For fans of YouTube golf, there has really only been one notable story over the last few days, with the news that Rick Shiels has signed with LIV Golf ahead of the 2025 season.
After weeks of speculation, it was confirmed last week that Rick Shiels has joined LIV Golf as an ambassador. Unsurprisingly, the news saw Shiels come in for a lot of criticism.
Shiels has been critical of LIV Golf for various reasons over the years. Meanwhile, there continues to be very legitimate reasons to dislike LIV and the PIF. Of course, the arrival of LIV led to a split at the highest level of the game which remains to this day.
And it seems that plenty of his subscribers have also voiced their displeasure with Shiels’ decision to link up with LIV.
Rick Shiels reacts to losing subscribers since announcing deal with LIV Golf
Ahead of the announcement, Shiels had 2.93 million subscribers on his main YouTube channel. However, at the time of writing, that number has dropped by 20,000. And he has now spoken about the reaction to the decision on his podcast in which he spoke in depth about the reasoning behind signing with LIV.
Shiels would admit that it did sting to see the backlash.
“I want to address the elephant in the room. We have lost subscribers. Over the weekend, we have lost subscribers. Whether they have unsubscribed because of certain reasons or they’re thinking they don’t agree with this, whatever it may be. I respect that. You don’t have to watch. We never forced you. I don’t want to see people to leave obviously, we have built this channel to nearly three million subscribers. But what we want to be able to do is come back and it’s almost spurred us to make even better content. Because the content wins. If you make great content viewers are going to watch and love it. That is our ambition and golf for this year. And hopefully by the end of this year those viewers might go Rick was spot on there, the content is brilliant and I am subscribing again,” he said.
“It hurts, yeah. But I was trying to put themselves in my shoes, and I try, every decision throughout this whole process I have tried to think about it from a fans’ perspective. I don’t even mind sharing this, our announcement video was going to be slightly different. I wanted to add value straight away. We were going to add the Brooks and Rahm video at the same time as the announcement video, to add instant value. There were reasons we couldn’t do that. But I wanted to add value to the viewer straight away,” he added.
“Instead of saying we are going to do this and this. There you go, we have done it. There’s the proof.
But going back to the idea of thinking if I had been a Rick Shiels fan for a long time, I understand there might be some worries and concerns. And they might think Rick said he was never going to sign with a manufacturer or a brand. That’s still true. I have said that in the past, I am not going to sign for a manufacturer or a brand for golf equipment. This isn’t that. It’s a gateway and opportunity to create incredible content.”
Many are clearly hurt by Shiels’ decision to join LIV Golf
There are inevitably going to be a variety of reasons why 20,000 people have unsubscribed following the news of his partnership with LIV Golf. Some clearly feel hurt that he would get involved with the controversial league.
Ultimately, those golfers who have gone to LIV and immediately admitted that the money was the crucial factor have received a lot more respect than those who have spoken about growing the game. Shiels himself said it was nonsense when Jon Rahm claimed he was joining LIV to grow the game in 2023.
LIV is here to stay, whether you like it or not. And Shiels will probably be even more successful and make a lot of great content as part of the partnership.
But clearly, this decision is much more significant than how entertaining his YouTube channel proves to be for many.
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