Creator Edition | The Creator Economy in (Motor)Sports

The difference between a brand trip, a press trip and a client trip

Thank you for being here. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to Idée Fixe, the newsletter for curious minds. I’m Toni Cowan-Brown, a tech and F1 commentator. I’ve spent the past five years on the floor of way too many F1, FE, and WEC team garages, learning about the business, politics, and tech of motorsports. I hope you’ll stick around.

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⏳ Reading time: 8 minutes

As I prep for Miami, one of the busiest race weekends on my calendar, alongside Vegas and Austin, I thought I’d share a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like working as an independent creator in motorsports. Not an “influencer,” and not exactly a journalist either; instead, I wear many hats across race weekends, and each gig requires a different skillset and mindset.

Let’s be clear: no one pays me a salary. I’m fully independent. I earn a living through a patchwork of brand partnerships and brand trips, client work, speaking gigs, and advising companies and brands. It’s rarely just one thing, and I absolutely love it. I love the independence, the diversity of my work, choosing who I get to work with, being my own boss… but it’s certainly not for everyone.

For the F1 Miami GP 2025, I’ll be juggling a press trip, a brand partnership, and a client project - and debating whether I can squeeze in a speaking slot (or two) without burning out or diminishing the quality of my content for my existing partners. Then there are the dinners and events in between, which all look fun but are an essential part of the job.

Here’s what I’ve learned, from the past four years attending and working F1 race weekends as a motorsports/tech content creator, about the different types of work creators (and influencers) can do.

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Types of Creator Gigs During Race Weekends

🎤 Press Trips. A quick reminder that a press trip is a brand-hosted experience typically designed for journalists to cover a product, event, or story. These are unpaid (to preserve editorial integrity), but travel, accommodations, and hospitality are, more often than not, fully covered. You’re not expected to publish anything in exchange, but let’s be honest, most do. If people didn’t, these press trips wouldn’t be a thing. This is one reason some media outlets decline press trips, as they feel that it messes with journalistic integrity.

The key point is that these are unpaid, and that’s by design. Journalistic integrity matters. And yet, for creators like me, it’s a tough model to sustain unless I can combine it with paid work. Unlike the journalists that attend (employed by media outlets), I don’t receive a salary at the end of the month, so time away from my desk is time away from work, clients and new business outreach.

These trips are meticulously organised, which frees you up to focus on your work instead of logistics. Sometimes they are too organised, but you’re not obligated to attend every scheduled activity (I used to feel so guilty when I didn’t do every single thing on the schedule). They’ve traditionally been media-only affairs, but that’s slowly evolving as brands recognise the value of creators with editorial or educational angles, especially when these creators have a following.

I love a good press trip. I’ve been on some truly exceptional ones, and everyone has been a ‘pinch me’ moment - with Rolex, McLaren, Mastercard... They’ve also ruined regular travel and trips for me because the level of care and detail these teams put into their press trips is impeccable.

🤳 Brand Trips. A brand trip is more a hosted experience where creators, influencers, and sometimes celebrities are paid to attend, capture content, and share their experiences. Unlike press trips, this is more of a commercial engagement with clear deliverables, fees, and creative expectations. P.S.: These should always be disclosed as such; you don’t want to end up in a lawsuit like what is currently happening with Revolve.

These are the glossier, more Instagrammable cousins of press trips if you will - except here, you’re getting paid. Think access, hospitality, and deliverables galore. From curated dinners to paddock walks, hot laps… It’s all designed to create beautiful content and brand association. But don’t let the champagne fool you, these trips and weekends are a ton of work. And no, I’m not saying this is a tough job in the grand scheme of things, but I am saying this is a job with long hours and many deliverables. There are tight deadlines, creative briefs, sometimes real-time edits, and high expectations. And everything from fees to deliverables to usage rights is negotiable.

My instinct is that these two models are slowly but surely going to merge into one affair as the media landscape evolves.

Client trips/projects (sometimes white labelled ). This happens less during race weekends but increasingly, I’ve found myself with traditional clients during race weekends. What I mean by this is that it’s not necessarily a brand trip in that there are no bells and whistles - there is no hosting, they are not there to give you a good time per se… but rather you are there to work on a common project and provide your services, more like an agency.

I prefer these types of jobs outside of race weekends. I love them because I get to use all my skillsets - I get to ideate with the client on the campaign, we work together on the brief, I pull my team together, and we get to work building our deliverables. The end product is either a collaboration where the client wants to be seen working with me, or it’s a white labelled product.

Speaking Gigs. This one’s straightforward but underappreciated: panels, fireside chats, or hosted sessions with execs. I love doing these but they do require you to have a good track record as a speaker, have a strong POV and real insights worth sharing. Previously, I’ve moderated panels in Austin for Mission 44 with Stephanie Travers and Susie Wolff, hosted a car launch for Aston Martin, spoken on Motorsports.com panels, and facilitated discussions with Hot Wheels and Mattel, to name a few.

Please know this: moderating is not easy. It takes prep, precision, and skill. And you should be paid for it. Unless you’re given extraordinary race weekend access in return (or something incredibly valuable to you, which looks different for everyone), please do not do it for free.

‘Traditional’ Influencer Work. Sometimes, I’ll do a classic “sponsored post” gig - wearing a brand item, talking about a product/service I love or attending an event. They’re not my forte, but they’re great fun (also lots of work) and part of the broader ecosystem.

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Best Practices from a Multihyphenate Creator

🛑 These trips are not holidays. When creators say it’s work, believe them. You’re not just paying for deliverables - you’re paying for our time on-site, away from other clients, our desks, and our lives. My race weekends start two to three weeks before lights out and extend a full week afterwards with deliverables, edits, and follow-ups. The days are 16+ hours. By Monday, I’m toast and dead to the world.

🤝 Exclusivity matters. I aim to give exclusivity per brand category - one tech, one beauty/fashion/lifestyle, one financial partner max per race, for example. I’ll only work with one team, or none/3+ of them, and I won’t ever sign a full-weekend exclusivity deal unless the pay reflects what I’d make across 3–5 partnerships.

🚫 Don’t cross-pollinate your content. This one is so important. If you get paddock access through Client A, do not use that content for Client B. Ever. Even if Client B asks you to (which they shouldn’t). That access was paid for by someone else. Sponsors notice. The teams notice. F1 will notice. Always keep content tied to the access it came from. It’s sacred. Watch my video breaking this down here.

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Why “Creator” Is a Job (and a Big Business)

This model, the creator economy and creators/influencers aren’t going anywhere - actually it’s just getting started. The creator economy is now worth over $250 billion globally, and it’s projected to grow to $480 billion by 2027 (according to Goldman Sachs). More than 50 million people consider themselves creators in some form, and for many of them, especially those at the intersection of niche culture and sport like motorsport, it is their full-time job. And yet, people still underestimate this work. Maybe because it doesn’t always look like work. Or because it’s new. Or because it often exists outside of legacy institutions.

But the numbers don’t lie:

• 1 in 4 Gen Zers in the U.S. say they want to be a creator when they grow up (Morning Consult).

• 60% of marketers say influencer content performs better than brand-created content on social (Sprout Social).

• On platforms like TikTok and Instagram, creator content drives 2x higher engagement than traditional brand posts.

This shift is especially visible in sports, where teams, sponsors, and governing bodies are now relying on creators to bridge the gap between insider access and fan engagement. Creators aren’t just promoting - they’re educating, storytelling, and building long-term cultural value around events like F1 race weekends.

So yes, creator is a job. A business, actually. One that requires strategy, creativity, logistics, negotiation, storytelling, and stamina.

The creator economy in motorsport is wild, wonderful, and evolving. There’s no single playbook - but if you’re doing this work, know your value, protect your IP and access, and don’t let the champagne fool you. And when it works well, it’s some of the most fun, collaborative, high-impact storytelling you can do. And you’ll meet some of the most incredible, kind and creative people along the way.