Just as Bryson DeChambeau spoke out this week about his growing YouTube golf ambitions presenting a potential hurdle to returning to the PGA Tour, his former home circuit is preparing to roll out an updated player social media policy, Front Office Sports has learned.
The PGA Tour has spent the past year updating its player social media rules to expand player content rights on pre-tournament and competition days, a source with knowledge of the tour’s plans tells FOS.
The changes to the on-site policy are designed to complement the PGA Tour’s off-site guidelines, which allow players to share non-live, post-produced content across their personal channels, according to the source.
The updates were shared Tuesday at a Player Advisory Council (PAC) fans subcommittee meeting at the Truist Championship in Charlotte, and are expected to be formally rolled out to PGA Tour members later this month.
PGA Tour players on that fans subcommittee include Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Max Homa, Harris English, Camilo Villegas, and Korn Ferry Tour member James Nicholas, who has become well-known for documenting his professional journey on social media.
YouTube content creation has rapidly become more popular among PGA Tour players, with some growing strong followings, like Jason Day (207,000 subscribers) and Tommy Fleetwood (134,000 subscribers).
Ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Virginia event, DeChambeau on Wednesday said he believed his YouTube content would violate PGA Tour policies, telling Skratch, “If I was to film a video during the week of one of their events with a content creator or a celebrity, that would be in violation, to my knowledge… It’s their policy, they didn’t let me do it when I was on there.”
Those comments came after he told reporters on Tuesday afternoon he wanted to prioritize his YouTube content if he left LIV, echoing what the star golfer told Front Office Sports in January when asked about the possibility of only playing the four major championships and YouTube golf in 2027: “That’s an incredibly viable option, I’ll tell you that,” said DeChambeau, whose LIV contract expires after the 2026 season.
The PGA Tour’s new social media policy increases how much content players are allowed to capture and publish on-site at PGA Tour events:
- Players will now be allowed to distribute three minutes of content created on-site during competition days, up from two minutes previously.
- After a tournament round’s TV coverage window ends, players will now be allowed to post broadcast footage of up to six shots per round, totaling up to one minute of highlights, up from a single shot previously.
- Players can post more extensive highlights from TV coverage on social media 72 hours after an event ends—that’s considered archive footage, which is being increased to eight minutes allowed per video (up from five) and 120 minutes total on any player’s YouTube channel (up from 60).
- There remains no limit on how much on-site player-created content can be published during non-competition days. For example, DeChambeau could film an entire practice round at a PGA Tour event and publish it as part of his popular Break 50 series.
The new policy also has clarifying language around YouTube monetization, which was not mentioned in the old policy.
Players can receive revenue from Google AdSense for any content captured on-site during practice and pro-am rounds. The PGA Tour claims revenue from videos, via YouTube Content ID, that include competition round video, whether it is player-captured or from the broadcast (archive).
Additionally, players are no longer required to transfer ownership of their YouTube channel to the PGA Tour in order to use archive footage, which was previously the case.
The previous YouTube channel ownership rule was described as an “administrative procedure” by another source with knowledge of the PGA Tour’s plans. The process brought the player’s page into the PGA Tour channel network, and allowed players to retain ad revenue that was generated from videos that were produced off-site and the PGA Tour would keep the revenue associated with videos that included archive footage.
“The PGA Tour strives to provide the most athlete-friendly social media guidelines in professional sports,” a PGA Tour spokesperson told FOS in a statement, “in order to equip our players as they engage and grow their individual brands—and the PGA Tour’s fanbase—while protecting the tour’s commercial business for the benefit of the entire membership.”
The player social media policy was first created in 2017 and has been tweaked several times in the past nine years. The last major update was in 2021, and last year some YouTube offsite guidelines were added.
Enough to Satisfy DeChambeau?
Despite the impending changes to the PGA Tour’s social media policy, one major hurdle could still be a sticking point for DeChambeau, who has 2.7 million YouTube subscribers.
Players are still not allowed to commercialize the content they create on-site at a PGA Tour event or the broadcast highlights they post from tournaments, according to the policy.
So, even if DeChambeau were to film a Break 50 video during a PGA Tour practice round, he could not sell ads against those videos. DeChambeau currently has a wide range of sponsors that appear in his social media content, like Bucked Up energy drink, SWAG golf equipment, and more.
Players are also not allowed to tag or collab-post with non-PGA Tour partners. But there is no restriction on a player’s sponsors that normally appear on their clothing and equipment also appearing in content created on-site at PGA Tour events.
The PGA Tour’s policy for content filmed away from event sites is far less restrictive, but does include some intricacies. Videos require PGA Tour approval if they feature two or more PGA Tour members, include prize money, are live-streamed or near-live, or distributed on a non-social media platform like Netflix or ESPN.
All players have access to the PGA Tour’s creative team, who can develop bespoke content, at no charge, from tournament sites for a player to use exclusively on his own social channels.
