Courtside's The 4th Quarter: The Creator Golf Economy Is Just Getting Started

This week was a field day for golf media.

You may have seen the Financial Times’ bombshell: Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF is likely to pull funding from LIV GOLF after this season, a strategic pivot toward domestic initiatives. 

Golf commentators rushed to do a post-mortem – despite the 2026 LIV Golf season being in full swing and real ambiguity around whether these reports fully signal PIF stepping back from their golf initiative.

While we believe the jury is still out on LIV’s future, the more interesting story isn’t what went wrong. It’s what the past 4 years of LIV GOLF have revealed about where golf is actually going, and the enormous opportunity that’s still sitting wide open.

Rewind to 2021, when the PIF was first incubating the idea for LIV GOLF under the internal codename “Project Wedge”. 

The blueprint was genuinely ambitious: a 54-hole, no-cut, team-based format with shotgun starts, music on the course, and a global schedule designed to feel more like a grand, live event. The explicit goal was to build a product for the fans the PGA TOUR wasn’t reaching – a younger, more international audience that wanted fresher gameplay.

The diagnosis was correct. The PGA TOUR’s median viewer has consistently sat between 62 and 64 years old, and TV numbers were declining year-over-year – most notably in 2024, when Sunday telecast viewership declined 19% from 2023. Even leaked McKinsey documents from the NYT’s 2022 reporting on Project Wedge show that consultants flagged “steep challenges” in breaking into a sport with a dwindling, aging fan base.

But early on, LIV was actually landing with the exact demo it was built for. A 2022 Harris poll found that 55% of U.S. adults familiar with the league planned to watch a LIV event – and among 18-34s, that number jumped to 71%. 

The opportunity to capture the next generation was, in fact, much bigger than anyone realized.

Post-pandemic – right when LIV was getting off the ground – golf was quietly experiencing its second wind. The demographics of players and viewers were shifting rapidly, with a younger generation stepping in.

According to the National Golf Foundation:

At the same time, a wave of golf creators on YouTube – spearheaded by a much younger demo – was just taking off: 

This new form of content was built on accessibility, showcasing unique personalities and providing content that the younger audience can connect with. While we aren’t avid golfers ourselves, we’re actively consuming this content because it’s just plain entertaining. A few examples: 

Now, golf creators are a force to be reckoned with. Perfect Putt recently dropped a comprehensive breakdown of the creator golf economy, and the numbers are staggering. 

While creators are capturing just ~5% of golf media revenue today – they’re averaging ~4-5x views of CBS / NBC Sundays and commanding an estimated ~55-65% of the 18-34 year-old audience. 

They’re also doing it efficiently. Creator golf is reaching that younger demo at roughly a tenth of the CPM of Sunday broadcast, with a 5% skip rate versus 15-20% on linear. 

And it's still early innings. Expect CPMs to grow significantly as golf creators consolidate into a single point of entry for advertisers – we're already seeing it with Bolt Ventures-backed Source Media Group launching Source Golf, a creator network uniting Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat, and The Bryan Bros into a unified, television-style media buy.

Per Sports Video Group: golf in the U.S. hit 48.1M participants in 2025, with much of the growth driven by under-35s – a demo that increasingly watches through connected TV. "YouTube now accounts for the largest share of TV streaming in the U.S." and, per Nielsen, delivers more 18-49 reach than all cable networks combined.

The next generation of golf fandom was being built on YouTube in real time. And with all of its resources, LIV had first-pass at being a major driver of it.

LIV had the right instinct early on, streaming their first two seasons for free on YouTube, including original content from each of their golf clubs. That was the beginning of something new. 

But instead of doubling down, the pull of traditional broadcast revenue proved too strong. 

Given LIV’s hundreds of millions spent on attracting marquee talent, management was determined to pivot to more lucrative media deals. Former CEO Greg Norman publicly called television deals a  “priority” very early on, and LIV eventually signed with CW and FOX to get real revenue in the door.

The results were underwhelming. LIV averaged just 388K viewers across its 2025 season – with a median broadcast age of 61, barely younger than the PGA TOUR’s own audience. The novel format that defined LIV’s identity eventually got walked back too, with the hole count bumped from 54 to 72, converging back towards the product it was supposed to disrupt. 

This core tension is a classic dilemma that many emerging leagues will have to navigate: a genuinely innovative product for a next-generation audience on one side, and the immediate revenue pull of legacy broadcasting on the other.

LIV chose the latter – and in doing so, chose a tougher battle competing for the same traditional golf fan the PGA TOUR had spent decades cultivating.

In a notable twist, it was the PGA TOUR that moved more aggressively to institutionalize the creator relationship:

LIV has begun to course-correct. Their "Duel" series in 2025 pitting creators against LIV pros generated 12.6M combined views across just five videos – roughly 32x the average viewership of an entire LIV broadcast in 2025. It resonated with fans who’d been waiting for exactly this kind of content: entertainment blended with high-stakes, competitive golf.

The creator partnership model worked. It just came after the blue-ocean window had already started to close.

The creator golf economy isn’t a niche anymore. It’s primary entertainment for the next generation of golf fans, and the infrastructure being built around it is starting to look like a very lucrative media business.

The ingredients are all there. A participation base surging past 48M Americans, skewing younger than it has in decades. A creator class that has already captured the 18-34 demo more efficiently than any broadcast network. Consolidating ad infrastructure through networks like Source Golf. And a sport that turns out to be far more entertaining and accessible than most people gave it credit for.

What LIV’s run demonstrates is that there’s a large appetite for a next-gen golf product. It’s just still looking for a home.

And look – maybe it still could be LIV. CEO Scott O’Neil has alluded to potential structural changes as future funding remains in limbo. 

But the next golf league, media property, or sponsorship model should be built with the creator economy baked in from day one if they want a genuine shot at something new. 

As PGA TOUR CEO Brian Rolapp put it on the Pat McAfee show this week: LIV did the professional golf a favor… similar to what the AFL did for the NFL. It forced the incumbent to get better, pushed the golf world to innovate, and proved there was a much bigger game worth playing.

The next chapter of golf media is just getting started.

San Diego Padres sells for $3.9B, a record franchise sale (Apr. 17th)

Rogers Communications explores minority stake sale in sports team portfolio at ~$18B valuation (Apr. 22nd)

Lucra, a gamified loyalty and esports-style engagement platform, raises $20M Series B led by ARK Invest (Apr. 22nd)

PressBox, an AI content automation platform for sports leagues and media, raises $2M seed led by Relay Ventures (Apr. 21st)

Churchill Downs Incorporated to acquire Preakness Stakes IP for $85M, bringing two Triple Crown races under one owner (Apr. 22nd)

Sideline Group, a consumer-focused investment firm backing sports and experiential brands, closes $155M Fund I (Apr. 17th)

Oura becomes official wearable of U.S. Soccer ahead of 2026 World Cup (Apr. 22nd)

Lewis Hamilton partners with Dave & Adam’s Card World to launch global trading card retail venture (Apr. 17th)

Arena Talent Spring Cohort closes May 8th. If you’re interested, apply here.

If you find our weekly job board helpful, join the T4Q Talent Network.

Now - here are some cool roles we found and personally curated this week. Enjoy!

1. Teton Ridge - Sr. Associate, Corporate Development

2. ESPN - Sr. Director, Corporate Strategy: $261K

3. DAZN - VP of Strategy

4. MrBeast - Head of Marketing, Beast Games: $200K

5. Chelsea Football Club - Commercial Strategy & Ventures Lead

6. Chalkboard - Head of Growth: $225K

7. Arketa - Product Manager: $200K

8. Veo Technologies - Head of North American Partnerships: $170K

9. The TEAM (Formerly Wasserman) - Product Manager

10. Snapp AI - Head of Growth & Marketing: $170K