Read what the creator already signed. Then book them.

This summer a creator joined our roster with a sponsorship contract already running. It paid a fixed monthly fee for a set number of integrations, which is normal. One clause was not. Read literally, it barred the creator from working with the sponsor’s competitors and also from providing similar services to anyone else without written consent. Not only the category. Every other sponsor.

A second clause assigned ownership of the sponsored videos to the sponsor, worldwide and permanently, with a licence to use the creator’s name and image in paid media for a year after the deal ended. The contract ran to the end of August, and renewing it needed both signatures.

Nothing in the creator’s calendar showed any of this. The channel looked open. On paper, until that contract ended, it was not.

Why this is your problem as a buyer

When you book a creator, you are also booking around every contract they signed before you arrived. Most of those contracts are narrow and harmless. When one is not, you can find out after your video is live, from a sponsor who says your integration should not have happened, or from a dispute over who can reuse the footage.

The creator was not hiding anything. A sponsor contract is easy to sign and forget, and this one had been running for months before it reached us. The clause binds whether anyone remembers it or not.

The fee tells you very little. This contract paid a modest monthly amount, and the expensive part was not the price. It was the clause that took the rest of the channel off the market while the deal ran.

What we check before we offer a creator

• The signed version. Ask for the executed copy, not the file the creator has to hand. Blank signature lines mean you are reading a draft, and drafts change.
• The scope of exclusivity. Named competitors, a whole category, or “analogous services” to anyone. The last one closes the channel to every other brand.
• Who owns the video. If an earlier sponsor holds rights to the creator’s name and image in paid media, check that it does not overlap your campaign window.
• The end date and how it renews. Automatic renewal and renewal by both signatures are very different. In this case the creator held the decision, because nothing renewed without their signature.

How to use this

You do not need to read a creator’s contracts yourself. You need your agency to have read them. Before you approve a name, ask one question: has anyone seen this creator’s current sponsorship agreements, and does any of them limit what they can do for us in our window?

If the creator has an active sponsor in your category, or close to it, get the end date and the scope of that deal in writing before you approve the name, and keep it with your own agreement.

If the answer takes a day, wait for it. A clause nobody on your side has read still binds the creator who signed it.

You are not only booking the creator. You are booking around every contract they signed before you.