The Myrtle Beach Classic YouTube Strategy

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Hey Golfers —

The Myrtle Beach Classic is leveraging YouTube to drive awareness to its inaugural PGA Tour event next week.

The tournament hosted The Q at Myrtle Beach — a qualifier for its PGA Tour event. Sixteen golfers competed for one qualifier spot in the upcoming tournament. The sixteen golfers were a mix of YouTube and professional golfers.

  • 8 YouTube golfers

  • 8 professional golfers

The event was played in early March and released on YouTube on April 23rd.

A qualifier for a PGA Tour event isn’t a nascent idea, as several PGA Tour events have Monday qualifiers.

But The Q at Myrtle Beach added two elements that haven’t been done before at PGA Tour qualifiers.

  • Video coverage of the event

  • YouTube golfers in the field

Monday qualifiers draw a certain amount of buzz. If the PGA Tour were to stream them on its YouTube page — they would draw viewership. But I don’t think they would draw half the viewership that The Q did on YouTube. And the reason for that is the YouTube golfers. 

The video has 767,000 views on the Play Golf Myrtle Beach YouTube channel. For context — the channel has 11,700 subscribers and rarely sees its videos receive over 1,000 views. The event did incredibly well from a numbers standpoint.

Before we get too far — here’s some background.

Visit Myrtle Beach sponsors the Myrtle Beach Classic — the marketing arm of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

After looking at Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce's financials, it’s obvious that tourism is its main economic driver. In 2022, the chamber spent over $57 million on tourism advertising and promotions, over 90% of its total expenses. 

In 2022 — 17.6 million visitors spent around $12 billion traveling to Myrtle Beach.

So, what is the primary goal of the Myrtle Beach Classic? To encourage people to visit the area within the following year.

According to a Golf Digest piece earlier this year, the PGA Tour charges between $13 million and $15 million for title sponsors. I’d suspect that the Myrtle Beach Classic is paying less since it is an opposite-field event with a $4 million purse, but it provides a benchmark. It is a significant investment for the chamber — say around 15% to 20% of its budget.

A similar tournament comp would be the Bermuda Butterfield Championship. In 2022, Bermuda saw a $17 million economic impact from the tournament and $9.2 million in media exposure.

If we look at it from a pure marketing play — The Q YouTube video sits at the top of the funnel. Here is a full breakdown of YouTube video views from each channel.

  • Play Golf Myrtle Beach — 767,000 views

  • Bob Does Sports — 406,000 views

  • Grant Horvat Golf — 340,000 views

  • Bryan Bros Golf — 176,000 views

  • Peter Finch Golf — 167,000 views

  • Luke Kwon Golf — 98,000 views

  • BustaJack Golf — No video posted

  • Fore Play Golf — No video posted

  • Micah Morris — No video posted

Nearly two million people have watched some version of The Q on YouTube. And those numbers will continue to rise. Play Golf Myrtle Beach ran captive ads throughout the video promoting the Myrtle Beach area.

Objective number one is complete — get eyeballs on the video and move potential visitors down the funnel to watch the event.

Golf YouTuber George Bryan lost in a playoff to pro golfer Matt Atkins. But the Myrtle Beach Classic extended a sponsor exemption to George Bryan. George has played in one PGA Tour event — the 2023 Bermuda Butterfield Championship.

The Bryan Bros filmed a video of him playing in the event — it has 404,000 views on YouTube. George playing in the Myrtle Beach Classic will drive viewers to watch the tournament on television.

Google search term Myrtle Beach Golf had a score of 73 last week — 21 points higher than the same week in 2023. 

Here is a look at the last five years for Google search interest for the same week in April.

  • 2024 — 73

  • 2023 — 52

  • 2022 — 57

  • 2021 — 68

  • 2020 — 22

Golf search terms similar to this have been rising worldwide due to golf’s newfound popularity. While I do not think that the YouTube video was the sole contributor to the increase, it is important to note.

We won’t know if this event will have a positive ROI for the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce for quite some time.

But here is what I will say.

Opposite-field events are challenging to promote. You have to be different; you have to stand out to create some buzz. And that is exactly what The Classic at Myrtle Beach is doing. Succeed or fail, I am fascinated by the creativity and willingness to think outside the box.

Have yourself a great Monday. Talk to you next week!

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