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LeBron James over golf course
LeBron James has spent more than two decades becoming one of the most famous basketball players alive, so naturally he has found a new competitive arena at age 41: trying to become a golf YouTuber. Three days after posting his first full video, James had already blown past 530,000 subscribers and generated more than 2 million views.
That puts his brand-new golf operation within shouting distance of creators who have spent years building audiences around the sport. James is still preparing for his 24th NBA season, but apparently becoming one of YouTube golf’s larger personalities is what happens when LeBron needs a hobby.
LeBron James Is Speedrunning YouTube Golf
LeBron launched the channel Saturday with a 96-minute video featuring Kevin Love, J.R. Smith, Richard Jefferson, Tristan Thompson and Channing Frye reuniting in Scotland for the 10th anniversary of Cleveland’s 2016 championship. YouTube says the plan is to release new episodes monthly while following James to famous courses around the world.
The debut quickly crossed 2 million views, while his channel surpassed 550,000 subscribers by Wednesday afternoon. There is one important caveat: the account technically dates back to 2010 and already had roughly 121,000 subscribers before James woke it back up, meaning the golf launch added over 430,000 subscribers in a matter of days.
For comparison, longtime YouTube golfer Micah Morris sits around 540,000 subscribers after seven years and more than 460 videos. Peter Finch has roughly 834,000 after more than 1,700 uploads, while Bryan Bros Golf has about 939,000 subscribers after 12 years and nearly 550 videos.
LeBron basically walked into the clubhouse, uploaded one video, and immediately started asking who was next on the leaderboard.
Golf’s Biggest Channels Are Still Ahead Of Him
James has some distance to cover before he actually reaches the kings of YouTube golf.
Bob Does Sports has about 1.5 million subscribers. Grant Horvat has roughly 1.79 million. Good Good sits around 2.1 million, Bryson DeChambeau has 2.83 million, and longtime golf creator Rick Shiels leads that group with more than 3 million.
Those are enormous channels.
They also did not add roughly 400,000 subscribers because they uploaded one round with Channing Frye.
James’ ability to instantly manufacture an audience should not exactly be shocking. He has more than 150 million Instagram followers, and his April appearance with Bob Does Sports became that channel’s most-watched video of 2026 with 3.7 million views.
The funniest part is how recently all of this started.
James only seriously picked up golf last year. By September 2025, he told GQ he had barely played enough rounds to establish a handicap and guessed he was somewhere around a 20 to 25. By this spring, his golf obsession was less than a year old and he was already consuming enough YouTube content to know the Bob Does Sports crew by name.
Now he has his own channel.
At this growth rate, LeBron may need to spend less time worrying about breaking 90 and more time worrying about Rick Shiels looking over his shoulder.
Apparently, 24 NBA seasons were not enough content.