at all” category: those least trusting Democrats barely changed, but for Republicans, it surged.
Social Media Has Worked Us Over Completely
The way people around the world access news and information are largely the samethrough the internet. Its growth has been so extreme in our lifetime, one can hardly blame us for acting a bit weird. In 1990, only 25 million people used the internet globallyabout 0.6% of the world. By 2025, 5.6 billion people use social media every day. That’s 64% of the world, a roughly 20,000% increase and we now spend about six and a half hours online every day.
This explosive growth over the past 35 years has brought with it a variety of technological and social innovations and challenges. How we interact with information keeps changing, and with it, our language and culture also adapt. It reminds me of this quote by media theorist Marshall McLuhan:
“All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences. They leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.”
As our connection to the internet grew, it also pushed us apart. Our attention became focused on digital realities and away from our friends and families. This has led to a loneliness epidemic. Studies show that aspects of chronic loneliness impact half of all US adults. And there’s a direct correlation between our lack of trust in the media and the growth of the internet. What was first a feature has become a bugcreating a feedback loop where fear of missing out leads to a reinforcement of what has been missing from many people’s lives.
Putting People First in Data Communication
Too many data professionals focus more on the data rather than the people reading it. We need an approach to communicating data that fosters genuine understanding and human connectionwhich in turn builds trust. This is as true in business communications as it is in marketing and media. By putting people first in how we understand data and how we communicate it, we address both crises at once. Our mission to restore data credibility should also focus on creating more human connection.
This mindset shift towards data communication comes at a historically appropriate time. Looking backwards; the “big data” trend created vast data storehouses built by data engineers. Data scientists were needed to make sense of the data, and in doing so created AI tools to put data to work in a more proactive way. But over the past 15 years, this also helped create a data credibility issue. Now we need a new create a new generation of data communicators to pick up where data science left off and work to find a new way to make data meaningful to more people.
How We Can Make It Happen
It is a matter of design. To echo the central concepts of design thinking, we have to change our focus from the technology to the humans that need it. Unlike UX design, people do not use a dashboard or a data visualization, they read them. This small change belays a much bigger impact.
Data communication is a two-step approach: First, we need to understand what the data means to the people who need it. Then, we should use every tool availablewords, images, diagrams, and storyto design the conversation around their needs and meet them where they are.
This shift from data visualization to data communication needs a more balanced approach to how we design for data, and we need an extended skill set to equip the next generation of data communicators to do so. In this way, data is a bridge to connect people to discuss the context of the data.
Why this is important to data professionals
While the societal forces that created this loneliness epidemic and the distrust of information are nearly impossible to combat, we must try! It happens with each of us.
Societal changes begin with the individual, and our work as data communicators means that we can design the relationships around us. It’s a personal approach to creating a more empathetic societya mission that anyone can join, regardless of background and skillset.
As data communicators, our work has a special impact. Every chart, every dashboard, and every story can become a bridge to bring people together and rebuild the credibility of shared truth that joins us. By focusing on the communication of the data, we create bridges to connect people and reinforce systems of trust. By empowering a new generation of data communicators, we can make an impact across a range of professionsin business and industry, media and journalism, communications, and fine artto build more trust and create more conversations.
For the first time in eight years, pay TV is rising.
According to the latest Cord-Cutting Monitor report from analyst firm MoffettNathanson, the number of subscriptions to linear video packages actually rose during the third quarter of 2025.
The estimates, which include subscriptions to virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) like YouTube TV, show that the pay-TV industry had 303,000 subscriber additions in the third quarter, marking the first quarterly gain since 2017.
However, the research notes that the increase was “reasonably small and seasonal given that it happened during the quarter when the NFL season began, meaning it could potentially see subscribers drop out again at the beginning of Q1 next year.
While much of the sequential growth came from the vMPVD segment, traditional video subscriptions via cable TV were down.
window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}});
Gains led by YouTube TV and Charter
The research overall found that the vMVPD category has been led by YouTube TV, which added an estimated 750,000 subscribers in the third quarter. MoffettNatanson emphasizes that its estimate is a conservative one and could even be an undercount.
According to the firm, the bigger takeaway is that Charter Communications has seen significant improvements in pay TV subscriptions, especially after it secured a partnership with the Walt Disney Company two years ago.
The deal gave the House of Mouse streaming rights to Charters video subscribers at no extra cost. It came after similar agreements with Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and NBCUniversal.
These deals also allowed for Charter to market its video offerings again, promoting it as free live TV, with a discount on bundled streaming services like the Disney+ and Hulu bundle, ESPN Unlimited, HBO Max Basic with Ads and more, to reach young viewers.
The research also suggests that since Charter renewed its commitment to video, the company has been able to cut its quarterly subscriber losses by two-thirds.
Charter is also likely to bring its new video packaging strategy as well as its agreements to Cox Communications when the two finally close their merger next year.
Though Charters improvements stood out the most, MoffettNatansons monitor also found that Comcast has seen some improvements for the last eight quarters where decline has been the slowest, meaning that cord-cutting is happening at a slower rate.
Meanwhile, satellite TV providers like DirecTV and EchoStar have also seen some minor improvements, the report found.
MoffettNatanson points out that while traditional distributors are still declining, vMVPDs are continuing to grow at an annual rate of 4.6%.
Over the past 15 years, the shift in cord-cutting has been dramatic. As cited in a report by S&P Global last month, households that subscribe to traditional cable TV peaked in 2012 at 101 million, but the figure is now less than half that.
The rise of live-TV streaming bundles with services like Slingwhich launched in 2015have traditionally not been enough to offset that decline.
When youre trying to snazz up your emails with a signature at the bottom, its all too easy to overthink it.
Gmails signature tool offers extensive formatting options. (Want to sign off in Comic Sans? Go for it.) And typical signature-builder sites can get even more complex, with seemingly endless fonts, buttons, and shiny doodads to choose from.
The truth is, you dont need all that to sign your emails in a presentable way. Just an image and a handful of descriptive lines should do the trick, and this free tool will give you just that without tempting you to go overboard.
This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures!
A simpler email signature
To create a slick email signature in seconds, check out Simple Signature.
Simple Signature is a free email signature builder with minimal formatting options.
Itll take about five minutes to get your signature looking just-so.
The sites signatures are intended to work with a wide range of email providers. When youre finished, just copy and paste it into your email sites signature editor.
Simple Signature starts you off with a John Doe template that includes a placeholder image at the top. You can add your own image by clicking the Upload Logo or Image button, or click the little eye icon to hide it. You can also use the other icons in this section to resize or reposition the image.
Simple Signature’s editor is easy to use without being overkill.
From there, its just a matter of adding, removing, or modifying the other fields in the template. The site lets you choose from just a few different field types:
Text fields are for things like your name, title, address, and phone number.
Link fields are for things the recipient can click on, like a website, social media account, or email address.
Space fields are for adding a visual buffer between parts of your signature.
For links, youll see two fields to fill out side-by-side. The first is for the text that appears in your signature, and the second is for the page that loads when someone clicks the link. Make sure to use the format mailto:youraddress@email.com for email addresses.
Simple Signatures font options are intentionally limited. You can either choose Helvetica, Arial, Mono, or nothing (which will just use the email providers default font).
Once youre finished, just click the Copy Signature button in the top-right corner. This will add the signature to your clipboard, so you can paste it into your email apps signature form. The site even offers instructions for adding the signature to Gmail as well as Outlook or Apple Mail.
If all that seems a little too basic, well, thats the point. Other signature editors might let you do more, but this is the only one Im aware of with a manifesto on why you shouldnt.
Simple Signature works in any web browser, though you should probably use it on a computer instead of a phone, as you may have difficulty pasting the signature into your email providers mobile app.
The site is free to use with no ads for creating a single signature. Theres an optional $99 per year Pro version for business users who want to create lots of signatures and share them with team members.
No sign-up is required unless you want to start editing a signature on one device and finish up on another. The sites privacy policy is easy to understand and makes clear that your data isnt used for any purpose but to provide the signature builder.
Treat yourself to all sorts of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletterstarting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in truly delightful ways.
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
The authors of the most powerful memoirs, self-help books, and leadership bibles combine deep research and self-reflectionin the same way todays executives need to blend data insights with emotional intelligence. As we look ahead to 2026, I asked eight authors of recent business and business-adjacent books to share their recommendations for books (not their own) that will help you lead in the year to come.
Here are their picks, in their own words:
Maha Aboulenein, CEO, Digital and Savy, and author, 7 Rules of Self-Reliance
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Hands down the book I am gifting to everyone this year is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. The protagonist, Sybil Van Antwerp, is witty, sharp, and just like usshe has lived a life of triumphs, love, tragedies, and regrets. The book is a series of letters that she writes to family, friends, politicians, and strangers. She reminds us that, in the art of letter writing, there is no gray, just black and white, and that is where themost beautiful and honest stories unfold. I devoured the book and hope everyone reads it. They will be utterly delighted they did.
This book will help business leaders think clearly about the power of storytelling. When we look at consumer behavior and how [people] are choosing more long-form content, this book gave me perspective. [How will] letter writing in the age of AI matter? How can we go back to thinking about what connects us as audiences? Its about the power of building a relationship directly: the one-to-one (versus the spray-and-pray approach). Building trust with your audience is not about influence. Its about connecting over a story that moves us.
Paul Achleitner, former chair, Deutsche Bank, and author, Accelerate Your Experience
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham Allison
In this 1971 classic, the author uses the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis to demonstrate a key theme:The traditional approach of interpreting political outcomes as the consequence of rational action by individuals falls short of reality.Instead,internal organizational processes workinghand in hand with bureaucratic power politics may have just as much to do with the results. I have always felt that applying different perspectives generates better explanationsas well as outcomesin business as well. As Austrian philosopher Friedrich Hayek stated,many events are theconsequence of human action but not human design.
Kevin Boehm, cofounder and co-CEO, Boka Restaurant Group, and author, The Bottomless Cup
The Dream of Solomeo: My Life and the Idea of Humanistic Capitalism by Brunello Cucinelli
There are so many lessons in that book that echo my own life and my evolving ethos: that success in business is noble only if it lifts the human spirit. The way Cucinelli resurrected Solomeo while building his empire gave his purpose a kind of dignity that is aspirational. Blind ambition was lauded as admirable for generations but is often detrimental to an entrepreneurs development as a human. In todays more enlightened world, making sure there is nobility behind the purpose allows us to sidestep the potholes that leaders like Steve Jobs were never able to evade. You can be a capitalist and a kind human.
Jon Gluck, senior editor, Fast Company, and author, An Exercise in Uncertainty
Endurance: Shackletons Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
Endurance tells the story of the ill-fated 19141917 expedition led by the British Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. The expeditions ship, the Endurance, was trapped in the Antarctic ice and crushed. After surviving for months on ice floes, the crew undertook a grueling 1,000-mile journey in an open boat, then traversed glaciers and scaled mountains before finding help.
Never mind that Endurance is a gripping and inspiring read. The story offers a master class in navigating every manner of crisis and every type of uncertainty, which leaders will encounter in abundance in 2026. If nothing else, it makes business challenges seem manageable by comparison.
Mita Mallick, workplace strategist, and author, The Devil Emails at Midnight
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara
As our lives get even more digital, more seamless, with just a few clicks or a touch of a button, we will crave human interaction. This is why Unreasonable Hospitality, about extraordinary service delivered by and for human beings, should be on every leaders reading list.
In a rapid race to embrace AI, we get personalization at scale: We can anticipate what customers need and want based on the data we collect on their ehaviors. But how about a human being noticing your needs at a particular moment, offering a spontaneous, heartfelt gesture? Noticing and connecting with one another is becoming an underrated superpower.
The companies that thrive will not only treat their customers with unreasonable hospitality, but hospitality [will] become the new leadership imperative. Forget the oversize hoodies, fancy snacks, and another free meditation app. Treating your employees with care will become the biggest retention tool we have at our disposal.
Leila McKenzie-Delis, CEO, Dial Global, and author, The CEO Activist
From Intent to Impact: The New Blueprint for Inclusion by Asif Sadiq
Asif Sadiqs From Intent to Impact is a must-read for 2026 because it gives leaders a practical, no-nonsense blueprint for turning inclusion from well-meaning intentions into real, measurable change. Rather than offering theory, it delivers actionable frameworks that help organizations build inclusive cultures, design inclusive products, and create sustainable impact.
With Sadiqs deep global experience and timely relevance in a rapidly shifting social and business landscape, the book stands out as an essential guide for anyone serious about meaningful progress.
Kurt Strovink, senior partner and global head of CEO practice, McKinsey, and coauthor, A CEO for All Seasons
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A book I return to often is Marcus Aureliuss Meditations. Written nearly 2,000 years ago, it remains one of the clearest guides for navigating the tensions and responsibilities of leadership. What makes the book enduring is its integration of the inner and outer dimensions of leadership.
Aurelius believed in the power of stoicism to accept what was uncontrollable and work productively on what was controllable. Leaders today face pressures Aurelius himself could never have imagined, yet the fundamentals he wrestled withclarity of thought in the face of change, humility of perspective, and the discipline to separate what can be controlled from what cannotare strikingly timeless.
In a world defined by rapidly evolving markets, geopolitical uncertainty, AI innovation, and a growing disparity between signal and noise, having the temperament to absorb change is essential to todays leadership.
Meditations doesnt offer outright solutions; it offers ways of thinking that help leaders stay grounded while making consequential decisions, leading through others, preparing institutions for change, and renewing ones energy as a protagonist in lifes journey. Aureliuss reflections compose what we might call an ethic of leadershipthe standards leaders must hold themselves to in both the inner game and the outer game of their roles.
Angela Williams, president and CEO, United Way Worldwide, and coauthor, Navigating the Age of Chaos
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasis Homegoing is one of those books that stays with you long after you close it. The story follows two branches of a family across generations, and it shows how connection and resilience thread through even the hardest histories.
Working with communities every day, Im reminded of how much we all inherit: grief, strength, possibility, and most importantly, the power to heal together. Leaders today can take that same lesson to heart. Seeing people fully and honoring the shared histories is how we build trust, collaboration, and stronger communities. Heading into 2026, with all the uncertainty around us, it feels urgent to remember that real community begins when we refuse to give up on one another. Homegoing is a beautiful reminder that hope is a practice that grows every time we reach across difference and walk alongside our neighbors anyway.
What Are Your Top Book Picks?
What books do you think leaders should read to get ready for 2026? Please send your picksnew books and classics alike are welcometo me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and well publish your recommendations in an upcoming newsletter.
Read more: reading is fundamental
4 reasons reading for pleasure can make you a better person
How reading rewires your brain, according to neuroscience
Modern CEOs summer 2024 reading list
Burnout and boredom are the two dreaded b-words of the modern workplace. We fear one, dismiss the other, and often fail to see how easily they trade places. Too often, boredom masquerades as burnout. To the untrained eye, exhaustion and disengagement can look identical.
Boredom is typically a form of cognitive under-stimulation, while burnout is emotional and physical overextension. Both can leave people feeling unmotivated and fatigued. But heres the twist: in cultures that tend to glamorize busyness, many employees feel safer saying theyre burned out than bored. Burnout signals you worked “too hard.” Bored, on the other hand, signals the opposite.
Recent reports show 82% of knowledge workers across North America, Asia, and Europe have varying degrees of burnout. And if youre in Australia, welcome to the burnout capital of the world. Burnout has a costly link to organizational issues such as attrition, absenteeism, lower engagement, and decreased productivity.
But dont underestimate the grim impact of a bored workforce either. When you dont address it, it metastasizes into cynicism and passive sabotage. Given the higher prevalence of bored employees than burned-out ones, the distinction between burnout and boredom is too important to ignore.
Why does this matter? Because when we mistake boredom for burnout, we prescribe rest, when what we really need is challenge. We pull the wrong levers. We give rest to those who crave renewal and pressure to those who need pause.
If you cant figure out whether youre experiencing burnout or boredom in disguise, the following are five signs to be aware of:
1. Youre feeling fatigued, but not stressed
Feeling constantly fatigued, even when sleeping and eating well? Irritated but not exactly stressed? Thats a boredom clue. If your fatigue is tinged by feelings of resentment or dread, you might be experiencing burnout. But if its laced with numbness, clock-watching, or a nagging wish for a fire drill just to break the monotony, thats boredom. Both are crises of connection that are likely related to purpose, people, or growth.
2. Busy yet unfulfilled
Your calendar is filled to the brim with meetings, and the emails never end. Even when sleeping, your remit seems to increase exponentially, and there are endless deliverables. You keep going because everyone needs you, and you dont want to let people down. But none of it lands anymore. You dont experience meaning and satisfaction, and you feel somehow hollow. Youre on a track to burning out.
Boredom, on the other hand, may see you doing “busy work” but choosing less critical tasks. The challenge-reward loop fueling motivation has broken down, which leaves you mentally checked out. Boredom can become problematic when its rooted in a deeper sense of purposelessness. And if you’re easily distracted and are distracting others, thats also boredom.
3. You crave escape (any escape)
With burnout, you fantasize about quitting and disappearing. All you want is some peace and quiet. No emails, pingszero contact. Just some silence. Even a trip to the dentist for a root canal becomes appealing if only for the escape and genuine, “out of office” experience.
When youre bored, the escape looks different. You want a thrill. You scroll job ads, online shopping, airline specials, anything just to feel a flicker of excitement. Either way, youre forming an exit strategy.
4. Quality of work slips
Maybe youre noticing that your quality of work is slipping. With constantly increasing workloads and being overwhelmed for prolonged periods, its inevitable. Thats a clear sign of burnout, especially if its not your normal state of play.
What if the decreased quality of work is due to procrastination? Maybe its a missed deadline here and there. Its not quite enough effort to make it a killer presentation, but it was passable. Thats boredom. Its also a precursor to quiet-quitting, doing the bare minimum of ones job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than necessary.
5. Emotionally flatlined
You used to get excited, be passionate, even push back. Now its just neutral, no irritation and no excitement. The highs dont lift you, and the lows dont move you. You stop reacting because it takes energy that you no longer have. It feels a bit like emotional autopilot. In burnout, that numbness is self-protection.
When you are bored, its detachment, not from energy depletion, but lack of stimulation. There is no challenge to rise to, no cause to push for, so you quietly disconnect. When disconnection feels better than engagement, that is a sign that something deeper needs your attention.
The key to distinguishing between burnout and boredom lies in tuning into the disengagement and understanding its source. For bored employees, its about restoring agency, novelty, inspiration, and purpose:
Ask better questions: What parts of the job feel under-stimulating or misaligned with their skills?
Curate challenge: Provide opportunities for responsibility and problem–solving, not just task execution.
Reinforce relevance: Help them see the impact of their work.
Strong leadership modeling: It always comes back to who manages and leads. Purpose–driven leaders and relatable managers engage, connect, and inspire.
Burnout says, “I gave too much.” Boredom says, “I stopped giving at all.” One makes you feel overdone, while the other makes you feel underwhelmed. Either way, its a signal that we’ve drifted from meaning, and it’s time to get back to being
In 2021, two people you’ve probably never heard ofFaZe Rug and Adin Rossfaced off in a one-on-one basketball game at a Los Angeles gym. Winner gets $25,000. Sam Gilbert led a two-person team that streamed it live on YouTube from a single iPhone. The players weren’t professional athletes, and it was, Gilbert says, a very below average basketball game. Still, nearly 80,000 people tuned in live, most of them under 34 years old.
That was the biggest eye opener to me, says Gilbert, director of content for Bleacher Reports House of Highlights. Thats when I knew there was something here.
Gilbert saw that something fundamental had shifted in sports consumption. The names mattered in the same way fans tune in to watch Luka Doncic or Victor Wembanyama. But personality and creator fandom trumped talent and quality of play. FaZe Rug and Adin Ross command audiences of millions across YouTube and Twitchdeeply engaged fans who, when the two faced off in real time, showed up.
It was a test, Gilbert says. And its success became the foundation for Bleacher Reports Creator League, a sports league where social medias biggest personalities compete in basketball, dodgeball, and flag football for cash prizes that can stretch well into six figures.
[Photo: Warner Bros Discovery]
Young viewers are tuning in. A dodgeball match at DreamCon in 2022 generated over 80 million views with 7 million engagements and climbed as high as the No. 2 trending video on YouTube. In 2025 alone, the league generated 606 million viewsa 60% increase from the previous year.
So how does a made-up sports league that features average, amateur athletes regularly outperform mainstream sports and entertainment on social media, all while reaching the seemingly unreachable Gen Z demographic?
Meeting them where they are isn’t enough
Drew Muller had a numbers problem that didn’t make sense.
As Vice President and GM of House of HighlightsBleacher Report’s social-first sports vertical founded in 2014 and acquired in 2015he watched highlight consumption explode year over year. The brand was on its way to over 100 million followers across platforms, driving billions of monthly views.
But Muller also saw the other side of the equation. As part of Turner Sports (now TNT and part of Warner Bros. Discovery), he had a front-row seat to traditional sports broadcasting, and the data showed that the under-34 live sports viewing audience was collapsing. According to Bleacher Reports research, Major League Baseball’s median viewer is 56 years old. The NHL’s is 52. The NBA’s is 49. Even NFL viewers skew older47% are 55 and over, and only 17% are under 35.
“Something doesn’t add up here,” Muller recalls thinking back in 2020. House of Highlights’ numbers kept climbing. Gen Z’s appetite for sports content was undeniable. Yet they wouldn’t watch live games on TV.
But they would, Muller noticed, enthusiastically watch a four-hour livestream of a YouTube creator playing video games.
The solution to bridge that gap and satisfy that audience was the Creator League. And the hypothesis was simple: Meet Gen Z where they areon YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. But also meet them with people they care about, and in formats they understand.
Creator League built rosters for reality TV, not sports
To build a sports league out of thin air, you have to start with the games, right?
No, says Gilbert. I think the creator content is first and foremost. We know the space we’re playing in. Were leveraging the biggest names in the creator space, so we always have to stay true and authentic to that space.
It makes sense. Traditional sports leagues have built fandom over generations through geographic loyalty and decades-long story arcs. Its why leagues like the XFL and USFL, which lack that history, continually sprout up and fold. So, rather than fight that same battleand risk the same fateGilbert and Muller dug into years of YouTube beef, Twitch streams, and TikTok drama. This is the new generations mythology, and the Creator League is built on it.
“You’re almost like a casting director for a Survivor-style show where you’re trying to introduce different personalities that could lead to controversy,” Muller explains. “You want someone that’s going to be the shit-talkerthe villain. You want the good guy. You want the underdog. You really need to cast for every role.”
[Photo: Warner Bros Discovery]
Casting creators goes beyond beef and personality. The league also needed creators who could actually move audiences. This meant targeting creators not with the largest followings, but with the most rabid, most engaged fans. lot of times, Muller says, we’ll prioritize working with someone who might have a fraction of the followers of someone elseif we see they can move 15,000 people to a video in an instant if they want to.”
How Creator League works
The 2025 season featured four team owners who exemplified this approach: JasonTheWeen, a 21-year-old FaZe Clan member known for viral IRL stunts; RayAsianBoy, who rose to fame after linking with Kai Cenat in Japan; YourRAGE, a veteran creator known for raw humor and live-streaming dominance; and Mark Phillips, the creative force behind RDCWorld1, the viral sketch comedy crew with over 1.7 billion YouTube views.
Each owner assembles a roster of fellow creators to compete across five sports from May through Novemberdodgeball, slamball (trampoline basketball), flag football, knockout basketball, and five-on-five basketballwith a $500,000 prize pool on the line. The rosters feature creators from each owner’s network: friends, collaborators, and fellow content creators who bring their own followings to their team. The competition unfolds like a season-long reality show where creators compete, trash-talk across platforms between events, and rally their fanbases to vote for in-game advantages.
They may not appear to be household names. But to Gen Z, theyre as recognizable as LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
These selections werent random, either. Gilbert and Muller looked for creators with strategic platform diversitymixing Twitch stars with YouTube and TikTok personalitiesall while hunting for preexisting storylines.
Mark Phillips and YourRAGE have been talking trash for years about who’s more athleticwho’s better at this, who’s better at that, Gilbert says. We were able to leverage that to give a history to something that was basically still brand new.”
Fast-paced, fluid rules, no dead air
Casting solved the who. The harder question was howhow do you design competitions that keep a digital audience locked in when it has infinite options to click away?
They started with a constraint: No inventing new sports.
“They had to be familiar,” Gilbert says, “because we knew that with this generation, you only have such a short amount of time to clearly articulate what you’re trying to get them to come and watch.”
They settled on basketball, dodgeball, and flag footballsports everyone recognizes and understands. But understanding doesnt equal engagement. For that, Gilbert’s team had to strip away everything that makes traditional sports drag so the pacing mirrors the live streams Gen Z already consumesconstant action, no lulls, face-forward intensity. One timeout instead of three. Running clocks. No halftime. Creators addressing the camera directly between plays. “We’re not trying to make any of these moments a dead period where we know the audience can look on the side of the screen, find another video, and click off pretty easily,” Gilbert says.
Even the rules themselves stay fluid. When a three-point conversion felt clunky during flag football’s regular season, Gilbert met with the creators, and they decided to pivot to a painted areaa conversion zonefor the championship instead. Problem solved.
Its our league,” Gilbert says. “We’ll change up rules as much as we need to to make it entertaining for the audience.”
The proof of concept came through incremental tests. In 2020 and 2021, House of Highlights created shows tied to major events like The Match, then tried standalone basketball knockout games. The FaZe Rug versus Adin Ross experiment in 2021 validated the core thesis. By 2022, they were ready for more structure: a one-on-one basketball tournament that culminated at the Final Four in New Orleans. The format kept evolvingtwo-on-two basketball at the 2023 Final Four, a one-on-one flag football season, and massive five-on-five events at DreamCon.
[Photo: Warner Bros Discovery]
“It really evolved from big event to big event into something that could feel bigger or have this continuity and through line,” Muller says.
The tentpole strategy became crucial. By tying Creator League events to TNT Sports’ biggest momentsMarch Madness, MLB playoffs, major soccer tournamentsthey gained access to production infrastructure and built-in audience attention. Bennett Spector, General Manager of Bleacher Report, saw the strategic advantage: “When TNT Sports is covering the college football playoff or Roland Garros or the MLB playoffs, he says, we thought that being able to power up Creator League events as a property and component of what those weekends feel like is where this could really blow up and grow from.”
Giving the fansand the creatorscontrol
The Creator League breaks a lot of rules that anchor traditional sports league modelsfocusing on creators instead of athletes being chief among them. But perhaps the biggest rule they’ve cast aside is not in how they’ve built the league, but in what they have given away.
Control.
Fans can vote in real-time on game-changing advantages. Which team gets an extra player in dodgeball? Fans vote. Who gets a power-up that makes all their baskets count for double the points for two full minutes? Viewers decide. Which teams two-point conversion will be worth four points?You get it.
Gilbert admits it’s “one of the most fun but most stressful parts of each live event” because outcomes become genuinely unpredictable. But that chaos creates the engagement that traditional sports can’t replicate. If enough supporters show up in the live chat at a given time, they can make sure that the creator they lovewhose team they supportgets a power-up or a boost that could help them win the game, and the prize money. This means the creators themselves become recruiters. During voting windows, team owners lean into their cameras, practically pleading: “Go vote, go vote, go vote!”
This is not a brand begging for eyeballs or a commentator asking for engagement. It’s someone fans have watched for years, with whom they feel they have a relationship, asking for helpand the fans respond.
[Photo: Warner Bros Discovery]
Control isnt all the Creator League has given away. Its given away some power, tooover both distribution and monetization. For 2025, team owners secured revenue-sharing deals and IP rights to create their own team merchandise.
“We really wanted to change the feeling of, Here’s a check, come and show up for a couple of hours, Muller says. “If we’re going to have you put your name on this team and your face and the logo, we want you to feel both incentivized and proud to be a part of it.”
And while most media companies would lock down their intellectual property, the Creator League encourages co-streaming. Creators stream the events on their own channels simultaneously alongside House of Highlights and Creator League channels, so fans can watch the main broadcast on one screen and Mark Phillips’s handheld sideline stream on another. The key is that, to participate in polls and voting, users need to migrate to the main Creator League stream.
The result is “a uniquely complementary distribution model,” Gilbert says, where multiple streams amplify each other rather than cannibalize.
And its working. In 2025 alone, the Creator League generated 606 million views. Events averaged 123,606 concurrent viewers, with 81% of that live audience under 34. On House of Highlights’ channel, Creator League content averaged 2.9 million cross-platform views per postoutperforming both college football and NHL content, and nearly matching NBA and NFL highlights.
That reach has attracted big brand partners. Pizza Hut signed a seven-figure deal to sponsor three events, joining a roster that includes Nissan, Apple, Samsung, Netflix, PlayStation, and Corona.
The insight: Giving away control doesn’t dilute the product. It multiplies it.
Bleacher Report systematized disruption
The Creator League is not a one-off success story. It’s the latest example in a pattern that Bleacher Report has repeated for nearly two decades: identify where audiences are going before they get there, build for that future, and don’t bind yourself to what worked yesterday.
“Bleacher has a rich history of disrupting itself,” Spector says. “You have to accept fate, that this is a reality. People have gone off-platform, and this is what fans want. And once you accept the reality that you might not have all of the ingredients owned, your world looks much more free. Its not only okay to disrupt yourselves, it’s actually encouraged within these walls.”
The companys late-2015 acquisition of House of Highlights, which has grown to 100 million followers across platforms, has given it an invaluable lab in which to make and test assumptions. The Bleacher Report brand caters to current consumption trends while House of Highlights operates as “a speedboat out in front,” Spector says, focused on young and emerging audiences. With access to the younger demo, House of Highlights tests. When something works, it scales.
The Creator League itself is proof. What started as a two-person iPhone stream in 2021 grew into a multi-event franchise that now, in 2025, generates more than 600 million views.
This, combined with access to TNT Sports infrastructure and a long-standing tradition of hiring from within target demographicspeople solving problems for themselves and their peers, not from textbooks or in theorypositions Bleacher Report to make big bets, which they often win.
In 2014, Spector greenlit Game of Zones, an animated NBA parody of Game of Thrones pitched by two freelance animators. At the time, no major sports media company had ventured into fictional, comedy-driven animation. Bleacher Report did, timing the show’s release to run alongside TNT’s NBA coverage, using the network’s reach to amplify the digital series. The show earned multiple Emmy nominations and ran for seven seasons.
Four years later, Bleacher Report launched The Champions, an animated series about UEFA Champions League players, strategically timed to Turner’s acquisition of Champions League broadcast rights. It became the publisher’s most-watched show ever. That formulabold, creative bets paired with TNT’s tentpole eventsbecame a blueprint for the Creator League.
The validation for the Creator League is in the competitors and copycats. The NBA has launched its own Creator Cup. The NFL brought creators to the Super Bowl. In Europe, Gerard Piqué’s Kings League and the Baller League are selling out stadiumstaking what Bleacher Report has proven digitally and translating it to physical venues packed with fans.
Which is exactly where Spector sees this heading. The Creator League has captured the digital, at-home audience traditional sports are losing. The next frontier, according to Spector, is bringing those 123,000 concurrent viewers81% of them under 34into actual arenas. Building the merchandise ecosystems. Creating destination events around TNT Sports’ biggest weekends that feel less like marketing activations and more like Coachella for sports fans raised on YouTube.
Money follows, Spector says. I think that is often the mantrathe ethosthat we try and apply to our content strategy and programming philosophy. If you can scale an engaged, scaled audience, the money will follow. Start with the audience problem. Solve that, and the business will take care of itself.
