The day before Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and many of the game’s top players set out in the PGA Tour’s FedExCup finale at East Lake in August, the PGA Tour held the first Creator Classic.
The nine-hole exhibition included 16 content creators in a made-for-television event that the Tour hoped would attract a new audience to the Tour Championship, and the results were 2.5 million views on YouTube and another 2.8 million on various other platforms. The event was such a success, the circuit has created the “Creator Council.”
“The council is an example of how the Tour evolves and that starts with our fans,” said Andy Weitz, the Tour’s chief marketing and communications officer/investor relations. “When the classic occurred, we said wow, this is a moment. We stepped back and said, let’s build on these events. Let’s learn as a tour how we can be better.”
The council will include select creators – Bob Does Sports, Bryan Bros Golf, Erik Anders Lang, Fore Play/Barstool Sports, No Laying Up, Paige Spiranac, Roger Steele and Tisha Alyn – and will meet three times a year.
“We will look at collaborative content, what can we create together? There may be cases where the Tour has a point of view that helps us create content that the creators want to be a part of,” said Weitz, who added that the council will “evolve.” “The point of the council is to explore that and what works best for our fans.”
The council will develop future versions of the Creator Classic as well as fan engagement strategies, collaborative content opportunities, media regulations and event broadcast enhancements.
The creation of the council dovetails with the Tour’s “Fan Forward” project that began this summer.
“It goes back to the data we’re gathering,” Weitz said. “This summer we began the largest outreach in the history of the PGA Tour. We’re learning that fandom starts with the phone. Fans have to be able to find the content that engages them.”
While the council will be focused on bringing a new audience to the game, Weitz said the Tour will continue to refine the presentation of the product for more traditional fans.
“This approach is designed to be additive,” he said. “No one should feel excluded. Our job is to strike the right balance and do it respectful of the current audience.”
