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Pro Shop Studios will be led by industry veteran Mark Olsen, and will produce a reboot of the PGA Tour’s ‘Skins Game’ event, as well as a third season of Netflix’s ‘Full Swing.’
By Alex Weprin
Media & Business Writer
Pro Shop is taking a big swing, launching a new studios division as the golf-focused media and commerce company pushes further into entertainment.
The company is launching Pro Shop Studios, an entertainment studio that will see Pro Shop ramp up its scripted and unscripted programming. Pro Shop co-founder Mark Olsen will lead the studio, which has already lined up a number of projects.
Those projects include a reboot of PGA Tour event The Skins Game, the upcoming third season of the Netflix docuseries Full Swing, and a co-producer role on the Adam Sandler Netflix film Happy Gilmore 2.
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“We always envisioned this idea of building out a studio that really focuses on that intersection of golf and culture as part of the wider Pro Shop mission, and then kind of trading on our Hollywood entertainment deal flow,” says Pro Shop co-founder Chad Mumm, adding that connecting golf and the PGA Tour to the larger entertainment community was the vision, with the Happy Gilmore 2 opportunity being “exactly what we were built to do.”
“Happy Madison reached out to us about helping to get a bunch of golfers to come to the movie and make the golf a lot more authentic,” he added. “I think Adam [Sandler’s] experience doing [his 2022 basketball film] Hustle and really making basketball authentic in that movie, he wanted to bring some of that energy to Happy Gilmore. Obviously it’s tonally very different, but they wanted the golf to feel really real, and they wanted a lot of present day and historical pro golfers to come and make cameos in the film. So they brought us on board to both help produce the golf but also make sure that they could get the golfers to show up.”
The decision to launch a dedicated studio came up after it became clear that the PGA Tour and golf in general was in a position to expand its reach through programming and content outside of its tournaments.
“It just became clear that there were others — I’ve used the metaphor too much — but swings to be taken there, and like and in almost all of our things, it’s pushing them out of their comfort zone by design, like with The Creator Classic, or bringing Skins Game back,” Olsen says.
Last week the PGA Tour announced that it would expand its Creator Classic to a series of competitions, after testing out a single event last year. The event sees golf YouTubers compete on the same courses that the pros play. Pro Shop produced the initial event and will produce the series this year.
Olsen said that opportunities in the “real world” and the ability to create new “franchises” represent some of the company’s biggest opportunities.
And Mumm adds that, with stars like Steph Curry and Jason Bateman often talking about their love of golf, the opportunity to work with big names is a ripe area for the company.
“We’re looking at projects and developing some things with really great talent. Obviously, tons of celebrities have always played golf, but now they’re doing on Instagram,” Mumm says. “So it feels like golf is kind of having its cultural moment. I think there will be more scripted opportunities, and then, as Mark was saying, there’s the big map for TV events.”
Pro Shop launched last year with $20 million in funding, and with Powerhouse Capital and the PGA Tour among its investors. Vox Media veterans Chad Mumm and Olsen were co-founders, alongside Joe Purzycki from Puck and David Miller from the PGA Tour.
Pro Shop also said Wednesday that it had brought on KP Anderson, the former showrunner of E!’s The Soup, to serve as an executive producer across projects, and that Kiley Homan is joining as manager of development and studio operations, while Vera Shouse and Rich Patten take on roles as VP of production finance and head of post-production.
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