At some point, it almost seems inevitable that a competing organization will arise that has ratings protected divisions where players compete for cash, and unrated players are not allowed to play in the ratings protected divisions.
I'm still amazed that people having no ratings are allowed to play in ratings protected divisions at PDGA tournaments. But I guess that's a topic for another thread. This thread is about the World Championships, where there is no ratings protection - just age, gender, and am status protection.
Woe, (meant to type wow, but then the typo seemed appropriate,) this thread really is still going.
Combined with the number of players in the pdga this is the heart of the entire matter.
The only fully protected events in the pdga right now are the USDGC and, (not 100% sure on this one,) The Vibram Open. The PDGA itself has no rating protected
divisions
Anyone can play up at any time in any event except those two.
We're not big enough yet to do it any other way, not even close especially at the division level.
That's why you get this:
I made a similar comment, I said if you want to win money on disc golf, play open. FWIW, I think the whole model of using entry fees to fund payouts is flawed, in any division. Pro payouts should be funded by sponsor money. Yes, this would completely ruin the prospects of anyone being able to earn a living on disc golf. But to me, that's a failure of the PDGA to adequetly market and present it's product in a way that is enticing to sponsors.
The model is not flawed, it's how DG got started without any outside help at all.
It got people started selling golf discs out of the trunks of their cars so the plastic companies could grow, which got more people out throwing golf discs and telling their friends about it who went and bought more discs.. Which led to more people showing up at local leagues and then some of them started showing up at tournaments and then there started to be more tournaments. And more courses.
The PDGA provided the framework and structure for that system, marketing is marketing, a company does not market to targets that will not profit a company. Otherwise that company goes out of business. The PDGA had no one to market to, other then the players themselves. Outside of the plastic companies, the disc golf market is still
too small to support clothing companies, red bull, budweiser or anyone else other then at the local sponser level. Which is why we don't have the kind of pro division where
Pro payouts should be funded by sponsor money.
We still don't have the number of players to provide the market for it, even if you merged all the am and pro divisions together.
The model is becoming outdated, but I've talked about that already in other posts on this thread. We no longer really need to be supporting plastic dealers at the local level, we've grown enough for that, the tournament structure leaves plenty of room for them to make money in a different way, selling plastic at tournaments and leagues much bigger then they once were.
The system has already changed to reflect this issue:
The merch system underwrites the finances of our tournaments. An all-cash-payout event would require an alternative source of funds for many TDs to undertake it---like 70% payout, or retaining $10 of each entry.
TDs (and tournament companies) are now allowed to keep a flat percentage, capped too by tier, of ALL the purse, so the bigger event TDs can put on, the more they can make, while the money they make from each individual remains fair to both the TD and the player.
All divisions of Disc Golf can in reality be grouped together as one big division, separated by ratings. Only when there is a true group ratings protected by a
minimum ratings requirement will there be any difference between them. And we're still not big enough to support that.
What we do have now is enough of a base of players to begin the process, by having a static fee deducted from all divisions to start funding the next stage, and work toward creating a rating/qualifying protected tour for the growing number of players able to compete to get into it and drawing more media/ sponser attention from the size of those purses. In turn someday it would grow enough that the sponsers would be the ones paying for it.
I couldn't find the thread to quote, but someone posted:
Why should ams expect a bigger payout then pros at a tournament?
If everyone is contributing to the purse barring the outside sponsership we don't have and there''s 10 people in one division and40 people in amother separated by a few strokes of skill, of course they should expect a bigger payout. It's basically 2 entirely separate competitions, one between 10 people and one between 40 people and separated by skill groups completely funded within themselves.
If you and your buddies were playing poker at the bar, should you be forced to let Doyle Brunson sit down and easily take all of your money, merely on the basis that cash was involved?
got responded to with:
If you and your buddies are playing in a World Poker Championship and Doyle Brunson signs up, get ready for an expensive lesson in how to play poker.
That's why we have divisions. First, you wouldn't be going to a world poker championship in the first place because you'd have had to qualify, and if you had qualified you wouldn't be "Getting an expensive lesson in how to play poker."
In the meantime, if there weren't a thousand other smaller poker tournaments to get you there in the first place, there wouldn't even be a world championship of poker.
That's why the "Go big or go home" argument in a self funded, non protected (from the bottom) division sport has no merit.
