True Reason Why Disc Golf Isn't Becoming Main Stream

[BadImplication]

Bowling is televised. They wouldn't find sponsors if nobody was watching.

 

[reposado]

Maybe, but without the big payday you'd see a lot fewer kids "going to college", never going to class and expecting to get rich without any kind of education. People would still play the sport, but I think less would have it be the only focus of their lives.

sure. there is a cycle that reinforces itself.

but it starts with the sport's popularity

the other factor is of course watchability. and this is something that could be improved. poker wasnt a spectator sport until the hole cam was invented. find a way to film and broadcast disc golf to make it interesting and there would be results.

 

[mashnut]

Probably the best analogy I have heard yet.......

Credit to ThreePutt on that one, he's posted similar thoughts a few times and I thought that was a really good comparison for us.

 

[DiscgolfStu]

I will even give an example. I am a big rally fan. Off road racing through the woods and deserts. I have been into it for years, watching, volunteering, attending races. Several years ago, the X Gamers got into it. Travis Pastrana, Dave Mirra......brought huge money with them. Big sponsored teams, SOBE, Red Bull, Monster..... Big teams, great cars, huge mobile homes and dominated the American rally scene. By the way side fell the scads of mom and pop teams that proliferated the sport for years, and many of the small and local sponsorship dollars. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a cost. Not too long after the X Games boys moved on with their big dollars and grew the sport into indoor RallyCross. A hybrid indoor stadium truck racing/rally car race, with a jump, of course. It left the sport decimated for years. The small time sponsorship, the independent race teams were gone. As the sport rebuilds itself in this country,(never anything but a niche sport anyway), I am guessing most involved were not happy with the sport "growth".

Agreed, wouldn't want anything like that to happen to disc golf. Hopefully examples like that can be used as precautionary tales before anyone jumps in bed too quickly with certain sponsors.

As for the softball analogy, I agree to an extent. The difference between dg and sb, however, is that the pro scene is ten times more interesting to follow in dg. The top ranks in softball is pretty boring and grows stale to watch almost immediately. Hit, hit, hit, Hr. Repeat, until your up 2 HR's, then watch the other team do the same. Final score 35-28.

 

[JC17393]

Bowling is televised. They wouldn't find sponsors if nobody was watching.

It's been televised for decades. The biggest reason is that it's cheap to film. Two cameras (one pointed down the alley at the pins, one pointed at the players) are all you really need, and they can be fixed in place for the duration.

The biggest obstacle disc golf faces in terms of being televised is the cost of execution. Properly covering a disc golf tournament (I mean covering everyone, not just the top one or two cards) requires far more cameras than bowling or poker does. And the cameras need to be mobile as well. You can't do a whole lot with fixed cameras, especially considering many courses wind through the woods creating a lot of obstructions between a camera and its intended subject.

So right there, the bar for covering our game is a lot higher than it is for televising/broadcasting poker or bowling or even baseball/football/etc. Ever seen early television broadcasts of baseball games? Usually one camera, behind home plate, with minimal movement or zooming. That's about where we are in the timeline of broadcasting disc golf. One camera following a single group as it plays the course. No cutting away to other holes/groups, and in the case of live broadcasts, no editing out of the down time between throws. It's rudimentary and reflective of the budget involved.

Maybe someday we evolve past that point and get closer to full course coverage we see in ball golf, but it's still a long long way off if it ever comes.

 

[DiscgolfStu]

Maybe the seven guys covering the same tournament can get together and...

 

[biscoe]

Credit to ThreePutt on that one, he's posted similar thoughts a few times and I thought that was a really good comparison for us.

pretty sure that was me as I've posted it repeatedly in any number of places... and i got it originally from Chuck.

 

[zenbot]

 

[mashnut]

pretty sure that was me as I've posted it repeatedly in any number of places... and i got it originally from Chuck.

Cool, I'm pretty sure ThreePutt has reposted it too then.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Yep, I've cited softball before. Cross-country running or running 5Ks to marathons might even be closer comparisons since they involve a different terrain course for each event and there are way more runners than softball players. Their advantage from a participation standpoint is their events can handle more capacity than DG and everywhere you look can be a "course" for practice or events.

 

[WhiteyBear]

Does it really matter if it's not "mainstream"?
Does it really matter if we never "see the big bucks?"

Aside from a couple dozen sincerely touring pros, who make this a lifestyle choice (knowing what they are getting into and striving to make it a higher paying career choice), how does this directly effect the game as it is today?

We have great disc manufacturers today, more than there ever has been.
We have wonderful courses being put in, bigger and badder then ever before.

Some could say we've lost the "soul" of disc sports, by only focusing solely on disc GOLF. Some could even argue that the soul of disc golf has been killed by high speed drivers.

What's not to love right now? In the golden age of DG, I think we really are. Instead of wishing what we would become, enjoy what we are now.

 

[Aim For The Chains]

Well you would have more than a handful a pros if it was worth it to play seriously. Not much reason to try and become next McBeast .....

 

[HarkeyPuck]

Does it really matter if it's not "mainstream"?
Does it really matter if we never "see the big bucks?"

Aside from a couple dozen sincerely touring pros, who make this a lifestyle choice (knowing what they are getting into and striving to make it a higher paying career choice), how does this directly effect the game as it is today?

We have great disc manufacturers today, more than there ever has been.
We have wonderful courses being put in, bigger and badder then ever before.

Some could say we've lost the "soul" of disc sports, by only focusing solely on disc GOLF. Some could even argue that the soul of disc golf has been killed by high speed drivers.

What's not to love right now? In the golden age of DG, I think we really are. Instead of wishing what we would become, enjoy what we are now.

This. So much this.

 

[CaptainAnhyzer]

It's been televised for decades. The biggest reason is that it's cheap to film. Two cameras (one pointed down the alley at the pins, one pointed at the players) are all you really need, and they can be fixed in place for the duration.

The biggest obstacle disc golf faces in terms of being televised is the cost of execution. Properly covering a disc golf tournament (I mean covering everyone, not just the top one or two cards) requires far more cameras than bowling or poker does. And the cameras need to be mobile as well. You can't do a whole lot with fixed cameras, especially considering many courses wind through the woods creating a lot of obstructions between a camera and its intended subject.

So right there, the bar for covering our game is a lot higher than it is for televising/broadcasting poker or bowling or even baseball/football/etc. Ever seen early television broadcasts of baseball games? Usually one camera, behind home plate, with minimal movement or zooming. That's about where we are in the timeline of broadcasting disc golf. One camera following a single group as it plays the course. No cutting away to other holes/groups, and in the case of live broadcasts, no editing out of the down time between throws. It's rudimentary and reflective of the budget involved.

Maybe someday we evolve past that point and get closer to full course coverage we see in ball golf, but it's still a long long way off if it ever comes.

I've been to a major ball golf event. The Buick Open. There are literally hundreds of cameras, cranes, scaffold platforms, media trucks, etc. involved. Plus a hundred or so officials, spotters, crowd control, security, etc.
It would be nearly all that to cover an entire disc golf event.

Just a ballpark figure would be 2-3 cameras per hole, mostly mobile to get the shots near a wooded green and a dozen crowd control/security members per hole for the top cards. Add a dozen more for TV production.

It's out of our league right now and for the foreseeable future.

I've been playing for 30 years and I'm impressed with the speed and direction we are headed. But it's gonna take TIME.

 

[Pbmercil]

I think a lot of you guys are right on point with this thread. The reality is that disc golf is growing consistently and sustainably. There is never going to be some sort of "breakthrough" where it just arrives. Consistent growth is what we should be striving for, and that is exactly what is happening. I've got very few complaints with the direction, and am very excited to see where disc golf goes now that I'm starting my second decade in the sport

 

[cblanch4]

1. Professionalism, especially at the professional level. (This is the first step to get bigger sponsors in the game. Large companies want the face of their company to represent them well. )

I disagree with this on some levels. You are right that sponsors want professional and well behaved players to represent their brand. On the other hand, watching a well behaved, professional athlete doesn't attract as many viewers compared to more controversial athletes. In the NFL, why does Johnny Manziel get so much more attention than Blake Bortles? Why was tennis so popular in the 80's? Why was heavyweight boxing so popular in the 80's and 90's? The actual sport itself isn't enough to attract interest... it's the personalities and the story lines that generate higher ratings and viewers. Finding a unique way to showcase the personalities in our sport is the best way to do this.

I will agree with this! I stand corrected, sherman is a big deal only because he made said he was the best corner in the league, probably is, but personality is a big thing!

 

[sidewinder22]

Major issue with cameras in dg is lighting in the woods causing crazy contrast and whiteouts/blackouts. Another issue is it's hard to see a disc in the horizontal plane, it's even smaller than a golf ball. Birdeye view would be easier to see, which also would be very hard to film in the woods. Events that are fairly wide open like the Japan Open film well though, just more boring without the woods though.

 

[GeezerGolfDFW]

Popular sports are popular with children. Disc golf requires a large amount of space. Anyone who lacks easy access to a park or at least a large vacant area is not going to be able to do more than putt. I did not play football, baseball or basketball because of my parents. I played those sports because the other children in my neighborhood wanted to play those sports. Unless a parent took us to the course most of us found it in high school at the earliest. Many of us are adults when we first encounter the sport. Explain to me how we make the sport popular with children and you will have found the answer.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Popular sports are popular with children. Disc golf requires a large amount of space. Anyone who lacks easy access to a park or at least a large vacant area is not going to be able to do more than putt. I did not play football, baseball or basketball because of my parents. I played those sports because the other children in my neighborhood wanted to play those sports. Unless a parent took us to the course most of us found it in high school at the earliest. Many of us are adults when we first encounter the sport. Explain to me how we make the sport popular with children and you will have found the answer.

Parents are also the ultimate spectators to accelerate the monetization of viewership.

 

[jupiterboy]

There's probably a break-through point nobody can predict where momentum moves it forward, but right now I think the fact that the disc started its life as a toy frames the sport in most peoples' minds who don't know much about it.

This is probably why the average person doesn't have an appropriate level of fear regarding getting beaned by one.