Good Good Golf – the princes of YouTube golf and a budding apparel company – have officially joined forces with Callaway.
There have been rumblings online about a major announcement coming from Good Good. Speculation has ranged from a simple sponsorship deal with an OEM to an actual acquisition. But in a video released earlier today, the Good Good crew says the partnership goes beyond just a club deal, which they’ve had with various OEMs in the past.
“This ain’t that,” the group said in their video.
It’s not an outright acquisition. But the Good Good guys are calling it a “partnership and collaboration” which will include Callaway golf clubs with Good Good labeling.
Who Is Good Good?
Good Good is a group of five young guys who play golf and make YouTube videos. It launched its first YouTube video in September of 2020 and has since grown to more than 1.1 million subscribers. Good Good also has 462,000 Instagram subscribers and a Subreddit with over 22,000 members. Good Good has also expanded into premium apparel which reflects its youthful “golf is fun” style.
Recently, two longtime members of Good Good left, citing differences of opinion. Even more recently, as in a little over a week ago, Good Good announced a deal with Dick’s Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy, giving their apparel a national retail presence. This new arrangement with Callaway puts even more juice behind that deal.
Good Good will still produce its regular video content, but the new arrangement will give them access to film with Callaway pros such as Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffle and Francesco Molinari.
The Big Picture
What, you might ask, is in this for Callaway? A formal partnership with a young and very popular group of content creators, for one thing. Good Good is another avenue for reaching consumers directly and allows, through the partnership, to obliquely control the messaging. Callaway is essentially getting a captive audience of over one million young (or at least young at heart) golfers.
It’s marketing gold.
And it’s essentially the reasoning behind the recent and somewhat less formal partnership between No Laying Up and Titleist/FootJoy. No Laying Up, ironically, just ended an arrangement with Callaway. That arrangement, however, wasn’t a “partnership and collaboration.”
For Good Good, the benefits are obvious. While insisting they are maintaining creative control, the group gets the prestige of a formal partnership with the multi-billion-dollar behemoth that is Topgolf Callaway. They’ve parlayed their unique personalities, humor and passion for golf into a golden opportunity and the rewards that will no doubt come their way.
For both parties, the arrangement is a veritable “good-good.”
Whether this remains a “partnership and collaboration” or eventually morphs into a full-scale acquisition remains unclear. But it would be Callaway’s style to help build Good Good’s brand (not to mention its bottom line) for a year or two and then make the guys an offer they can’t refuse. Or that may already be the plan. As we said, the details are scant at this time.
What Does It Mean To You?
In the short term, probably nothing. But it is reflective of how the fun side of golf and the business side of golf are conflating. Tying social media content creation and commerce is a growing trend. Building an audience and then finding something to sell that audience is smart business. And when the audience is big enough, it’s natural for big OEMs to want a piece of that.
We’ve said for years that Callaway is playing 3-D chess in Klingon while the rest of the industry is playing Chutes and Ladders. While that may be a bit of exaggeration (but, we think, not much of one), Callaway continues to find unique ways to capitalize on new trends to further its interests and to deliver its message the way it wants it delivered.
What started out as a 13 percent ownership stake in this newfangled idea called Topgolf has turned into a billion-dollar-plus a year cash cow. The merger has been so successful it promoted an actual corporate rebranding. And a new partnership with indoor golf simulator/pub grub purveyor Five Iron Golf is still in its infancy but resembles the beginning of the Callaway-Topgolf relationship.
Topgolf Callaway continues to evolve. What Ely started as a hickory-shafted collectibles company has morphed into a nearly $4 billion lifestyle conglomerate. This partnership with Good Good and its young, golf-is-fun demographic, is a natural.
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JB THP
1 week agoNLU got an upgrade going from Callaway to Titleist. The average golfer does not care about these teeny boppers that Callaway is relying on. Bad move by Callaway!
John
6 days agoJB THP, Actually this is the future of golf and a smart move by Callaway. Use Kisner as an example, he’s not going to sell any drivers., but Bubbie of Good Good, reached a 600 yard par 5 with a 3 wood and a 6 iron. Matt has an ace on a par 4. The GG and GM Golf youtube channels combined have 400m views.. Biggest miss? Either the PGA or LIV tours should’ve signed up GG as their digital media broadcast team.
ApexinBlack
1 week agoI think the good good videos can be a good distraction but they are effectively a boy band that has a deal with Callaway.
I feel less good good about my bag full of Apex/Rogue now :(.
Ryan Smith
2 weeks agoBig fan of this move. Good Good actually has a lot of older followers believe it or not, like me. They are entertaining and good for golf in general. You Tube golf has a lot of room for growth and Callaway is ahead of the game.
Handicap Police
2 weeks agoPerfect. More stuff we can ignore. It’ll be so biased towards what they play, now nobody will take them seriously. They’re a bore to begin with anyway
Thomas A
2 weeks agoCallaway is really piling on in the apparel business. They have Callaway apparel, Travis Matthews, and now GoodGood. My assumption is that those are broken into age categories. Callaway for the over 50 crowd, TM for the 35-49 and GG for the under 35’s. I just watched a GG youtube with Luke Kwon. Definitely has a youth vibe to it.
Mark Combs
2 weeks agoA deal with Callaway is a big turn off for me. Ten years ago I loved what Callaway was doing, when they released the original Apex irons I was really on board with the company.. Then they went “TaylorMade” on all of us with new releases every 6 months, and started up an incestuous relationship with another golf equipment review site and I’ve never bought another piece of Callaway anything.
Mike
2 weeks agoInteresting article (as always!), thanks John.
These guys look like the Jackass version of golf. Hey, more power to them, but no interest here. If I’m going to watch golf “influencers’, I’ll subscribe to the channel w/ the good-women w/ nice golf swings.
TR1PTIK
2 weeks agoIf I understood what was said in the most recent podcast correctly, it was No Laying Up’s decision to part ways with Callaway but after this announcement by Good Good I wonder if that’s really how it went down.
Regardless, I think Titleist is a better fit for NLU and Callaway is a solid fit for GG. The NLU guys have shown an interest in amateurs, mini tour players, and the LPGA which Titleist will be able to give them significant access to since they do so much in those areas (particularly amateurs). Callaway on the other hand has been on a mission to shake off the old guys’ golf brand which they seemed to hold for a while (at least IMO) and Good Good fits right in with that.
JDGAFFLIN
2 weeks agoNo Laying Up leaves Callaway for Titleist, and a couple of days later this happens.. Interesting. (Even though the 2 moves probably probably unrelated.)