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"Grow the sport"

gammaxgoblin

gammaxgoblin

Eagle Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2016
Messages
821
I really don't understand this one. I love disc golf but I also love what it is....right now. To that end I ask you who exactly benefits from growing the sport? I can see how the manufacturers will benefit most of all. I can see how a HANDFUL of ELITE TOURING PROS will benefit. How does grow the sport benefit the average disc golfer? Average casual player?

Is "grow the sport" just a veiled way of saying "pay players more?" I find myself confused by this "movement" and would like to try to understand why people feel this way.
 
I feel like helping to grow the sport can add more to the sport and the world around it. What if it were in high schools? What if more colleges could offer scholarships for playing DG? Teaching this game to youth could possibly help keep them from going off and getting into something stupid. IDK it seems to me like there's a lot of good to growing the sport.
#growthesport
 
The simple answer is that we know how cool it is, while the Muggles struggle and do other, much less-cool things for fun, relaxation, and/or profit.

I sure do understand your feelings, though.

When I try to grow the sport - and I do! - it's usually because someone I already like has expressed interest. BANG! Here's a disc or two, my friend. See you on the course...

The flip side of that is meeting and playing with people who are already into the game, but who shouldn't be allowed near children, schools, or military installations. Or arms depots. :D Those are the ones who I think we'd all prefer play more checkers and Mousetrap, stuff like that.
 
It's a sales tactic. One of the easiest ways to grow revenue is to increase your customer base. So if you "grow the sport" make it more visible, add courses, grow the amount of players and the companies benefit.

Most touring pros are likely to get paid more if their employers are thriving, so of course they want that.

In the short term it means for more crowded, and corroded courses, but if enough are added in the right areas it should take some pressure off.

Right now disc golf is kind of like where cities like Asheville and Austin were a few years ago. It's kind of small, weird and people who don't get it make fun of it, but at the same time it's growing a lot and becoming mainstream.

It's fine for you to like it the way it is, it's this great little corner of the sports world that is hard to explain. But the companies want to grow, so the "grow the sport" thing won't be stopping.
 
gammaxgoblin said:
I really don't understand this one. I love disc golf but I also love what it is....right now. To that end I ask you who exactly benefits from growing the sport? I can see how the manufacturers will benefit most of all. I can see how a HANDFUL of ELITE TOURING PROS will benefit. How does grow the sport benefit the average disc golfer? Average casual player?

Is "grow the sport" just a veiled way of saying "pay players more?" I find myself confused by this "movement" and would like to try to understand why people feel this way.
Click to expand...

More courses is a direct benefit to all players. Hell, even if more people don't pick up the game, at least there will be less people at the other courses. :thmbup::thmbup:
 
gammaxgoblin said:
who exactly benefits from growing the sport?... I find myself confused by this "movement" and would like to try to understand why people feel this way.
Click to expand...

It's a commercial slogan.

Commercialism runs on emotional manipulation. Which is why so many discs are sold when 90 percent of all owned discs could vanish overnight with no perceptible practical impact on play.

Growing the so-called sport is attractive to many who want their hobbies to be seen as legitimate, as well as the growing handful of media persons who want to be seen as legitimate and to make some money. These motivations are relatively harmless ecologically (unlike in some other niche activities which have gone or are going through the same nonsense) but they do involve individual dignity, which is important.

It is well for more people to spend more time playing outside, provided that time is bought from less important or less healthy things. In this sense growth is positive and it is good to share enjoyable things with others. But I will never give a hint of affection or a charitable penny to the commercial, organized, competitive, or political sides of the game.
 
At what point in the past do you wish people had stopped growing the sport?

I've been around a while. I remember when we pretty much had the courses to ourselves---both courses in my state.

And when, if you wanted to play tournaments, you had to drive hours for the half-dozen annual opportunities in my region.

Would anyone wind the clock backwards, watching courses disappear, disc makers and models and plastics vanish, just to have most of the current disc golfers out of the sport (including many friends)?

If not, why the assumption that prior growth has been good, but future growth would be bad? What makes this the magic point?
 
gammaxgoblin said:
Is "grow the sport" just a veiled way of saying "pay players more?" I find myself confused by this "movement" and would like to try to understand why people feel this way.
Click to expand...

It's easy to be confused, because the phrase doesn't mean anything---or, not any one thing. The sport is growing in all sorts of ways, and people who say "grow the sport" might be referring to any of them.

To some it might mean building up and bring in more money to the pro tour. To others it might be starting youth programs. Or more courses. None of which tend to hurt those who aren't involved with them.
 
gammaxgoblin said:
I really don't understand this one. I love disc golf but I also love what it is....right now. To that end I ask you who exactly benefits from growing the sport? I can see how the manufacturers will benefit most of all. I can see how a HANDFUL of ELITE TOURING PROS will benefit. How does grow the sport benefit the average disc golfer? Average casual player?

Is "grow the sport" just a veiled way of saying "pay players more?" I find myself confused by this "movement" and would like to try to understand why people feel this way.
Click to expand...
I don't see any confusion in "growing the sport" because I live in Chicago proper where Illinois Institute of Technology has the only course within the city and which is no longer worth visiting because it is a six hole due to campus construction. The other one that is near the city is a par 3 9 hole.
The best courses for play are about 30 minutes outside of the city, and the hands down best is Dellwood which is pretty close to an hours drive from where I live.
i.e. Growing the sport for a city locked person such as myself and where we have the park space in several of our cities historic and massive parks is pretty much a no brainer. Especially where some of them could use the influx of traffic to put eyes on them so as to reduce crime in much the same way that Dellwood did for Lockport.
 
Spring can't arrive fast enough. I think we've checked all the usual off-season boxes now that we have the annual "why do we need to grow the sport?" thread.

For me, growing the sport means more new courses for me to play and, more importantly to my bottom line, more players to play my course and keep me in business.
 
I totally get wanting to share something you like with someone who is interested, I have done that and will continue.
 
Nick Pacific said:
Just the thought that Chris has now taken over first at league while I'm on the mend has my blood boiling.

Come on out for sanctioned singles this spring sometime. We get out to lakeshore and willow frequently.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we missed ya last night. Hope things went well and you are recovering!! New venue was pretty cool.
 
Beyond my own involvement , 'grow the sport' is a matter beyond my control. I mean does anything in life evolve exactly as you wish for it to?

So I don't worry about 'grow the sport'.
 
i can see how you can take a cynical perspective on the phrase but i like DavidSauls' explanation above: it means different things to different people


for me, it's about having more courses to play and more importantly, imo, better courses on better land with better upkeep. more golfers means more viable p2p courses, of which i am a big fan.
 
More courses.
More different places to play.
More different experiences.
Experiencing the joy of seeing people playing the sport for the first time,
Experiencing people seeing a 400' (hell even a 200' drive) for the first time.
Seeing people find the sport and shed weight/stop smoking/get exercise for the first time in years.
Seeing people find the sport and finally become engaged with a sport they can be a part of and not be intimidated to play,
Seeing land that has been a rubbish tip turn into a course people want to come to and play.
Seeing kids sprinting after their discs to pick it up and throw again and again and again.
Watching more discs fly, I'll never get bored of that.
Meeting more and more new people, making more and more new friends.
Knowing I can trek to one of around 50 countries worldwide and know there will be someone waiting their with a shared interest, open arms and friendly face ready to forget about any differences we have and just throw some plastic, sit down afterwards and talk about throwing plastic.
Wanting to be able to do that in 180 countries.
Finding more places I can explore and discover the perfect hole in. Then change it and reroute it to find the even more perfect hole going the other way.

There's a few less cynical reasons than some of the above.

Oh and as ever, everything David Sauls says.

#growthesport
 
Among other things, the growth of the sport means more recognition by parks departments. If you've ever been involved in trying to get a course put into a park---or, worse, trying to keep a course from being pulled, or losing part of a course to expansion of other park activities---you'd much rather disc golf be something well known, and well regarded, by those in power.

Now, the OP didn't say, but perhaps the "grow the sport" he had in mind was the effort to build the pro tour, to increase the money and visibility and make it more like the major sports seen on TV. Which is something that, if you have no interest in it, has little benefit for you as an individual. But, at the same time, does little harm.
 
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