The latest move from The Overlap could be another sign that the line between traditional entertainment and the creator economy is disappearing fast.
Wayne Rooney and football content creator Mark Goldbridge are teaming up for Stick to United, a new Manchester United-focused show forming part of The Overlap’s major new partnership with Disney+. As has been reported, the 50-episode series will be available on Disney+ and The Overlap’s existing YouTube ecosystem, with Rooney also becoming a regular part of Stick to Football.
But this isn’t simply another football show. It represents a much broader shift in how broadcasters, streamers, creators and talent are beginning to work together.
Here are three things we think the wider industry can learn from it.
1. The creator is no longer the outsider
For years, traditional entertainment and digital content existed in largely separate worlds. Broadcasters had presenters. Newspapers had journalists. Sports had pundits. YouTube had creators.
Those lines are now becoming increasingly difficult to draw.
Goldbridge is perhaps the perfect example. He built his audience independently through The United Stand and other football channels, developing a huge following around his highly opinionated, personality-led coverage of Manchester United. His channels were subsequently acquired by The Overlap, following his earlier move into live football rights. Now he is sharing a screen with one of the most recognisable footballers of his generation – and doing so on Disney+ of all places.
The important point for the wider talent industry is that audience ownership and audience influence are becoming as valuable as traditional credentials. Rooney brings sporting credibility, mainstream recognition and decades of experience at the highest level. Goldbridge brings a deeply engaged digital audience and a very different understanding of how modern fans consume football. Put the two together and the value isn’t simply additive. Their differences are the proposition.
We’ve already seen this crossover happening elsewhere. Romesh Ranganathan’s What Would You Rather?-style creator-centric format, GK Barry moving comfortably between TikTok and mainstream television and creators increasingly appearing alongside established broadcasters all point towards the same conclusion.
The question for talent managers and agencies is therefore changing.
It is no longer simply: “Can we get our creator onto television?”
It is: “What does our creator bring to an existing entertainment ecosystem that traditional talent cannot?”
That is a much more commercially interesting proposition.
2. The real opportunity may be the audience—not the platform
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Disney+ deal is that Stick to United isn’t simply being moved from YouTube to television.
The content continues to exist within The Overlap’s digital ecosystem, while Disney+ provides another distribution route and access to a different audience. The wider deal also gives Disney+ 40 episodes of Stick to Football, alongside 50 episodes of Stick to United, while selected content will receive periods of exclusivity before appearing on YouTube.
That is significant because it challenges the old idea that creators must choose between “digital” and “mainstream.”
They don’t.
The smarter model may be to build an audience somewhere first, then allow multiple platforms to participate in monetising and expanding it.
The Overlap reportedly generated 38 million YouTube views a month and more than 2.2 billion views during 2025, demonstrating why a traditional entertainment company such as Disney+ would want access to an already-established digital audience.
And there is an important lesson here for agencies representing creators.
Distribution is becoming increasingly fluid.
A creator might start on TikTok, develop a YouTube following, appear on television, launch a podcast, secure a streaming deal and eventually build a production company – all whilst the original audience remains at the centre of the proposition.
That makes the creator’s IP, personality and community potentially more valuable than any individual platform.
For brands and entertainment companies, the opportunity is equally obvious: instead of building an audience from scratch, why not partner with someone who already has one?
3. The next big talent deals could be hybrids
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Stick to United is what it suggests about the future shape of talent partnerships.
This isn’t simply footballer + YouTuber.
It is athlete + creator + established media brand + global streaming platform.
And that combination could become increasingly common.
The Overlap has already demonstrated the commercial potential of bringing together former elite athletes with personalities who understand digital audiences. The Disney+ partnership takes that model another step further, while the acquisition of Goldbridge’s channels shows that the relationship can extend beyond individual appearances into ownership, infrastructure and long-term IP development. That could have significant implications beyond sport.
Imagine an established comedian paired with a major TikTok personality. A former reality star alongside a YouTube creator. A Premier League player and a football streamer. A mainstream broadcaster with a creator who has built a community around a specific niche. Or even a major entertainer launching a format specifically designed to live simultaneously across YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, television and streaming.
The traditional model was often about putting a creator into an existing format.
The emerging model is arguably more interesting: building the format around the combination of audiences and personalities.
That’s where agencies have a potentially enormous role to play. The opportunity isn’t simply to secure talent a slot on someone else’s show. It is to identify combinations of talent that create something neither party could have built alone—and then help develop that into scalable IP.
Stick to United may ultimately prove to be successful or unsuccessful on its own merits. But strategically, the experiment is fascinating. Because if audiences respond to Rooney and Goldbridge as a pairing, expect more broadcasters, streamers, brands and production companies to ask the same question: Who from the creator economy could we put alongside our established talent—and what could we build together?
The creator economy isn’t replacing mainstream entertainment.
Increasingly, it’s becoming part of how mainstream entertainment is made.
And that might be the bigger story behind Rooney and Goldbridge.
