Rolapp: PGA Tour’s New Social Media Policy Straight From NFL’s Playbook

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said the updated social media policy the tour will be rolling out later this month is yet another strategy he is bringing from the NFL to professional golf.

“This was something that’s been in the works for about almost a year,” Rolapp said Friday during an interview on The Rich Eisen Show. “You’ll recognize this from our NFL playbook.”

Rolapp left the NFL last year—where he was No. 2 to commissioner Roger Goodell, serving as the league’s chief media and business officer—to take the PGA Tour job.

The PGA Tour’s new social media policy, which Front Office Sports first reported, increases how much content players are allowed to capture and publish on-site at PGA Tour events.

“Where are people under the age of 35 spending most of their time? On their phones, on social media,” said Rolapp. “We learned this at the NFL and really pushed hard on how we actually embraced those platforms, which ultimately led to YouTube getting Sunday Ticket and some other things.”

Last week, LIV Golf star Bryson DeChambeau spoke out about how his growing YouTube golf ambitions could present a potential hurdle to returning to the PGA Tour, if LIV folds. But the tour’s update was not a direct response to DeChambeau’s remarks.

“This has been in motion for a while,” Rolapp said. “And we really put the gas on it in the last six months—how do you actually embrace those platforms and show more PGA Tour events on the platforms where people are, and also build more of our stars?”

Rolapp wants to bring more attention to the talent the PGA Tour has beyond its most popular players like Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler.

“The only other sport in the world that has that type of competitive parity that I could find is the NFL,” Rolapp said. “And we need to do a better job telling those stories—that as good as Scottie and Rory and these guys are, there’s some amazing other stories on the tour that we need to tell better, and I think a better social media policy, more YouTube, better Instagram presence, is gonna help us do that.”