Youtube Golf is The Future of Sports

The Modern Growth Engine for The "Old Man Sport"

The scene at any golf course used to exclusively consist of middle-aged gents rocking Titleist caps with stripped polos tucked into pants pulled way too high above the waist. Cracking open some cold ones, exchanging stock tips and outdated remarks.

You would sometimes see women or youngsters but they were not the key demographic. Don’t believe me? Dust off some archived coverage from major golf tournaments then try to find a commercial for something besides beer, Cialis or bladder medication.

This didn’t help dispel the belief golf was structurally inaccessible for most people, before considering financial and time constraints. However, the growing number of baby boomers entering retirement was expected to more than sustain golf for decades. This turned out to be overblown.

Golf participation began stalling in the 2010s, but suddenly young people started showing up. Outdoor golf driving ranges such as Topgolf turned out to be a big hit. Then came the pandemic, with people looking for hobbies they could do outside, golf benefitted. Golf participation is now at the highest level in 20 years while participation and viewership in other major sports is down.

A catalyst to golf, has been the emergence of a viewing alternative to the PGA Tour. No, not the Saudi backed LIV golf league. Youtube. Content creators ranging from professionals to high handicappers have helped win over a new generation who normally wouldn’t be interested in the sport. With videos ranging from a few seconds to multiple hours, in a variety of formats, Youtube has made watching much more accessible. For young golf fans, names such as Grant Horvat or Fat Perez are as synonymous to golf as Rory Mcilroy or Scottie Scheffler.

The PGA Tour and LIV have taken notice, and have embraced this new channel. If a sport accused of being stuck in tradition is open to change, it’s only a matter of time before all sports go this way.

Today’s article will give an overview of the business of sports and how golf might be the blueprint to increasing viewership and participation rates.

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The Economics of Sports

Since the days of the Roman Coliseum and Olympics, spectator sports have played an important role in society. Athletes used to compete for pride and glory, these days they also get paid handsomely; in line with big company executives. Since major sports leagues are profit seeking enterprises, to pay for these high salaries and generate enough profit for their shareholders, revenue comes from a few sources:

1. Fans - Ticket Sales & Spending on Merchandise, Concessions/Parking

2. Corporate Sponsors - Advertisement & Other Marketing

3. Media Rights - National & Local Distribution

The three sources are deeply intertwined. Fans are needed to fill the arenas and tune in, to justify companies willing to allocate their marketing budgets there. The more people want to watch, and companies wish to advertise, the more valuable the media distribution rights become. This encourages media companies to pay more, generating more revenue for the league, the players and the owners.

More viewers = More Revenue

Since arenas have limited capacity, and leagues can only put on so many events, leagues need to convince the people at home to watch their sport instead of other entertainment alternatives (Netflix, News, Video Games etc.). Even outside the sporting event itself, leagues and networks offer extensive coverage to keep fans engaged year round, even when there are no live outings. In 2025, these TV contracts generate billions of dollars each year for the major sports leagues.

This rising revenue has translated to higher valuations for professional sports teams, that now sell for multiples between 6-11 times revenue, consistent with fast growing tech companies. These firms typically grow between 15-20%, whereas these leagues have been growing closer to 5-10%. Still very impressive but more consistent with mature, stable business like Coca-Cola KO 0.00%↑ or Disney DIS 0.00%↑ , which typically trade between 3-6 times revenue. Part of this can be explained by the status element of owning a pro sports team. More recently, private equity firms have began taking minority stakes, on the basis of offering their limited partners diversification from traditional financial assets, not to mention access to good seats.

Although there isn’t any shortage of billionaires and private equity firms looking to pay high prices to own sports team, they might change their tune if the growth stops. Viewership numbers have been declining these past few years, with the NBA seeing the largest decline, with estimates as high as 50% drops from their peak. Fortunately for them, they managed to sign a new TV deal that will keep revenue growing for at least the next decade but this is mostly because networks are desperate and willing to pay up, at least for now.

The question is for how long? If viewership continues to decline, eventually advertisers won’t justify paying more for less, and this means less money for the networks, franchise owners, the league and the players. They don’t want that.

What if there was a way to boost viewership and make the sport seem more fun?

Golf is Cool?

Economics of Professional Golf

Professional golf works a bit differently than the other major professional sport leagues. Basketball, hockey and American football have one dominant league made up of around 30 franchises across North America, made up with players signed to contracts ranging from a few weeks to multiple years with at least partially guaranteed salaries. Golf doesn’t work this way.

Pro golfers are independent contractors that earn a portion of the prize purse based on where they finish in an event. They don’t have the luxury of guaranteed money. Outside of sponsorships, their earnings are completely tied to their performance. They are effectively like real estates agents. Golfers can have a great year or make no money at all. In fact, a golfer ranked outside the top 165, likely loses money to participate on the PGA tour.

LIV golf backed by Saudi money began offering massive guaranteed money to attract stars to defect from the PGA tour. While the PGA Tour has yet to follow, they have had to increase payout to players in response. The PGA Tour earns their money like other sports leagues, so to manage these higher payouts, they needed to get it from sponsors. So viewership is more important than ever.

Fortunately, golf has been seeing an increase in participation these past years, especially from youths, women and people of color at record levels. While viewership from traditional broadcasts are down, streaming and online content are largely offsetting this. These new channels should only continue to grow, helping propel the sport forward.

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What is Youtube Golf?

Show up to a golf course in 2025 and you’ll still see many familiar Titleist and Nike logos, but also many new ones such as Bad Birdie, Good Good and Primo. None of these existed 10 years ago, and chances are older golfers won’t recognize them but younger ones will. This is because for them, Youtube and golf are intrinsically linked.

Many of these young golfers are on the course because of Youtube videos (and TikTok) from their favorite creators such as Bob Does Sports, Grant Horvat or Rick Shiels that sport channels with over a million subscribers. This would be impressive for any type of channel but especially for non-professional athletes that launched their channels without an existing audience. Having 1 million subscribers would put a channel in the top 5% of Youtube. Since young people spend between 1-3 hours per day on Youtube, much if it coming from long form content (>30 minutes), this translates to a lot of time watching golf videos.

What began with low budget swing tutorial and trick shot videos, eventually blossomed into full camera crew 18 hole matches featuring professional golfers and prizes in the hundreds of thousands. This might pale in comparison to the purses in PGA events but it might not be a stretch to see it get there one day. Videos from top creators are regularly generating hundreds of thousands if not millions of views which is consistent with PGA broadcasts.

If you aren’t familiar with these kinds of videos, you might wonder why would anyone spend hours watching mostly meaningless matches between high handicappers and scratch golfers when you can tune in to see professional golfers compete for big money and glory. For one thing, the format is much more watchable. While a golf broadcast can last hours, with few noteworthy moments, a Youtube video can edit out the uninteresting parts, allowing the viewer more entertainment per minute watched. Slow pay doesn’t matter if the viewer doesn’t see it. Videos don’t have to stick to the traditional stroke play format either. Creators can mix it up with match play, skins, alternate shot, scramble etc. Things you rarely see in professional tournaments.

Beyond the play itself, the format allows a more intimate relationship. On a Youtube video, the camera crew can step inside the ropes and get up close and personal with the players. Players can talk through their shot, club selection and other considerations as they are setting up. Since they aren’t competing for money, it’s a much more friendly and relaxed atmosphere, with friendly advice and jokes you wouldn’t see in a professional tournament.

(As of November 2024. Credit to Jared Doerfler article)

This is not to say there’s a shortage of competitiveness. Some of the top creators are current or former PGA or LIV members, such as Bryson DeChambeau or Wesley Bryant. Others are former college golfers, capable of playing against professionals. When these kind of people get a round going, you start to see trash talk and emotions you wouldn’t normally see in a professional sporting event.

If that’s not your cup of tea, you can watch the boys on Bob Does Sports get crazy drunk, shoot 30 strokes over par and celebrate sinking 10 foot par puts like they’re Rory McIlroy completing the majors grand slam. You have drama/bad blood, like Micah Morris and Grant Horvat defecting from Good Good to concentrate on their own channels or Riggs from Fore Play taking on internet trolls. There’s something for everyone.

There is a great variety of creators and content that sucks viewers in, and professional golf has noticed. Traditional OEMs, like Titleist, TaylorMade and Callaway are sponsoring non-professional golf Youtubers. The PGA tour has hosted two installments, of The Creator Classic. LIV golf is encouraging their best players to film with Youtubers.

This is why the expectation should be for Youtube Golf to keep growing, which will further help the growth of the sport as a whole. Not to mention the added support from Netflix’s Full Swing series and the emergence of Scottie Scheffler as the dominant figure within the sport. Golf is facing plenty of strong tailwinds which should support it’s growth, and other professional leagues should be trying to figure out how to emulate it.

YouTube has helped turn golf from a country-club pastime for older folks into a reality show with unlimited tee times, and the sport will not look back. Now, there is a new demographic interested in the sport for the first time. As such, clubs previously struggling for members are suddenly overcrowded, creating multi-year waitlists. Trying to find tee times at public courses is starting to become tricky but golf is currently in the best place it’s been in years and it’s partially thanks to young people spending too much time on the internet.

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