YouTube golf, and golf content creators broadly, have become a critical part of the golf media writ large. It’s how a lot of golf fans, particularly younger generations, interact with the sport.
In recent years, we’ve seen golf’s establishment welcome these creators with open arms, hoping to capture a slice of their audience in the process. The PGA Tour has put on events like the Creator Classic, inviting some of the most recognizable golf content creators in the world to compete in tournament-style rounds prior to major competitions, like the Tour Championship or The Players Championship.
Even pro golfers have gotten in on the fun. Two-time major winner Bryson DeChambeau is perhaps one of the most popular golf creators on the internet now, boasting more than 2.6 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.
Now, DeChambeau is teaming up with some of the other biggest names in the golf creator space. According to a report by Josh Carpenter in Sports Business Journal, DeChambeau is joining forces with Grant Horvat and the Bryan Bros — former PGA Tour players turned content creators Wesley and George Bryan — to launch a new YouTube network called Source Golf. The network “fits under the Source Media Group umbrella” and will aggregate content of the three creators in one place, selling advertising against the inventory.
“The way people consume golf content has changed, and YouTube is a massive part of that,” DeChambeau said in a release. “I love that I get to be a part of that shift. I’ve seen how powerful that direct connection to the fans can be, and I’m excited to keep building this ecosystem with partners like Source Golf.”
David Blitzer, the chairman of private equity firm Blackstone and co-owner of the New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia 76ers, is the primary backer for Source Golf.
This deal could serve as a microcosm of where the online content creation space is headed overall. Increasingly, individual creators are seeing the value in forming networks with like-minded peers and achieving a level of scale that would be hard to come by as a solo act.
Golf is ripe for this kind of aggregation. There are a ton of mid-level creators (think six-digit subscribers on YouTube) that could benefit from being part of a larger network.
Source Golf hopes to succeed with three of the largest golf creators out there. With someone like DeChambeau at the helm, that seems like a good bet.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.