New business partners for the PGA Tour? Influencers

The PGA Tour can to hear your eyes flow.

For all its (sometimes) strong-willed power, the Tour doesn’t need new chief marketing officer Andy Weitz to know that Friday morning’s news — announcing the formation of a new “Creators Council” — will end with a healthy dose of snark.

If the most sacred responsibility of business is to understand the consumer, the PGA Tour knows that this is not for everyone. In fact, it knows a cross section between the Tour and the world’s most prominent golf promoters with a certain core demographic segment like a 6 iron in the skull.

But critically, the Tour also poses a challenge to professional golf. The symptoms of this disease are many – the explosion of LIV, the influx of golf billionaires, the slow decline of the TV golf product, the normalization of the playing field and the loss of Tiger Woods – but the result is the same: After fifty years of incredible growth, professional golf is eating, and its audience are decreasing.

That’s it why the Tour is right with a few eyes on Friday morning, the same day it announced a partnership with seven social media golf companies to create a new “Creative Council”, where promoters will exchange strategies and insights with the Tour in. exchange for enhanced access to events and opportunities to create content. The group is expected to meet regularly with PGA Tour senior leadership including Weitz to discuss fan engagement opportunities, content strategy and broadcast enhancements, among other topics.

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The agreement is old quid pro quo – no money is involved, and it is not required. On tour, the benefits of pairing the nearly limitless scale with the institutional content knowledge of a community of creators are obvious. For those who love golf enough to earn the job title of “content creator,” the work and travel benefits are even better: exclusive access to content from the longest and most regulated PGA Tour events, and taste the oodles of viral-ready content that comes with it.

That may not sound like a lot, but it’s enough to get our affiliates with over 15 million followers to sign up, including Bryan Bros Golf, Erik Anders Lang, Foreplay/Barstool Sports, No Laying Up, Paige Spiranac, Roger Steele and Tisha Alyn. .

“We want to learn from the creators,” Weitz told GOLF.com. “First, we want to give them access [to us]because we agree that there are areas where we can do better with our voice. Second, there are opportunities where we can build together, and give fans even more of what they want. Third, there may be situations where creators have to lead, and we need to give them access to our space to do that.”

The program marks a continuation of the PGA Tour’s recent quest for new media, where content creators have found a large following of eager fans. viewing golf content, discrediting the sport as an old man’s game. Introducing some of the digital audiences to Travel represents a huge opportunity for the Travel business, which collects a large portion of its annual revenue from media rights deals that match the size of its TV audience. At a simple level, more followers and subscribers means more followers, and followers are good for business.

Chance helps explain recent trial tour balloons like Creator Classic, a television show that has attracted several million views, and Skratch, a digital media product that has been revived under Full Change EP Chad Mumm has earned millions in seed funding from the Tour. It also outlines some of the key pieces of the Creators Council, including expanding the Creator Classic to more touring events and working to loosen media rules.

Notably, many of the first guests of the Creators Council come from the booming world of YouTube golf. Ironically, the PGA Tour’s official YouTube handle (1.5 million) has fewer followers than former PGA Tour member Bryson DeChambeau (1.63 million), who left the LIV Tour in part to develop a media presence. DeChambeau may be a professional golfer, and YouTube’s algorithm may favor individual creators, but there’s little debate from either side that the combined power of the tour gives YouTube’s audience more leverage than any other method. each player.

There are still questions about the overall size of YouTube’s massive audience — many creators say the most profitable parts of their business are merchandise sales and direct sponsorships, not YouTube ad dollars — but there’s no doubt that every eyeball counts on the PGA Tour. in these days of falling ratings and travel wars.

“This idea did not start from a business issue. “This idea started with an opportunity to better understand what our fans want from the PGA Tour,” said Weitz. “If we align with fans, if we understand how they use content and how they engage with other aspects of golf, we can ultimately give them the best. And yes, that will be better for our business. But this is about changing the way we think about engaging with our fans.”

Marriage has been a popular name at Tour HQ this fall, especially since Weitz and Co. working on the results of the first-ever Fan Forward survey — a pilot program designed to get fan feedback on PGA Tour broadcasts. In that sense, the Council of Creators represents an extension of efforts, this time aimed at getting feedback from some important outsiders of tourism.

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Yes, there is a competitive advantage to the Council. LIV’s YouTube presence is no small feat, and league players have taken advantage of partnerships with other major YouTube golf celebrities already in place. (Last week, Phil Mickelson announced a two-for-one content series alongside uber-popular YouTuber Grant Horvat.) In defense of the active team with Tour, Tour doesn’t just get strategic information, it also secures its back end. But it’s also not as simple as asking for mercy – some councilors and the first women of the Tour have also been its most vocal critics over the past few years.

“Ultimately, this is about the forum,” Weitz said. “This is about creating an environment where creators can connect with the Tour, we can learn from each other, and we can do better on behalf of the fans.”

The Council may not end up bringing much in the way of progress. Other issues related to the PGA Tour media business, such as marketing, are responsible for most of the revenue generated by the Tour. Other issues, such as the haves and have-nots of PGA Tour media rules, could prove a headache for Tour brass. But if nothing else, Friday’s announcement points to concrete evidence that the Tour is working addressing the most obvious problems that plagued its existence in the LIV era.

That may not be all you want, but it is something – and yet there is good.

Or it makes your eyes water.

If you liked what you read, sign up for the Hot Mic Newsletter here. You can reach the author at james.colgan@golf.com.