Once upon a time, a group of successful players realized they would be better off pooling their skills together, maximizing their exposure to sponsorship money, and building a credible nationwide brand backed by (relatively) huge tournament prizes.
After some wrangling, they settled on a name, a format, and a revenue-sharing agreement.
Thus, the PGA Tour was born.
Sixty years later, golf fans of all stripes watched as a star-studded new collection of players came together to maximize exposure and compete for a grand prize.
They were not players but effectorscompeting in Barstool’s “Internet Invitation” — a six-part, hour-long bonanza featuring 48 golfers vying for a chance at $1 million. Their medium of choice was YouTube, but the main part of their video wasn’t quite counting birdies and bogeys. The event was part golf competition, part reality TV series and part performance for the camera.
Soon, this group of influencers found that their combined skills were at least comparably successful as the sum of their parts — generating nearly 2 million views in less than 24 hours and seizing a chokehold on golf discourse in the middle of a quiet week on the calendar. It didn’t take long for this collection of YouTubers to discover that golf fans of all ages and backgrounds were at least willing to give it a shot, or for golf fans to realize that they could end up being entertained.
All of this raised a question that seemed odd until recently: When it came to bringing together the best influencers in golf on a regular basis, was Barstool on to something?
These are strange times in the world of sports. Leagues continue to operate as media companies and media companies continue to operate as leagues, a closed loop that has blurred the lines at events like the Internet Invitational and the upcoming PGA Tour Good good championship. Golfers are now responsible for YouTube highlights and social media comments, while YouTubers and social media comments are now responsible for… competing in golf tournaments.
The golden goose that undercuts them all is the currency of our time: Caution. Attention serves as a conduit between consumers and products and is a diminishing asset in a world saturated with distractions. Everyone in the world of sports—from big tech to big football to Big Cat—is in the spotlight game. Those who can attract attention can certainly attract advertising, and those who can attract advertising can attract money.
Barstool has no illusions about bringing all of the internet’s golf talent together in one place on a permanent (or tournament) basis. And of course, even if Barstool were under any illusions about creating an Influencer Tour, it’s unlikely they’ll ever generate enough business to consider the PGA Tour or LIV a legitimate competitor. But the strangest lesson from the Internet Invitational is that, at least in terms of attention, the gap between influencers and professionals isn’t as wide as it seems.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the businesses are comparable or that influencers are leaving money on the table by maintaining their YouTube fiefdoms with the occasional crossover appearance for audience growth purposes. It’s fair to say that, in all likelihood, the most exciting golf tournament of the week will be played entirely online, featuring a field of zero full-time professionals playing for a prize pool not much smaller than a typical PGA Tour event. In the world of democratized distribution through social media platforms like YouTube, it’s not hard to see a world where this format proves repeatable…and profitable.
In the end, the next few days will likely reveal the ways in which the Internet Invitational can’t compare to a traditional golf tournament. The show will be mostly average, the drama will be somewhat contrived, and the people on camera will play with those cameras, fully aware of the game they are playing.
But it can compete in the way that matters most: people will pay attention. Glorious, valuable attention.
There is money to be made this way. A lot of it.
You can watch the first online invitation video below.
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