Update (12/5/23): Media Matters found that the viral prank videos listed in this piece that were made by other creators and that OutKick reposted on its YouTube channel are no longer available. All of the links to the non-OutKick content — as well as 2 of the 10 original OutKick YouTube Shorts listed in the piece — now redirect to the YouTube error message noting, “This video isn’t available anymore.” 

OutKick, a Fox Corp.-owned conservative sports news network that specializes in racist and transphobic sports commentary, saw a dramatic increase in subscriptions and viewership on its YouTube channel within a month. That spike coincided with the outlet repeatedly posting YouTube Shorts that contained viral prank videos from across the internet.

Between April 6 and May 5, OutKick’s YouTube channel grew more than 200%, adding nearly half a million new subscribers — from roughly 263,000 to 749,000. This growth is partly a result of the channel earning tens of millions of views on Shorts — YouTube’s short video feature that competes with TikTok and has boasted over 50 billion daily views and 1.5 billion logged-in users per month. (Musicians and other influencers have notably claimed dramatic increases in their subscriber bases since they began posting Shorts.)

OutKick founder Clay Travis, a Fox News regular who traffics in COVID-19 misinformation and other right-wing conspiracy theories and recently used a mass shooting as an excuse to push his transphobic agenda, has attributed the growth to audiences’ appetite for anti-woke sports content. On May 8, Travis boasted that OutKick’s YouTube channel had added hundreds of thousands of subscribers and claimed that it was because OutKick is “the only sports-related outlet that is even on the side of, at a minimum here, two out of every three people in America agree with me” that trans athletes should be banned from participating in competition. (That statistic was drawn from a misleading Washington Post report that claimed “most Americans” agree with the GOP’s anti-trans agenda, even though the poll actually found that large majorities support legislation prohibiting discrimination against transgender people.)

An analysis of OutKick’s YouTube activity tells a different story. While its YouTube channel has grown considerably since Fox purchased the company, OutKick’s subscriptions and views skyrocketed in April. In late March, the channel began posting YouTube Shorts that contained clips from power-lifting internet personality Anatoly, who surprises gym-goers by lifting heavy weights while in disguise. These Shorts have racked up tens of millions of views and likes, vastly outperforming OutKick’s original content.

That strategy echoes that of other right-wing outlets that have used apolitical viral videos to create a subscriber base upon which they can push right-wing lies and conspiracy theories. Like rival algorithm-driven, short-video platform TikTok, YouTube Shorts has become a vector for hate speech, conspiracy theories, and misinformation — and while it’s unclear exactly how many subscribers OutKick has farmed using viral prank videos, those subscribers can now be flooded with anti-trans rhetoric, COVID-19 misinformation, and culture war outrage.

OutKick has earned tens of millions of views by reposting viral sports prank videos on YouTube Shorts

Media Matters reviewed OutKick’s YouTube Shorts between January 1 and May 18 and found that content from other creators drew nearly 12 times as many views as OutKick’s original content. During this time frame, the top 10 most-viewed Shorts with reposted content have been viewed nearly 226 million times and earned nearly 9.6 million likes, while the top 10 most-viewed Shorts featuring OutKick’s original content earned more than 19.2 million views and more than 820,000 likes.

OutKick’s most-viewed and most-liked Shorts video is a clip from Anatoly in which the powerlifter poses as a janitor who surprises unsuspecting, secretly recorded gym-goers by lifting heavy weights with little effort. The Shorts video has been viewed over 60 million times and garnered 2.8 million likes.

OutKick’s original content includes the channel’s most-viewed and most-liked Shorts video that was posted this year — a clip featuring former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, who advocates for the exclusion of trans women from athletics. In the video, Gaines suggested that her competitor Lia Thomas had been awarded a trophy in a tie because Thomas was transgender, adding, “That’s truthfully when I was done waiting for someone else to stick up for” cis athletes. The video has been viewed more than 4 million times and earned more than 200,000 likes.

OutKick also posts longer video clips from shows related to the channel and its founder, but that content does not get the same level of engagement as the channel’s Shorts. OutKick’s most-viewed non-Shorts video is an August 2021 radio interview of “COVID contrarian” Alex Berenson on Premiere Network’s The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. The video has been viewed over 900,000 thousand times and has over 30,000 likes.

Hundreds of thousands new subscribers will be fed virulent racism, COVID misinformation, and anti-trans propaganda

OutKick’s original content focuses heavily on promoting the right-wing grievance politics of its parent company, and Travis regularly echoes the same culture war narratives espoused on Fox News. Content promoting smears against trans people alongside COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation is also frequently posted on OutKick’s YouTube channel. 

OutKick’s channel includes videos of Travis and his colleagues regularly attacking the transgender community, specifically mocking and decrying the existence of trans athletes. 

• On April 3, Travis complained that trans women are “fake women.” He stated “They aren't women. They're pretending to be women. It should be offensive to women that a dude could become a woman.”
• Gaines has appeared in several other OutKick Shorts bashing transgender athletes. One claimed that “transgender men in women’s sports are ruining peoples lives,” while another criticized athletes including tennis legend Billie Jean King and soccer star Megan Rapinoe for “actively working to undermine their fight” for gender equality by supporting trans rights. 
• On May 4, Tomi Lahren is Fearless host Tomi Lahren said that women’s sports had become “like a retirement for failed male athletes. They can go play women’s sports now.”

Travis is a prolific spreader of COVID-19 misinformation, which has also been posted on OutKick’s YouTube channel — seemingly violating the platform’s terms of service. 

• On March 30, Travis dubiously claimed, “There is data to reflect that there is a risk that is more substantial in some people from the COVID shot than there is actually from any benefits at all from the COVID shot. I’ve been saying this for a long time.” Travis did not cite the data.
• On April 5, Travis claimed the vaccine booster “is effectively worthless” because “it lasts for basically no time and provides limited, if any, protection.”