Good Good Golf Gets $45M // Rise of Sports x Social Commerce
March 28, 2025 by Chris Erwin
RockWater Roundup
M&A analysis of the creator economy to make you a better operator and investor.
Today we discuss Good Good Golf’s $45M fundraise, including the deal details, company origin story, strategic rationale, planned use of funds, and how the company is pioneering sports x social commerce.
Let’s break it down…
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–TARGET: Good Good Golf–
Overview
- Nextgen golf media and lifestyle brand
- Blends entertainment, sports, competition, and lifestyle
- “Make golf more accessible, dynamic, and engaging for players and fans of all ages”
- Founded 2020 by Matt Kendrick and 5+ golf personalities including lead voice Garrett Clark
- Team of 25 on-camera personalities, editors, shooters
- Based in Texas
Origin Story
- 5+ close friends, all good golfers who often played together, started doing challenges and competitions, and posting YouTube videos
- Founders Matt Kendrick, a partner at Scoreboard Ventures, approached the group at a golf tournament, about forming GG
- Was inspired by success of fishing channel called Googan Squad, founded by 5 young anglers that Matt Kendrick helped incubate
- Of note, cofounder Garrett Clark launched first YT channel at 9 yrs old, then a golf channel at 13, dropped out of college to do it full time
Business Lines
- Overall business model spans content, D2C consumer products, retail, and live experiences
- Creates educational and entertaining long-form YouTube videos, and short-form on Instagram, TikTok
- Monetizes content via YouTube ad sense and brand partnerships, and partnership with NBC Sports
- Sells products like polo shirts, swim trunks, putters, other apparel
- Collabs with brands like Yeti, Callaway to create premium golf gear
Content Highlights
- Live Events – Has NBC Sports partnership. Produced 1st event alone, drove 1M+ live viewers. In 2024 expanded partnership for distribution to YouTube, Peacock, and Golf Channel. Events include 2024’s WM Phoenix Open, Feb 2025’s Good Good Desert Knockout, and May 2025’s Good Good Championship, a tournament designed to find “the next great golfer”
- Professional & Celebrity Activations – Collabs with celebs like Steph Curry and golf pros like Jason Day
- General Educational Content – Videos that teach golf basics and mechanics, help GG reach broad set of golf fans on YouTube
Company Highlights
- 1.75M subscribers,16%+ TTM subscriber Growth
- 498M lifetime views, 29%+ TTM Views Growth
- Signed golf stars Joel Dahmen, Michael Block, Jon Pak, and Beau Hossler
- Active partnership with NBC Sports and GOLF Channel around tournaments
- Top-selling products at Dick’s Sporting Goods
- Ownership stake in L.A. Golf Club
Capital Markets History
- March 2025: Raised $45M from Creator Sports Capital and other investors
- Seems to have been incubated under Scoreboard Ventures (where GG cofounder Matt Kendrick is a partner), which specializes in “creating, building and investing in early stage sports, eSports, technology and digital content companies”
–INVESTOR: Creator Sports Capital–
Overview
- Affiliated with Creator Capital, does investment and incubation of startups within the creator economy
- Launched Creator Sports Capital in 2025 to focus on traditional and emerging areas of sports
- Founded by Benjamin Grubbs (former YouTube) and Brian Kabot
Company Highlights
- Creator Capital has 12 investments and 2 incubated startups
- Exited 2 startups: 1BStories and Electric Monster (our deal writeup)
Investment Criteria
- CSC is focused on future of commerce, entertainment, and sports assets within the creator economy
Investment History
| Company Name | Deal Date | Investment Type | Industry |
| Good Good Golf | Mar-25 | Later Stage VC | Golf Content and Clothing |
| Cohere | Jun-23 | Later Stage VC | AI and Machine Learning |
| Toonsutra | Jun-23 | Seed Round | Webtoon Platform |
| BrandArmy | Jan-23 | Early Stage VC | Creator Economy Networking |
| Nyan Heroes | May-22 | Early Stage VC | Gaming Platform |
| 1Bstories | Jan-22 | Early Stage VC | AI Short Form Video Platform |
–DEAL DETAILS–
Overview
- Announced 3.25.25
- Led by Creator Sports Capital
- “Significant participation” from Manhattan West Private Equity, Sunflower Bank, and Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions
- 50+ global investors joined round, many with deep connection to golf (including one of our RockWater clients!)
- Select Manhattan West Private Equity Media Investments:
- 100Thieves
- Discord
- Round Room
Post Deal Ops
- Not disclosed
Strategic Rationale
- “Global expansion across content, retail, and live experiences”
- Develop more scripted and unscripted content with NBC Sports and Omaha Productions
- Hire new sales team to expand distribution to 20,000 US pro shops
- GG felt tapped out in products space due to large cash investment required, will now expand golf merch and equipment ines
- Create content and merch for new global markets like Asia and Australia, which are home to five of GG’s top 10 viewing cities
- In Asia will subtitle and translate audio, and may hire local creators in markets like Korea and Japan
- Wants to become one of top 5 biggest global golf companies
–WHAT ELSE I FIND INTERESTING–
- Good Good Golf is a pioneer in sports x social commerce. Content is created around a specific fandom in golf, which builds audience loyalty and engagement. This is then monetized through advertiser partnerships and product sales. The content serves as GG’s marketing and user acquisition engine. This biz model is attractive because the content spend minimizes need for high marketing costs, enabling a high-margin D2C consumer products business. We’re seeing more of these types of businesses emerge, across a variety of categories from candy and kids toys to gardening and pets. Other case studies include (2) TCG’s investment in Epic Gardening, to fuel expansion into e-commerce and branded products, and (2) our client Little Chonk, which built a passionate community around pet and lifestyle content, and translated that into a fast-growing D2C and media business (events, newsletters, etc). Excited to see the social commerce model expand into various sports verticals…like Tennis!
- The Rise of YouTube Golf. In July, 2024, The Athletic covered how golf stars such as Bryson DeChambeau rack up millions of views on their social channels. From April-June 2024, YouTube reported 4.3B golf video views on the platform, showing strong demand by golf fans and enthusiasts. YouTube’s free unlimited content and golf subcultures makes the platform a strong choice for golf fans looking for a wide array of golf content, from practice tips and how-to videos, to industry news, events coverage, player stories, comedy, and more. This is a richer and more accessible fan experience VS what the typical TV broadcasters offer around the PGA and LIV events coverage…though putting the power of both premium tournament events and social-native content is an exciting vision for how the new and old golf content world can thrive together.
- Investment coincides with sharp rise in PGA ratings. The PGA tour reported a 15% YoY increase in Nielsen’s traditional ratings in 2025. This was likely driven by the tour working to better serve fans and core audiences, which is predominantly white, male, and middle aged. Good Good Golf bridges the gap between PGA’s traditional audience and younger, digital-native golf fans. The GG teams blends pro level content with challenges and celeb activations, catering to modern viewing preferences that extend beyond tournaments. Younger fans are more engaged with social-first, diverse content across digital platforms, and Good Good’s content allows them to reach both traditional and emerging golf audiences in a way that typical broadcasters, such as LIV and PGA, do not.
- Next up, Tennis? Tennis has a sizable global following, and the fans between golf and tennis have much demo overlap, e.g. high average incomes, age range, and that both seek premium destination experiences around sports events. Further, many of tennis’s top stars have online fanbases that are in the millions, with top stars well above that. Further, the game of tennis can be reimagined and repackaged via challenges and talent collaborations, a la GG style, which will perform well on YouTube, and help make the game more accessible and compelling to younger tennis fans. (I wish our team had more time to research YouTube tennis content, will have to put that on the to-do list!)
- The power of tournaments and talent collabs. The first GG tournament is this May, the Good Good Championship and will focus on “showing off the talents of our audience.” The community activation will drive further engagement from their fan and player community. In February, the Company collaborated with eSports star Nadeshot, creator Zach King, and comedian Andrew Santino. The talent collaborations helped GG reach new audiences, and recruit them to the GG ecosystem. Part of a content theme we’ve often written about, where increasingly, sports fans are more loyal to athletes, VS leagues or teams
- No Highmount on the cap table. The new fund is best known for their $100M+ investment into Dude Perfect (our deal writeup). Based on GG being a sports-focused creator economy bet, and also based in Texas like Dude Perfect, we would have expected Highmount on the cap table. There could be many reasons for this: misalignment on deal terms / structure or company values, didn’t meet investment criteria, or Highmount was simply focused on other investments?
I’m the founder of RockWater Industries. We do M&A and strategy advisory for creator economy and digital agencies. From buy / sell-side M&A and fundraising, to consumer research and go-to-market planning.
DM me on LinkedIn or email me chris @ wearerockwater dot com
