Metros
Where the goods, jobs and events land
Los Angeles holds 200 of the 574 nodes, and the reason is the intermediary layer rather than the creators: Maker, Fullscreen, Machinima, StyleHaul, Collective Digital Studio, Spotter and Jellysmack, the talent agencies, TikTok's US headquarters in Culver City, the Burbank studios of Mythical and Smosh, the creator houses of 2017 to 2021, and VidCon and the Streamys in Anaheim. New York holds the buyers: Coty, SiriusXM, Hearst, Verizon, Tiger Global, Thrive and Vox Media, with BuzzFeed, Complex, Group Nine and Vice built there. The Bay Area supplies the rails, YouTube, Twitch, Patreon, Substack, Google and Andreessen Horowitz, and also the layoffs of the downturn, about 900 at Twitch across 2023 and 2024.
The payoff of the geographic view is the places that are not Los Angeles. Greenville, North Carolina, a city of about 90,000, is the headquarters of the highest valued creator company on the map, with more than 250 employees in warehouses and offices. Louisville is where Congo Brands turns creator names into beverage companies, one of which sold for 1.8 billion dollars and one of which is shrinking. Dallas Fort Worth holds the headquarters layer: Dude Perfect, Complexity and GameSquare at The Star in Frisco, Esports Stadium Arlington, Envy in Victory Park, AT&T, LTK and Preston's TBNR production company, and the Good Good Golf crew in Prosper, still operating, whose Callaway, Dick's and PGA Tour deals all ended within two weeks in 2026. Austin lost Rooster Teeth's 150 jobs and gained Joe Rogan's Comedy Mothership and the OTK collective. Orlando runs the ghost kitchens behind MrBeast Burger and ran Playlist Live until 2022. South Florida built Bang Energy in Weston on paid creator posts before its 2022 bankruptcy, holds Celsius in Boca Raton where the Alani Nu purchase closed, fulfills creator brands from ShipMonk in Fort Lauderdale, and employs hundreds at Valuetainment in Oakland Park and Cardone Enterprises in Aventura, while most of the creators who moved to Miami keep their payrolls elsewhere. Nashville is the rights and production metro: Soundstripe and Songfluencer as rails, Ramsey Solutions in Franklin, Nateland turning a podcast audience into a record tour, and TikTok's Music Row office arriving in 2024 and closing in 2026 with 250 layoffs. The plants sit further out still: Truesdale, Missouri; Monroe, Wisconsin; Oxnard, California; Lima, Peru. A creator's audience is placeless, but the factory that makes the product and the shelf that sells it are not, and those are the assets a city can compete for.
Nodes by metro and layer
| Metro | Nodes | Attention | Intermediaries | Goods | Places | Capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | 200 | 63 | 72 | 32 | 16 | 17 |
| Outside the United States | 57 | 11 | 9 | 14 | 5 | 18 |
| New York | 55 | 6 | 20 | 7 | 1 | 21 |
| San Francisco Bay Area | 41 | 10 | 12 | 5 | 4 | 10 |
| Austin | 39 | 16 | 10 | 2 | 9 | 2 |
| South Florida | 36 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 4 |
| Nashville | 29 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 7 | 1 |
| Dallas Fort Worth | 27 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 4 |
| Seattle | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Chicago | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Greenville, NC | 6 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| Las Vegas | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Boston | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Orlando | 6 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Atlanta | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Louisville | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| Puerto Rico | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| San Diego | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Tampa | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Philadelphia | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Detroit | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Minneapolis | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| US, location not documented | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Houston | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Phoenix | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Portland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Raleigh | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Columbus | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
What each metro holds
| Metro | What the creator economy landed there |
|---|---|
| Los Angeles | Los Angeles is where the creator economy's intermediaries concentrate: Maker, Fullscreen, Machinima, StyleHaul and Collective Digital Studio all form and are absorbed here, Disney Digital Network sits in Culver City, YouTube Space LA in Playa Vista, TikTok in Culver City, the Streamys and VidCon in Anaheim. The creator houses of 2017 to 2021 and the Burbank studios of Mythical, Smosh and Rooster Teeth's owners are here too. |
| Outside the United States | Foreign capital and events that shape the US creator economy: ProSiebenSat.1 in Munich, RTL in Luxembourg, L'Oreal and Publicis in Paris, Unilever and Informa in London, SoftBank in Tokyo, ByteDance in Beijing, Logitech in Lausanne, BBTV in Vancouver, musical.ly in Shanghai, TwitchCon Europe in Rotterdam, Summer in the City in London and Creator Ventures in London. Beast Games is shot outside the United States. |
| New York | New York holds the buyers rather than the creators: Coty, SiriusXM, Hearst, Verizon, Tiger Global, Thrive, Vox Media and Trusted Media Brands write the checks, and BuzzFeed, Complex, Group Nine and Barstool in its Chernin years are built here. YouTube Space New York occupied 20,000 square feet of Chelsea Market from 2014 to 2021. |
| San Francisco Bay Area | The Bay Area supplies the rails: YouTube in San Bruno, Twitch at 350 Bush Street, Patreon, Substack and Clubhouse in San Francisco, Google and Andreessen Horowitz on the Peninsula, Streamlabs and Index Ventures. Twitch's 2023 and 2024 layoffs of about 900 people and Patreon's 2022 cuts are the local job losses of the creator downturn. |
| Austin | Austin is a creator media and live format cluster with a rebuilding question. Its assets are independent studios, podcasting, comedy, gaming, SXSW scale convening and a workforce shaped by Rooster Teeth's rise and closure: Joe Rogan's Comedy Mothership and Onnit, Kill Tony and YMH Studios, OTK, Mythic Talent and Starforge, Restream, Atmosphere, and the Regulation Company, Party Up Media and Mikey and Fredo companies that Rooster Teeth alumni built on Patreon, Kickstarter and owned memberships after Warner Bros. Discovery closed Stage 5. The city's next opportunity is to retain the production talent, intellectual property, events and service firms that remain after a major platform or parent company exits. |
| South Florida | South Florida is a creator to consumer goods corridor rather than a single creator district. Miami supplies founder migration, media, finance and attention; Broward and Palm Beach County add consumer brand operators, beverage and wellness businesses, capital and logistics: Celsius in Boca Raton closing the 1.8 billion dollar Alani Nu purchase, Bang Energy built in Weston on paid creator posts before its 2022 bankruptcy, ShipMonk fulfilling creator brands from Fort Lauderdale, Misfits Gaming in Boca Raton, Valuetainment and Cardone Enterprises employing hundreds in Oakland Park and Aventura. The test for the region is not how many creators live here but whether it retains the operating companies, inventory finance, manufacturing contracts, distribution relationships and repeat founders that turn audiences into durable businesses. The map keeps each node's exact city. |
| Nashville | Nashville is the creator economy's rights and production city. Its comparative advantage is not influencer presence but the infrastructure that turns creative work into durable catalog, touring, publishing, recording, licensing, management and brand income: Soundstripe and Songfluencer as rights rails, Lyric Financial's royalty advances, Ramsey Solutions in Franklin, Nateland Entertainment turning a podcast audience into a record tour and a proposed theme park, Uncommon James and Kittenish as creator owned retail, and the CAA and UTA offices with creator departments. TikTok's Music Row lease and its 2026 closure with 250 layoffs show the platform rung arriving and leaving inside two years. |
| Dallas Fort Worth | Dallas Fort Worth is the headquarters and operating system side of the creator economy. Frisco and Dallas combine creator led sports entertainment, esports, retail, telecom, e commerce and corporate operations: Dude Perfect's headquarters, Complexity and GameSquare at The Star in Frisco, Esports Stadium Arlington, Envy's Victory Park base, AT&T's headquarters that funded Otter Media, LTK, 7-Eleven, GameStop, the Good Good Golf crew in Prosper and Preston's TBNR production company. The local value lies less in a single viral channel than in headquarters functions, production facilities, commerce platforms, logistics and the businesses that can scale a creator brand into an employer. The map keeps each node's exact city. |
| Seattle | Seattle is where Amazon and Microsoft decide creator platform fates: Amazon paid 970 million dollars for Twitch in 2014 and about 300 million dollars for Wondery in 2020 and restructured Wondery with 110 layoffs in August 2025, while Microsoft bought Seattle startup Beam in 2016, ran it as Mixer, signed Ninja and Shroud in 2019 and closed it on July 22, 2020. |
| Chicago | Chicago is home to Cameo, founded in March 2017 and valued at 1 billion dollars by SoftBank in 2021 before shrinking to 33 staff by July 2023, to Sprout Social, which bought Tagger Media for about 140 million dollars in 2023, and to Barstool Sports' current listed headquarters after Dave Portnoy bought it back from Penn for 1 dollar in August 2023. |
| Greenville, NC | Greenville, a city of about 90,000 in eastern North Carolina, is the headquarters of Beast Industries, where MrBeast's studios, Feastables and Beast Games teams employ more than 250 people as of 2023 in warehouses and offices rather than a Los Angeles lot. The January 2026 Bitmine round values the company at 5 billion dollars, making this the highest valued creator company in this dataset outside a major metro. |
| Las Vegas | Las Vegas is the base of Influential, the creator marketing platform Publicis bought in 2024 for a reported 500 million dollars, the current site of ComplexCon under NTWRK, and an occasional TwitchCon host city. Its convention space makes it the fallback venue for creator events that outgrow Anaheim and San Diego. |
| Boston | Boston is where Dave Portnoy started Barstool Sports as a free newspaper in 2003 before The Chernin Group moved it to New York in 2016, and it holds one of Slow Ventures' offices. No creator studio or manufacturing site in this cluster is anchored there. |
| Orlando | Orlando hosted Playlist Live from March 2011, the East Coast creator convention that peaked above 13,000 attendees in 2020 and ended after its 2022 edition when the 2023 event was canceled and the trademark lapsed in May 2023. Virtual Dining Concepts, mapped by the goods cluster, is also based here. |
| Atlanta | Atlanta is the origin of the AMP collective around Kai Cenat and the listed home of Bitmine, whose 200 million dollar investment in Beast Industries in January 2026 at a 5 billion dollar valuation is the largest single creator holding company check on the map. Film tax credits make it a production base but no creator studio campus is verified here. |
| Louisville | Louisville is where Congo Brands turns creator names into beverage companies: Alani Nu with Katy Hearn from 2018, sold to Celsius for 1.8 billion dollars in 2025, and Prime with Logan Paul and KSI from January 2022, which reached a reported 1.2 billion dollars of sales in 2023 before falling. The jobs are in brand management, logistics and co packing coordination rather than in a bottling plant of Congo's own. |
| Puerto Rico | Logan Paul and Jake Paul base themselves in Dorado and San Juan, Puerto Rico, where Act 60 tax incentives apply, and Most Valuable Promotions is founded in San Juan in 2021. The creators are here; Prime is run from Louisville and the boxing lands in Texas, New York, Miami and on Netflix. |
| San Diego | San Diego Convention Center is the main North American home of TwitchCon, hosting it repeatedly since 2016 including the 2024 edition with 23,000 attendees and the 2025 edition. Dr. Squatch, sold to Unilever for a reported 1.5 billion dollars in 2025, was founded here in 2013 before moving to Los Angeles. |
| Tampa | Tampa appears through Florida based creators and sports media rather than through an acquirer or venue in this cluster. No capital or places node in this file is headquartered there, and the metro is defined so that other clusters can attach creator and goods nodes to it. |
| Philadelphia | Philadelphia is the headquarters of Comcast, which put 400 million dollars into BuzzFeed in 2015 and 2016 and completed the Versant cable spin off in January 2026, and the nearest metro to Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where Penn Entertainment ran its 551 million dollar Barstool purchase and 1 dollar resale between 2020 and 2023. |
| Detroit | Detroit is on the map through Dan Gilbert, the Cleveland Cavaliers owner and Detroit developer whose November 2017 investment seeded 100 Thieves, and through automotive brand sponsorships of creators. No capital or places node in this cluster is headquartered there, and the metro is defined so other clusters can attach nodes to it. |
| Minneapolis | Minneapolis is the headquarters of Target, the retailer that carries creator brands mapped by the goods cluster. No capital or places node in this cluster is anchored there; the metro is defined so other clusters can attach nodes to it. |
| US, location not documented | United States companies whose headquarters city is not confirmed in a retrieved source. They sit here rather than at a guessed location until a source places them. |
| Houston | Houston appears on the map through individual creators and podcast studios rather than through a headquartered creator company or acquirer. No capital or places node in this cluster is anchored there; the metro is defined so that other clusters can attach nodes to it. |
| Phoenix | Phoenix holds the manufacturing plant that Vital Pharmaceuticals opened in 2019 to make Bang Energy, the creator marketed drink that went bankrupt in October 2022. Monster Beverage acquired the plant with the brand on July 31, 2023 for 362 million dollars, so the jobs stayed in Phoenix under a new owner. |
| Portland | Portland appears through apparel and footwear brands and the creators they sponsor rather than through an acquirer or venue in this cluster. No capital or places node in this file is headquartered there, and the metro is defined so that other clusters can attach goods and creator nodes to it. |
| Raleigh | Raleigh is the state capital and research hub nearest to Greenville, North Carolina, and the metro where Beast Industries' logistics and hiring spill over as the company grows past 250 employees. No node in this cluster is headquartered there. |
| Columbus | Columbus appears through retail and logistics companies that carry creator goods rather than through an acquirer or venue in this cluster. No capital or places node in this file is headquartered there, and the metro is defined so that other clusters can attach goods and retail nodes to it. |
Reference
Value moves, and it leaves a trailSix rungs from attention to a local economyThe MCN era and what replaced itWhere the rungs breakWhere the goods, jobs and events landWhat a city can captureThe manufacturing and retail rungs, edge by edgeConfidence, dates and sourcesIndex of nodesRead it whole
One pagePDF