Bryson DeChambeau says he'll focus on YouTube if LIV fails
· Yahoo Sports
Bryson DeChambeau is doubling down on his previous claim that if LIV Golf fails to find new investors or isn’t able to sign him to another lucrative contract, his backup plan may be leaning into his YouTube channel and focusing on the majors.
"I think, from my perspective, I'd love to grow my YouTube channel three times, maybe even more," DeChambeau told ESPN.com on Tuesday at this week's LIV Golf event at Trump National Golf Club in Washington D.C. "I would love to. I'd love to do a bunch of dubbing in different languages, giving the world more reason to watch YouTube. And then I'd love to play tournaments that want me."
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DeChambeau, 32, joined LIV in June 2022 and has become its biggest star. The two-time U.S. Open champ also was among the 11 golfers who sued the PGA Tour. He later withdrew from the lawsuit in May 2023, but members of the Tour haven’t forgotten his role in it. DeChambeau called his potential punishment from the PGA Tour as, "quite unfortunate in my opinion, considering what I could do for them."
He confirmed his team has engaged in talks with the PGA Tour, but hasn’t been told what his pathway back to the circuit where he won nine times before jumping to the renegade tour for a contract reportedly worth more than $100 million.
In the next breath, he argued LIV and the PGA Tour need to work together to reunify men's professional golf.
"The egos need to get dropped," DeChambeau said. "Everybody needs to come in with a level-headed playing field, with an opportunistic mindset to grow the game of golf. That's why I came over here. That's why I do what I do on YouTube."
DeChambeau’s contract with LIV runs out at the end of the 2026.
Last week, Saudi Arabia’s PIF, which financed the money-losing start-up, announced last week that it would no long fund LIV Golf after this season. DeChambeau had been under the impression that the PIF was on board to underwrite the circuit for several years to come.
"I was completely shocked," DeChambeau said. "I didn't expect it to happen. A couple months before that, it's like, 'We're here until 2032. We've got financing until 2032,' and so I told everybody, and that's what I was told. And then, you know, I haven't had any communication. And unfortunately, things are moving on in a different direction. Obviously, they wanted to move on."
DeChambeau said he supports LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil and the league's newly appointed independent board of directors and advisers as they develop a new business plan and drum up new investors.
"There's a few different models," DeChambeau said. "Look, the [PGA Tour] isn't doing great either. Let's be honest about the situation. They've got the media. They've got everybody on the side that helps pump it up. But they're reducing field sizes, cutting employees and restructuring their business too."
The PGA Tour and LIV Golf appeared to be on the verge of a deal in February 2025, but talks broke down and both tours have been operating under the premise that a deal is unlikely. DeChambeau said he holds out hopes that a potential merger of the tours could still happen.
"If we have a great business model and they're very interested in combining forces, that's the Kumbaya moment, right?" DeChambeau said. "So, it's our job to come up with a better business plan on the [top company] side. The team franchises, there's enough making profit now to where we could sell them for close to $200 million, and that's not talking about my team either.
"I think it requires a little bit of everybody kind of just lowering their guards and all coming together and going, 'OK, what's best for the game of golf?'"
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Bryson DeChambeau on LIV Golf's future and growing his YouTube channel