Kevin Durant Partners With YouTube For Original Sports Content

Source: Stacy Revere / Getty

YouTube is continuing to make its way into the content creation space and it just enlisted the help of Kevin Durant.

The NBA champion signed a deal with YouTube to create original sports content centered around Durant and other professional athletes. Alongside his business partner Rich Kleinman, Durant has been exposed to California’s tech-inclined start-up culture since moving from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Golden State Warriors.

“Kevin always wanted to produce original content and wanted to produce shows, but we didn’t realize what direction it would take until then,” Kleiman told Tech Crunch.

The good thing about teaming up with Durant is that building content around his personality isn’t tough because his YouTube account already boasts more than 500,000 followers and he updates the page with videos regularly. He’s even got a few Q&A videos, philanthropic videos, a shooting competition with Warrior legend Chris Mullin, and even a series for his hilarious teammate Javale McGee. McGee does his own post-game interview show in the Oracle Arena parking lot with the rest of his teammates.

“Check me out as I live my life both on and off the hardwood. Get a first-hand look at what life is like being KD…” reads the page’s description. The partnership will be signed through Durant’s Thirty Five media company, under the Durant Company umbrella. Durant and Kleiman’s startup has invested in four companies in the past year, which includes a Cali-based dockless bikeshare company, a production company, and a social safety app.

“Outside of the incredible relationship that we’ve developed with the team at YouTube. It’s a huge destination for video content where sports fans — including myself — spend a lot of time, and we really wanted to create content where fans are most likely to find and engage with it,” Durant told TechCrunch.

Durant deciding to build his brand outside of traditional media outlets is becoming the new wave, especially since LeBron James‘ UNINTERRUPTED— which serves as a platform for athletes to speak their minds— got a $15.8 million investment from Warner Bros.

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