Fore! The PGA Tour's "Creator Classic" Misses the Fairway
A decent swing but too much opportunity left on the table
Last week, the PGA went live with the "Creator Classic" competition at East Lake Golf Club, featuring popular golf content creators: Luke Kwon (winner), Wesley Bryan, George Bryan, Garrett Clark (Good Good), Brad Dalke (Good Good), Sean Walsh (Good Good), Fat Perez (Bob Does Sports), Paige Spiranac, Tyler Toney (Dude Perfect), Roger Steele, Micah Morris, Peter Finch, Mac Boucher, Gabby "Golf Girl" DeGasperis, Mason Nutt (BustaJack Golf), and Aimee Cho.
On the surface, for many this will seem like a bold step into the creator economy. But dig a little deeper with Disruptive Play and you'll find the Tour is still trapped in its traditional sand bunker.
THE IRONY OF INNOVATION
The PGA should be lauded for bringing these creators and this event to life. However, and here's the kicker: This "creator-focused" event wasn’t distributed on the creators' own channels. Instead, it was funneled through the PGA Tour's YouTube channel and other traditional platforms like Peacock and ESPN+.
Let that sink in. The Tour is tapping into the creator economy's power while simultaneously ignoring its core principle: direct creator-to-audience connection.
Note: Beyond the live event, despite the massive social reach of those creators, there were barely any promotional posts ahead of the event and more than week later, barely any VOD.
MISSED OPPORTUNITY
People will say, but didn’t the live stream on YT have over 100,000 live viewers? You know what the PGA YT Channel has? Golf fans. You know what they need, New fans.
By centralizing distribution, the PGA Tour:
Limited reach to existing golf audiences
Failed to leverage the creators' unique fan bases
Missed out on authentic, creator-driven content
This approach felt trying to play a modern game with vintage clubs. Sure, it might work, but you're handicapping yourself from the start.
THE CREATOR AS DISTRIBUTION MODEL
The entire broadcast screamed traditional and catered to the endemic IMHO. Take a look at Good Good YT Channel and the last live stream "We Had A 10,000 Golf Match" It was raw, intimate and fun. It drove massive LIVE viewership. It was accessible for new fans. The PGA had an opportunity to distribute using these creators and live streamers with audiences beyond endemic, that are curious, adjacent or newbies to golf.
The Real Opportunity Was:
Direct distribution through creator channels
Authentic engagement with established fan bases
Creator-led promotion and hype-building
The PGA Tour had a chance to embrace this model fully. Instead, they've opted for a half-measure that feels more like a publicity stunt than a genuine embrace of creator culture.
DISRUPTIVE PLAY – If we were in charge of the next Creator Classic, here’s what we would do:
Empower creators to distribute content on their own channels
At Disruptive Play, we say this all the time. We need to realize that audiences are gathered in communities on creator social channels - it’s time to distribute to where they are vs. where rights holders traditionally want them to be. We would make sure there was a high volume of content and collabs leading up to the event, that the live was distributed widely with different feeds, unique perspectives and perhaps gamified to build fandom and then continue the conversation well after the event with different VOD (note: this still may happen but haven’t seen it yet)
Embrace the messy, authentic nature of creator content
Let them be who they are - yes, they need to respect the heritage of golf but they also need to be authentic. We needed to see more of the raw interactions on the course. Ironically, the Dude Perfect and Good Good Collab video that just went live on Good Good Channel is a perfect example of what could have been for the PGA
Focus on building new audiences, not just serving existing ones
This may be less intuitive but all the creators that participated are part of the Golf YouTube movement. In the future, if this is really about building new fandom, we’d recommend going outside of golf endemic creators. Finding streamers that are personally curious and can walk their audiences into a new sport.
The Creator Classic could have been a hole-in-one for golf's social future. What do you think? Is the PGA Tour missing a crucial opportunity here? Or is their cautious approach the right play in golf's traditional world?
If you like reading Disruptive Play, Please Consider a one-off small contribution