The 2026 Internet Invitational has 44.3 million YouTube views across its six episodes. That’s up from 34 million for the 2025 series as of Saturday, Nov. 14.
Episode 1 leads with 12.6 million views. The five-hour premiere on the Fore Play Golf channel is up 31% from the 2025 opener.
The finale premiered Thursday at 1 p.m. ET, and 252,000 people were watching live. “Quarter million people watching @Internetinvite live at 1pm on a Thursday. Not too shabby,” Dave Portnoy posted.
Internet Invitational Views by Episode
| Episode | Date | Channel | Length | 2026 Views | 2025 Views |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode 1 | Oct. 26 | Fore Play Golf | 5:04:01 | 12.6M | 9.63M |
| Episode 2 | Oct. 29 | Bob Does Sports | 4:19:19 | 8.76M | 6.61M |
| Episode 3 | Nov. 2 | Fore Play Golf | 3:49:05 | 7.68M | 4.9M |
| Episode 4 | Nov. 5 | Bob Does Sports | 4:02:35 | 7.12M | 4.19M |
| Episode 5 | Nov. 9 | Fore Play Golf | 2:11:22 | 4.59M | 3.85M |
| Episode 6 | Nov. 12 | Bob Does Sports | 2:27:33 | 3.55M | 4.84M |
The six 2026 episodes run almost 22 hours combined. Episodes 1 through 4 each passed 7 million views. Episode 4, where Team Bryan was eliminated, had the biggest gain over its 2025 counterpart at 70%.
How Many People Watched the Internet Invitational Finale?
The finale has 3.55 million views on the Bob Does Sports channel. It’s the only 2026 episode behind its 2025 counterpart, which sits at 4.84 million.
The 2026 finale had been on YouTube for two days when the count was taken. The 2025 series ran six episodes over a three-week span in October and November 2025.
Fat Perez, Riggs and Bobby Ray won the 18-hole alternate-shot final 5&3 at Payne’s Valley. Each took home $1.33 million from the $4 million purse.
Internet Invitational 2026 vs. 2025
Portnoy talked up the numbers on a podcast after the first two episodes. “The only stock up that I can have right now is the Internet Invitational. Year two of the Internet Invitational, currently sitting at, Episodes 1 and 2, combined 16 million views on YouTube, an outrageous number.”
The first edition was a hit too. In its Shorty Awards entry, the 2025 series is credited with over 450 million impressions, with individual episodes generating 2.6M-6.3M+ views with 43+ minute average view durations.
The 2026 field grew to 64 players from 48 in 2025, and the purse went from $1 million to $4 million.
RELATED: Who Is Fat Perez? Real Name, Bob Does Sports Star and 2026 Internet Invitational Champion
Inside the Internet Invitational Production
GOLF.com reported that Barstool hired more than 100 people just to help produce the 2026 series. They used 82 different cameras to capture all the footage, which came to more than 28 TB, and it took five days just to sync the audio to the video.
Four different editing teams were working simultaneously to get the footage ready for upload to YouTube. “It’s probably the hardest project we have to edit with all the cameras, all the people,” Portnoy said.
Dave Portnoy’s Final Thoughts on the Internet Invitational
Portnoy posted his final thoughts on X on Friday, a day after the finale aired. He went after Salim for showing up drunk to the $4 million match.
“It’s just wildly disrespectful in my view to everybody involved in the tournament, everybody who played in the tournament, everybody who produced the tournament, everybody who watched the tournament,” Portnoy said. He also said Salim won’t play in 2027.
