Dude Perfect has gained a massive online following for their viral trick-shot videos that started in 2009 when they were college students at Texas A&M. Nearly 20 years later, the group of friends is packing stadiums for live shows and has millions of fans across various social media platforms, namely YouTube.
And now more than every, they’re adamant that their mission goes much further than just entertaining people.
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They just wrapped up their Squad Games Tour, which featured immersive arena-floor battle zones, trick-shot challenges, and special guest competitors. They performed for more than 180,000 fans in 22 cities.
They also closed out their shows this summer with songs of praise and worship. Some of the biggest names in Christian music — such as Brandon Lake, Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes, Jeremy Camp, Cory Asbury and Chris Brown from Elevation Worship — joined the guys on stage. Dude Perfect’s Tyler Toney even joined in on guitar and vocals, and at least one night led worship by himself.
Christian athletes like Tim Tebow, Ben Roethlisberger and Coach RAC from the Savannah Bananas were among the guest competitors.
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This new worship element further emphasizes DP’s mission to use the platform they’ve been given — 62.5 million subscribers on YouTube, 19.1 million on TikTok, and 13.1 million on Instagram, for example — to glorify God. “There’s more to Dude Perfect than just having fun,” their website reads. “We’re about giving back, spreading joy, and glorifying Jesus Christ.”
The worship set was in addition to the presentation of the Gospel message at the end of their shows, which they began trying in 2021.
“While all those things (fame and accomplishments) are great and good things can come with them,” Toney told the crowd this summer in Cincinnati, “none of those things in any amount compare to the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.”
It was in 2020 that Toney felt God calling him and the guys — Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones and twins Cory and Coby Cotton along with Toney — to be more intentional about sharing their faith.
“We’ve always tried to bring faith into it,” Hilbert told Sports Spectrum in 2023. “We’ve never really known how, because at the end of the day, it is polarizing and we’ve always tried to figure out a way to say it in the best way to put Christ first. And then Tyler was like, ‘Man, I really feel like Christ has been putting on my heart … to share the Gospel with the [audiences on tour].’ We were like, ‘Man, it sounds awesome.’ I think we were all just nervous, like how it was going to go.”
After their first live tour in 2019 was a hit, they had to cancel the 2020 tour due to the COVID pandemic. Their Fall 2021 tour was the first time a mini-sermon was part of the show. The biggest question was where in the show to do it.
“I didn’t want people to feel like they were tricked into coming to something and then we were going to smack them on the head with the Bible and be like, ‘I got you,'” Toney told Sports Spectrum.
They decided that they would do the show as everyone expected, and then at the end extend an open invitation for people to stick around to hear them share about “what’s most important in our lives and why we feel like we’ve got this platform in the first place.”
The first night, they left the stage to grab a drink of water and reset. They were stunned to see how many people had stuck around.
“I went out there and just blacked out,” Toney said. “I couldn’t even tell you what I said, but obviously the Holy Spirit intervened.”
Toney remembers walking off the stage after sharing the Gospel for the first time. He broke down crying because he was overcome with emotion.
“It was the first time when I felt like God was like, ‘This is what I want you to do with this platform,'” he said. “‘This is why I have given the five of you guys this platform. This is why so many kids look up to you, is to be able to share this with them.'”
Years later, that message is still being shared, now with a worship experience as well.
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All five of the members were raised in Christian homes. Toney and Hilbert went to high school together in Prosper, Texas, before heading to Texas A&M. It was there that they met Jones and the Cottons. Their first video was a grainy compilation of the guys making various trick shots into a portable basketball goal.
That video now has nearly 46 million views and helped launch them into online stardom. Now they film the majority of their videos out of a customized 80,000 square foot warehouse in Frisco, Texas, that’s fit with a basketball court, a 45-yard football field, a custom mini-golf course and much more.
Toney now looks back and sees how God’s hand has been over each of the guys, even before they met in college.
“It’s really cool to see this platform is given to us for more than just our own success,” Toney said in “The NEW World’s Highest Basketball Shot” video. “The amount of control that we have over things — over Dude Perfect, over the world, over our circumstances — is very little. But whatever God blesses us with, and whatever successes that we do have, we’re going to continue to point back to Him and give Him the glory for it. And that’s the way that we’re going to continue to look at it as long as Dude Perfect is a thing.”
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