If you were clutching your pearls about Topgolf coming to town, avert your eyes.
According to an email obtained by LEO Weekly, Mayor Craig Greenberg wants Louisville to be the home of Dude Perfect World, a proposed $100 million theme park envisioned by the creators of one of YouTube’s most subscribed-to channels, Dude Perfect.
With 58 million subscribers and more than 15 billion views, the five dudes of Dude Perfect initially built their YouTube brand around performing zany, impossible-feeling “trick shots” — evolving from behind-the-back basketball shots to things like tossing a bag of garbage at a distant trashcan, throwing multiple pieces of bread into a toaster and making hand-thrown styrofoam gliders perform aerial acrobatics.
Last year, Dude Perfect announced they were seeking a home for Dude Perfect World, a sports-inspired theme park that would give their fans the opportunity to recreate some of their antics by throwing baseballs through moving cars, playing 100-pin bowling, smashing golf balls towards glass panes and trying to hit a basketball net on the ground from the building’s arching 330-foot-tall tower.
According to an email obtained under Kentucky’s open records law, within a week of taking office last month, Greenberg wanted an aide to send Dude Perfect an email from him inviting them to set up shop in the Derby City.
“Hi! I am the newly elected mayor of Louisville, Kentucky…a centrally located city of 800,000 people and home of the Kentucky Derby, Muhammad Ali, Bourbon, Kentucky Fried Chicken, UPS World Port and so much more,” Greenberg wrote in a Jan. 7 draft letter, five days after being sworn in as mayor. “I am writing because Louisville would also be the perfect home for Dude Perfect World…let’s make it happen.”
The mayor added that Louisville Metro Government “owns several parcels of property that would be great locations” for the theme park, that Kentucky offers “powerful incentives for projects such as this” and that he was “confident” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear would back the project.
Greenberg, who comes from a business background as the former CEO of 21c Museum Hotels, also passed along his personal cell phone number, inviting the Dude Perfect team to call him and discuss the proposal further.
While documents provided to LEO under Kentucky’s open records law included an email from Greenberg asking a staffer to forward his message to Dude Perfect, they did not include a copy of an email sent to Dude Perfect. Contacted by LEO, Greenberg spokesperson Kevin Trager said the email had accidentally not been sent to Dude Perfect, but that the city has “every intention” of sending it. He added that the idea to reach out to the Dude Perfect came from Greenberg’s oldest son, Daniel, who is in college.
Though Greenberg’s pitch may be compelling, Louisville might have some competition; In a YouTube video in December, Dude Perfect said “hundreds of cities” have already expressed interest in the park.
To hear the dudes of Dude Perfect describe Dude Perfect World in their own words, see the video below.
