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Who are the YouTubers taking over Golf? ⛳️

SportsBall #30

Happy Thursday SportsBallers! We’re extra excited about the stories today on the double eve of our founder’s birthday (me). In store for you, we have:

⛳️🎥⚖️ A new era of golf fans
🏀🧮🔢 Top-heavy basketball tournaments
🎰🙉🤕 Player gambling issues abound

LEARNING MODULE 💡 

Who are the YouTubers taking over golf? ⛳️

Traditional golf broadcasting has been hard on the fans… While The Masters makes it easy to watch with one of the best sports apps, we’re seeing the decline in major championship viewership continue across the board.

There are plenty of reasons why this is happening and you may have heard of a big one: LIV Golf. 🦹

We’re no expert in international affairs, oil money, $1 billion contracts, or Saudi Arabia, but here’s our abridged version of what’s happening.

Saudi Arabia utilized their Public Investment Fund (PIF) to start a new golf league called LIV Golf.

For the past 2 years, LIV has offered huge swaths of money to PGA tour players to come to the dark side and play exclusively for LIV. 🚫They’ve already given John Rahm $300 million, Phil Mickelson $200 million, and allegedly offered Tiger Woods $1 billion (which he declined).

This has led to a divergence in golf tournaments that dilutes the level of competition and provides a huge distraction for fans of the game. 😢

Now to the important topic… YouTubers. 🎥

With professional golf becoming harder to watch, people have turned to a new era of “YouTube golfers” for entertainment. Young amateur golfers like you or me will simply film their golf round, mishits and trash-talking included, and post it to millions of fans. 🤷

Let’s look at one of the most famous channels, GoodGood. ⬇️

This group of 6 will likely never be professional golfers or even come close, but they’ve successfully captured a new generation of golf fans by creating relatable videos with their buddies. 👯

Simple enough right?

While the PGA has banged its head against a wall for 25 years searching for 18-32-year-old viewers to carry the torch for the future of the game, GoodGood did it by leveraging basic YouTube strategies and keeping the camera rolling.

Popularity 📊

In 2022, the group started making their own “major tournaments” and they took off.

We grabbed every view count from GoodGood’s YouTube channel and compared it to the viewership of 2023 PGA majors, only to find that their most popular major was viewed by more people than the US Open, PGA Championship, and British Open… 😳

🟢 2023 Masters: 12.05M viewers
🔵 GoodGood Major UK: 8.3M viewers
🟢 2023 US Open: 6.2M viewers
🟢 2023 PGA Championship: 4.5M viewers
🔵 GoodGood Cup Major: 4.4M
🔵 GoodGood Pebble Beach Major: 3.9M viewers
🟢 2023 British Open: 3.5M viewers

Let’s not forget that these are 6 kids with a camera who played golf in high school competing with the century-old organization in the PGA.

Why does it work? 🤔

  1. Relatability 🤝: The GoodGood crew isn’t incredible at golf. They often hit the same shots I hit and have the same mishaps I have.

  2. Access 🎟️: Golf is the only sport that you can play alongside a professional regardless of skill level. This makes it possible for GoodGood and other channels to have the best golfers in the world play a round with them for a video. They’ve hosted John Rahm, Rory McIlroy, and plenty of others, showcasing their personalities which are mostly stifled on the professional tour.

  3. Ecosystem 🌎: 10+ golf channels on YouTube essentially do the same thing. But rather than competing against each other for clicks, they collaborate to play rounds and host tournaments together.

The PGA certainly has its LIV problems to figure out, but it needs to take a page out of the YouTuber’s book to grow the game with the next generation at some point. 🌱 

A broader list of golf channels to check out ⬇️

QUICK BITES THIS PAST WEEK

👠🏀💯 Alternate Universe: Cinderella doesn’t go to the Ball

By this time in the NCAA tournament, we’re normally talking about a team from some tiny school that’s lucked into the Sweet 16. 🍀

These “Cinderella teams” put on the proverbial glass slipper and waltz their way into ephemeral superstardom, if only for a week.

But this year the fairy godmother is nowhere to be found…

After 48 games and 2 rounds of March Madness, the remaining 16 teams have the second lowest combined seeds in the past decade at 53. 🧮 Furthermore, every single 1st and 2nd seed in the tournament this year made the Sweet 16 while only one remaining team is outside of a top-6 seed, NC State (11).

This level of seed concentration last happened in 2019 and we all know what came after 2019… 🤔 So watch the rest of the tournament with caution.

The drama is certainly not over and although it makes for fewer upsets, we should see some amazing games between college basketball powerhouses over the next week.

🎰🚫🏀 That’s not what we mean by “bet on yourself”

An NBA player is currently under investigation for inappropriate gambling on his own games.

It’s being alleged that Jontay Porter made bets that he would score less than his expected amount in games then faked an injury to rule him out and cash the checks.

That’s like if Claire bet I would send less than 10 emails at work tomorrow then I call out sick. 🤒 Free money!

⚾️🎰🈲 Lost in translation

Coincidentally, we’re also in the midst of the second-largest sports gambling scandal in baseball history. 😳 

Our well-paid, highly athletic, and now married baseball star Shohei Ohtani is in hot water as his Japanese translator allegedly stole $4.5 million from him to cover gambling debts.

EXTRA DATA VISUALS 📊

THIS NEXT WEEK

MLB ⚾️

Did you miss me? It feels like only weeks ago we were talking about the least popular World Series ever. Now baseball is back!

Today is opening day for the MLB and here are some storylines to keep in mind for the season.

  • 🎰 What will happen with Shohei Ohtani and the gambling investigation?

  • 🏆 Will the Dodgers be the best team of all time after spending $1.4B on players this offseason?

  • 1️⃣ Will the Seattle Mariners get to the playoffs with the best pitching in baseball and find their first-ever championship?

Sweet 16 🏀 

March Madness Sweet 16 is today and tomorrow with 4 men’s games each day. Here are the matchups and game times for tonight and tomorrow (EST).

Thursday

(2) Arizona vs. (6) Clemson: 7:09 p.m. (CBS)
(1) UConn vs. (5) San Diego State: 7:39 p.m. (TBS/truTV)
(1) North Carolina vs. (4) Alabama: 9:39 p.m. (CBS)
(2) Iowa State vs. (3) Illinois: 10:09 p.m. (TBS/truTV)

Friday

(2) Marquette vs. (11) NC State: 7:09 p.m. (CBS)
(1) Purdue vs. (5) Gonzaga: 7:39 p.m. (TBS/truTV)
(1) Houston vs. (4) Duke: 9:39 p.m. (CBS)
(2) Tennessee vs. (3) Creighton: 10:09 p.m. (TBS/truTV)

Thanks for reading. We always love to hear from you, feel free to respond to this email with any thoughts or questions for us!

— Riley and Claire

Keywords: golf fans, basketball tournaments, player gambling issues. Learn about YouTubers in golf, NCAA Sweet 16, NBA gambling allegations, MLB opening day. Follow for more updates! Traditional golf broadcasting, LIV Golf league, PGA tour players, GoodGood YouTube channel, golf channels, March Madness, NBA player gambling, Shohei Ohtani, MLB opening day, Sweet 16 matchups, sports updates

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