Frisco-Based Dude Perfect—five former Texas A&M students whose “trick shot” videos have gained more than 100 million fans on YouTube—just pulled off another trick by hiring an NBA exec as the brand’s first-ever CEO.
Andrew Yaffe had been EVP and head of social, digital, and original content at the NBA. Dude Perfect said its goal for Yaffe’s is to take its brand beyond traditional channels and to solidify Dude Perfect “as a 21st century media company.”
[Image: Dude Perfect]
The move comes six months after Dude Perfect scored a $100M-plus investment from New York’s Highmount Capital. At the time, Dude Perfect’s Coby Cotton said that through the partnership, “We hope to pour gas on the fire and take the Dude Perfect fun that families have witnessed on screens these past 15 years and turn it into real-life products and memory-making experiences they can actually touch and feel for themselves.”
Yaffe seems ready to fan the flames of that fire even further.
“Dude Perfect has built an amazing following and is leading the charge in delivering its audience great content, live events, and expanding the business even further,” the new CEO said in a statement, “and I’m incredibly proud to lead the team into this exciting new chapter.”
Following up on LinkedIn, Yaffe added: “What they’ve built over the last 15 years is an unbelievable platform and a personal connection to a massive audience, and I’m so honored to help build on that foundation as one of the biggest creators of family entertainment.”
“We’ll be looking for great partners and to bring in top talent in partnerships, content and operations who want to have some fun, so please stay tuned,” he added.
Yaffe joined the NBA in 2016. Prior to that, he had worked at consulting firm McKinsey & Co. He holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Duke University.
Dude Perfect has had a busy year
Hiring Yaffe and partnering with Highmount Capital are just the latest in a series of activations for the creator group, including a retail store, new spaces for podcasts and gaming, a multi-city international tour, the Dude Perfect streaming app, and the ESPN “30 for 30: documentary “Dude Perfect: A Very Long Shot,” which had a screening in April at the Dallas International Film Festival.
Rendering of Dude Perfect’s planned theme park and HQ. [Image: Overland]
The brand’s biggest play may be still to come. Dude Perfect announced in 2022 that it had teamed up with San Antonio architecture firm Overland Partners to develop a 10-acre headquarters and theme park featuring a 330-foot tall “Impossible Shot” tower. Dubbed “Dude Perfect World” and still in the planing stages, it’s slated to cost as much as $100 million to build.
In the meantime, Dude Perfect moved into a new $3 million HQ in Jerry Jones’ Star Business Park in Frisco earlier this year.
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R E A D N E X T
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The March 27-28 livestreamed event will feature Samsung's #TeamGalaxy members, the dudes from Dude Perfect, keynote speaker MrBeast, and speakers from such top creator platforms as Meta, Reddit, Rolling Stone, Snap, and Spotter.
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Dude Perfect is about to move into a new stepping stone: a $3 million new HQ in Jerry Jones' Star Business Park in Frisco, leaving behind their Frisco HQ 10 minutes to the south, where they've shot videos for the last seven years.
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News of the partnership with Highmount Capital comes as Dude Perfect prepares to move into a $3 million new HQ in Jerry Jones’ Star Business Park in Frisco—and as they pursue their dream of building a theme park and HQ featuring a 330-foot tall “Impossible Shot” tower.
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The 18th Dallas International Film Festival opens today with a Majestic Theatre screening of "Dude Perfect: A Very Long Shot" from ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary series. Running through May 2 and featuring more than 100 films, the festival includes an array of titles from local filmmakers, producers, distributors, and investors.
