Why Can't Disc Golf Get Big Sponsors? One person's thoughts.

[BillFleming]

Growing the sport and getting larger payouts has come up in several threads...I think I know the answer.

Our sport is unlike any other sport - yes, even ball golf - in one perspective. Lack of sponsorship outside of disc golf.

What do sponsors want? They want their company information to be shown on networks.
How does that happen? The sport needs to be broadcast.
What makes for a good broadcasted sport? The action need to be visible....and there is the issue.

Baseball, football (American), football/soccer, tennis, ball golf, skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, motocross, BMX, etc all have one thing in common - every part of the action is easily viewable to the viewer at home.

Disc golf? Not so much....a really good disc golf course happens in the woods. It is difficult to see the entire flight of the disc. How many times have you watched the player's tee shot and then the 'catch' camera wasn't able to catch where the disc landed or ended up at? Does that make for good viewing? No.

Would you watch a baseball game if you couldn't see where the ball was hit to or if the baselines were covered? "And the batter just hit to center field...they are running and -oh, they just made first base." "The next batter is up....WAIT, the runner is now on second....he must have stolen base". How about Olympic skiing...."and the skiier is off...they are winding through those trees somewhere and we should see them come out shortly". How much fun would that be? Would it be watched?

If disc golf is to get the big sponsors, it needs to be 'broadcast-able', which means it has to be viewable. To be viewable, it needs to be open spaces like the Preserve. So we need to find a way to have open playing spaces and yet still be interesting and competitive. I don't know how we get to that point....but the Preserve might be a start - it just needs to find a way to fix the issues that made it kind of boring.

[Hampstead]

Is it alright if I don't care if disc golf grows?

[zontar]

Originally Posted by Hampstead

Is it alright if I don't care if disc golf grows?

yes.

[riltim]

It might be time to accept that the viewership just isn't there for sponsors. Jomez Final round of the Preserve has ~245k views after two weeks, a girls Roblox channel, for a single game mode, that my daughter watches has a video posted yesterday and it already has 450k views.

[VictorB]

Originally Posted by riltim

It might be time to accept that the viewership just isn't there for sponsors. Jomez Final round of the Preserve has ~245k views after two weeks, a girls Roblox channel, for a single game mode, that my daughter watches has a video posted yesterday and it already has 450k views.

Plain and simple - video games are widely available and incredibly accessible, the same cannot be said for disc golf.

Once every household has a set of discs and a basket, then you might start seeing those sort of view numbers

[Jay Dub]

A lot others have tried to claim to have the answer when the answer is simple. Not enough spectators, 10-20k on youtube is nothing.

[riltim]

Originally Posted by VictorB

Plain and simple - video games are widely available and incredibly accessible, the same cannot be said for disc golf.

Once every household has a set of discs and a basket, then you might start seeing those sort of view numbers

It is a video game channel, but it's for girls that play a specific game mod. I can't imagine that's a huge percentage of the gamer population.

[Jugular]

There are other successful sports where it's difficult to see the action on coverage without slow motion replays;
Ice Hockey, Baseball, Cricket, Golf

I don't think DG is anywhere near as difficult as most of them. For one I think players should be required to throw discs that are easily visible on footage. If more courses had platforms to film from and drone footage during shots easily available the DG coverage could be awesome. All of this requires budget though.

I think DG is pretty easy to view on many courses and is currently filmed very well by the best teams. As soon as you drop out of the top few crews though it gets ropey really quickly.

[JuanA]

Do big sponsors even know about disc golf? If you didn't play, would you?

I'm not trying to be a smart a**, but how much disc golf do you see on a daily basis in regular life? (outside of your own participation of course).

No sponsor is going to pony up big bucks to endorse a sport the general population knows nothing about.

[perklc]

Oh good, a fresh new take that has been brought up a bunch of times already.

I am not against some wide open disc golf, but you are saying you want to take what a lot of people feel is the most boring type of disc golf to watch and create more of it. No thanks.