Bryson DeChambeau just helped validate John Daly II's $1.25M Golf NIL Valuation

by Shon Crewe

May 13, 2026

Bryson DeChambeau is one of the few big names talking openly about a different kind of backup plan. If LIV Golf doesn’t make it, he's ready to treat YouTube as his path forward. 

His deal with LIV runs through the end of the season, but he's already talking publicly about growing his channel, playing in the majors, and showing up where the audience follows him, whether or not a tour schedule is waiting on the other side.

That shift matters for more than DeChambeau’s next move. It also helps validate why John Daly II sits on a $1.25 million Golf NIL Valuation—and why that number has less to do with his last name and raw follower count than most people think. 

John Daly II at the 2024 PNC Championship, where the father-son pairing has already become must-watch TV | Debby Wong/Zuma Press

What DeChambeau is putting into words is very close to what Daly has already been proving on camera, and what his Golf NIL Valuation has been tracking, with an eye on the next 12 months.

With roughly 2.7 million subscribers and more than 250 videos, DeChambeau already has a well-established YouTube presence, sitting alongside creators like Good Good, Grant Horvat, and Rick Shiels, who’ve shown how quickly a committed audience can translate into a real business. Even channels with much smaller audiences have turned that kind of reach into meaningful income and visibility through ad revenue, sponsorships, and YouTube payouts.

Type “John Daly II” into YouTube, and the case for Daly starts to write itself.

As a frequent guest on creator channels, his videos pull anywhere from a few hundred thousand to millions of views, typically toward the top of that channel's range. The uploads are designed to have replay value, built around personalities and friendly rivalries, with the camera on the same small group of players from start to finish. For the Clearwater, Florida, native and Arkansas senior, it's a natural fit.

Nearly 270,000 Instagram followers already give Daly direct access to fans, making him one of the most-followed names in college golf, including roughly 80,000 that have come on board over the past year, with zero effort on his part. The real upside shows up when that audience follows him into longer form content.

Past and present NIL partners such as TaylorMade, Cobalt Golf, JLab, and Hooters have already seen what that mix of presence and personality can do when their branding is on his apparel or feed.

Next week, the world No. 54 will lead No. 6-ranked Arkansas into the program’s first top seed at NCAA Regionals in Corvallis, giving him another stage this month to layer competitive context on top of his media footprint. In March, that footprint already stretched to the professional ranks when he made his PGA TOUR debut at the Puerto Rico Open, finishing T37 after briefly sharing the lead on Saturday.

It is not hard to imagine what comes next if he leans in, especially if his dad is willing to partner on the ride.

Building on what’s already worked for the father-son duo at the PNC Championship, a Daly-and-Daly run of matches against other athletes, celebrities, or creators across a dozen courses would be ready-made YouTube inventory—with room for brands to show up as apparel partners, presenting sponsors, or even on the RV (or private jet) that gets them there.

Daly absolutely has the potential to keep pushing his game on bigger stages. He also has a different kind of path in front of him, with the chance to be his own boss, build the kind of content audiences come back to, and give brands a natural place to show up in the creator landscape that DeChambeau is now openly endorsing.