Golden State Warriors superstar Kevin Durant is making waves in one of the world’s biggest technology hubs, and as the NBA Finals MVP’s off the court portfolio grows, his YouTube channel could become pivotal for both him and his fans.
Durant’s official YouTube channel launched five months ago and features an array of behind-the-scenes video content and livestreams. Since welcoming fans to follow him off the court in his first official channel post on April 14, the eight-time All-Star has gotten more than 380,000 people to subscribe to his channel. There are currently 29 videos varying in length. Durant’s YouTube channel features everything from an off day in Salt Lake City, Utah during the playoffs to the Warriors championship parade to his most recent basketball-focused trip to India.
“That kind of happened out of nowhere, that YouTube thing,” Durant said in an interview with The Athletic. “But it’s really taken off. I like it. It’s different. I really like communicating with the fans on there. I like the content. It’s dope.”
Durant no longer is on Instagram and when he tweets, it is now mostly links to his YouTube videos.
“I just wanted another space where I could create stuff that I liked and show people a different side of NBA players and me as a person,” Durant continued. “I knew as a kid I always wanted to see a quick soundbite from my favorite players and know what they were doing outside of the court. I wanted to provide that. Then it came out of nowhere.”
“I went to a meeting with YouTube and I thought they were just going to help me run my page. But it just kind of took off from there, where I got almost half a million subscribers in a couple months by dropping movies on there and some other stuff.”
This just in: @KDTrey5 just made the Guinness World Record for the largest basketball lesson on his visit to India https://t.co/lCIRZuHI5b
pic.twitter.com/TNg55obLAv
— YouTube Creators (@YTCreators) August 4, 2017
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The genesis for Durant’s YouTube collaboration could very well have started when he spoke to a capacity crowd at the pioneering online video company’s offices in January for an employees-only question and answer event.
“I’m sure you guys know, you want to look at one quick video and it turns into four or five hours,” Durant told the New York Times. “It’s pretty dangerous, that app.”
Durant’s most popular YouTube channel video, aside from the intro video, is the “Still KD: Through the Noise” documentary. The 35-minute long film — a nod to his jersey number — follows Durant’s journey from the time he decided to join Golden State last summer until the Warriors were crowed NBA champions in June.
San Francisco-based filmmaker Brandon Loper directed the film that Durant’s agent and business partner Rich Kleiman was produced with the help of Nike Basketball. Since the film debuted on July 11, the documentary has been watched over 1 million times. But the film is not the NBA star’s first foray into documentaries. HBO’s hour-plus long “The Offseason: Kevin Durant” debuted at the start of the 2014-15 NBA season.
Durant’s successful YouTube channel and the well-produced videos might just be the start of Durant and Kleiman’s off the court content creation ventures with The Durant Company and its Thirty Five Media division.