Reverse sandbagging

[mashnut]

Originally Posted by scarpfish

Because, you're an amateur, and amateurs receiving unequal prizes based on their performance flies in the face of what amateurism means.

Everything about our competitive setup goes against the traditional definitions of amateur and professional. We have almost no true professionals making a living off playing the game. Then again, everyone who plays competitively is playing for some kind of payout which isn't really an amateur thing.

That said, you're more than welcome to run trophy only tournaments, but I doubt you'd get much of a turnout. TDs don't run events the way they do because they have to, they do it because that's what most players seem to want.

[scarpfish]

Originally Posted by mashnut

Everything about our competitive setup goes against the traditional definitions of amateur and professional. We have almost no true professionals making a living off playing the game. Then again, everyone who plays competitively is playing for some kind of payout which isn't really an amateur thing.

That said, you're more than welcome to run trophy only tournaments, but I doubt you'd get much of a turnout. TDs don't run events the way they do because they have to, they do it because that's what most players seem to want.

One of the biggest tournament vendors in this country (and sponsor of this site) operates in my back yard, so I'm quite familiar with the "customer is always right" philosophy behind Am payout, and would probably kneel to it myself if I ever run an event one day.

That being said, I think maintaining the status quo contributes to unnecessarily high entry fees, and keeps out a lot of would be tournament players who might bite if said fees were half of what they currently are. As long as we keep doing what we've always done, we are not likely to get those folks on board, and we are going to always get what we've always gotten.

[DatRedDude]

Imo most people want to see an R.O.I. if they do place. I won an ice bowl which is for charity so to get anything was a bonus. But paying 25$ to play a tourney and winning and only getting a cheap trophy would turn me away. Maybe thats the wrong mentality and i am part of the problem.

[Scoot_er]

Originally Posted by DatRedDude

Imo most people want to see an R.O.I. if they do place. I won an ice bowl which is for charity so to get anything was a bonus. But paying 25$ to play a tourney and winning and only getting a cheap trophy would turn me away. Maybe thats the wrong mentality and i am part of the problem.

How about $25 and you get to pick a disc??....trophies to the top 3?

PDGA is taking money out....so you couldn't really do $20 and a good disc....


$35 and pick 2 discs???

[DatRedDude]

Originally Posted by Scoot_er

How about $25 and you get to pick a disc??....trophies to the top 3?

PDGA is taking money out....so you couldn't really do $20 and a good disc....


$35 and pick 2 discs???

I am totally fine with 1 disc, or a voucher to the club pro shop. Should be premium plastic. But i dont think as ams you should get any $ back. But trophies alone do nothing for me.

Just my. 02¢

[GoldenThrower]

Originally Posted by DatRedDude

Imo most people want to see an R.O.I. if they do place. I won an ice bowl which is for charity so to get anything was a bonus. But paying 25$ to play a tourney and winning and only getting a cheap trophy would turn me away. Maybe thats the wrong mentality and i am part of the problem.

I wouldn't go so far as to call you part of the problem, but I might ask you to really put some thought into what you are paying for.

Myself I see it more in line with entertainment value then I do as a R.O.I. Like going to a movie theater to watch a new movie, I pay $10-$15 for my ticket and I expect a good movie to entertain me for a couple of hours. In this case my ROI is hopefully a movie I really enjoyed. Or going to a sporting event and forking over $50 for a ticket. I am there to be part of the atmosphere, not to try and win back some of the money I spent.

So I guess I would consider the small fee of $25 to enter the tournament my cost of admission to be entertained for a day. I get to have someone else do all the work of putting it together, assembling prizes and trophies, maybe even provide a small bite to eat (optional). For that small fee I get to show up with little effort done by me to play in an event with other DG'ers. I like to think I am paying for the experience, for the chance to interact with other fellow players, maybe learn a thing or two and if the planets align in some crazy way, even win, place or show. In that case, I would be thrilled that my $25 got me a full day of fun and if lucky a shiny new trophy too.

Would me getting some small return of $10 - $15 really change the experience I just had? I guess that is up to each individual person, but for me I dont believe it would. Like getting $5.00 for placing 6th wouldn't do a whole lot for me personally. In that case I would rather just donate it back to the TD or Club who took their time to put on the event. I don't see me spending $25 as an investment as much as I do me paying to be entertained.

Just my own personal expectation.

[garublador]

Originally Posted by scarpfish

That being said, I think maintaining the status quo contributes to unnecessarily high entry fees, and keeps out a lot of would be tournament players who might bite if said fees were half of what they currently are. As long as we keep doing what we've always done, we are not likely to get those folks on board, and we are going to always get what we've always gotten.

I think that's one thing that's going on with disc golf.

Here's my experience with organized competition that I posted in another thread:

That's the argument you always hear but I don't buy it. It's a bit obvious that it would either be cheaper or you'd get a better player's pack. It doesn't make sense to just give that extra money that uses to go to prized anywhere else.

If not winning dissuaded people then all of those little kids that played in the same M:TG tournaments and pro-tour qualifiers I did who had no chance of winning wouldn't come back for every single tournament, but strangely enough they did. I played in many tournaments I knew I had no chance of winning. When I played club volleyball in jr high and high school we had no chance of winning prizes (I think I got a tee shirt for winning state) but we spent our own money traveling to tournaments. I played in band in high school and jr. high and there were several years where we won every competition we went to and it only cost me money. We had fund raisers and I even got a part time job to pay for travel expenses. Yet somehow if we don't offer $50 in discs to people who suck a specific amount then people won't be willing to play in tournaments. In college I played several seasons of intramural broom ball, volleyball and Ultimate but never had the chance to win more than a tee shirt. Strangely enough all of these organizations still exist and appear to be doing well despite the idea that they'll fail because amateurs who suck a specific amount (or not at all in some cases) can't win money/prizes.

It's not scientific or anything, but that's my personal experience with organized competition. Most amateurs don't compete for prizes and money, they play for fun. If that weren't true on some level then I wouldn't have had any of the experiences I've had with organized competition.

Heck, look at the popularity of 5K road races. You can drop $20+ to do something that you can do in your basement while watching TV just to get a t-shirt and maybe a trophy with a combined value of $6 and you get a thousand people signed up without too much trouble. Is disc golf so boring compared to running that you have to bribe people to do it?

[DatRedDude]

Goldenthrower^valid points, being new to the tourney scene i just assumed the tourneys put themselves on. Very naive on that. I have learned from this site there is a lot of work involved. It is highly entertaining but can also be a pain depending on who you play with. That is one reason i prefer the am divisions, they take it less seriously in most cases and it is more like a casual round. The pro/advanced in many cases are too serious for my liking. My problem or non problem is my game is progressing and i will have to move up as i woild rather not be labled a bagger.

On a side note can i get my rating without playing in sanctiomed events or joining the PDGA? I am curious as to what it may be and would like to know what division i should b playing as opossed to guessing.

[GoldenThrower]

Originally Posted by DatRedDude

Goldenthrower^valid points, being new to the tourney scene i just assumed the tourneys put themselves on. Very naive on that. I have learned from this site there is a lot of work involved. It is highly entertaining but can also be a pain depending on who you play with. That is one reason i prefer the am divisions, they take it less seriously in most cases and it is more like a casual round. The pro/advanced in many cases are too serious for my liking. My problem or non problem is my game is progressing and i will have to move up as i woild rather not be labled a bagger.

Happy to give an alternate opinion, as I too am just getting involved in the tourney scene after weighing some of the pros and cons. I do a lot of reading here and see some stories of the problems TDs and Tourneys encounter from time to time. Not to mention having my own eyes opened to how much work putting on a tourney can be.

Best of luck to you!

[Casual Squishy]

From how long this whole argument of ams vs pros, cash vs merch, nothing vs everything, (it goes as far back as at least the late 80's from what I remember and not one single thing has changed except Al Gore inventing the internet so people could talk about it all the time) people don't seem to realize that the PDGA was not created just so people could argue about divisions. It was created to give structure to organized events and support the growth of the industry and to give players from all over a standardized set of rules to play by so no matter where they go, the rules are the same.

Simplest solution: (Which will probably make no one happy since it makes too much sense) Drop the whole AM/Pro thing entirely, understand once and for all that "Professional Disc Golfer" does not mean someone who playes disc golf for a living it means people who play disc golf in a professional and competitve way. Change the divisions to Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, Division 4 etc. and make qualifications purely ratings based. You could simply make all division play for cash (let's face it, this is what DG has always been for league play for ams, merch IS cash for tournaments or at least has cash value) or leave it as it is now, and "Division 1" would be the cash division and the rest continue with merchandise.

The whole cash vs merch system was created for alot of different reasons and has its pros and cons. In a perfect world we'd all want to play "trophy only" yet in a perfect world there would be billions of sponsership dollars begging to be given out too and players would be more easily to play for a living etc.
There's no real reason for it to go (a whopping 500$ in merch profit off the am divisions in this day and age once it's split among the pro field really isn't going to make or break the game or the players in either direction) but with disc manufacturers doing enough to promote themselves these days there's no real reason for it to stay either. (although it would ruin player's packs if all divisions played for cash and people like having souvenier discs.. but then again half the time it's a disc they don't use and gets given away.)
Sponsership money would go to the highest division/s only, and that would be the incentive to keep playing better and better.
more tourneys would become ratings qualified based.


I'm sure this will make no one happy But that's what we already are, Division 1, 2, 3, 4, it just happens to be called pro, am1, am2, am3. Not one bit of difference other then titles. And the whole cash vs merch thing.

Food for thought.