Over the past 15 years, sports and entertainment company Dude Perfect—which started as a YouTube channel where five best friends posted videos of trick shots in different sports—has grown into a media juggernaut with attendant cruises, toy lines, and TV deals. Its content has expanded to include highly produced biweekly videos where they break world records or attempt challenges—sometimes, with the help of famous guests.
In October, after raising more than $100 million from investment firm Highmount Capital, the company hired its first CEO, Andrew Yaffe. Yaffe joined the company after nearly a decade at the NBA where he ran social, digital, and original content. As he told us, “We have 60 million followers. The NBA has the largest following of any of the leagues [with] 20 million followers. If you told me I was going to leave for somewhere with triple the YouTube following, I wouldn’t have believed you.” Yaffe stopped by the Most Innovative Companies podcast to discuss building a family-friendly brand, expanding into new verticals, and delivering a personal connection to fans.
Some creators use YouTube as a stepping stone to make other types of content, like TV shows. That doesn’t seem to be your strategy. How do you view the platform and how to leverage it for growth?
Fifteen years ago the guys really prioritized YouTube, and they’ve done a great job building the largest sports channel on the platform. Every other Saturday, we post a video at 9 a.m.—it’s usually 30 minutes long and takes several weeks to produce and has A-list talent. The brand extensions all come off that YouTube presence. That’s how it’s been for the cruise that we ran, the tours we’ve done, and the toys we’ve launched.
YouTube is still the No. 1 streaming platform in America. At the NBA, 80% of our YouTube consumption was outside the U.S. So while it’s the biggest platform in America, it’s also, by far, the most accessible and biggest platform outside the U.S. I think that’s a huge opportunity for us. We’re doing a tour next summer, and it will be our first world tour. We’re doing 20 stops in the U.S. and five stops in Europe. We’ve sold out more than 50 NBA arenas over the course of our tours.
Besides that tour, what does the next stage for Dude Perfect look like?
Going forward, we’ll really begin to invest more deeply in some off-platform extensions. That might be new content and new formats on other platforms as well. We recently launched our own connected-TV app. We’ve also started bringing in other top creators who we think match the family-friendly vibe and ethos of our content. [Science and engineering YouTuber] Mark Rober is now on our app as well.
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