2015 European Open coverage thread/split from Tournament thread

Rickys third shot on the island hole 16 which is not shown on the video, landed inside the island but skipped over the hay bales to OB. Such a bad luck considering that he lost to Paul with one throw!

One throw on the scorecard. The problem with that kind of "what if" scenario is it assumes Paul would have played 17 and 18 the same way if Ricky had only been 1 back coming off 16 instead of 3. But does anyone believe Paul would have settled for a routine par on 17 if he'd have only been one up on Ricky when he had a makeable birdie attempt? Or that he would have laid up his first putt on 18—from a similar lie to the one Feldberg birdied from moments earlier—and settled for a par instead of going for the birdie if a birdie would have been the difference between winning in regulation vs. a playoff?

Also, one could argue that Ricky was lucky the cameraman interfered with his disc and kept it from going OB, because if it had gone OB he would have been throwing 2 from the teepad, with the added pressure of knowing that he had likely already dropped one stroke to Paul and needed to land it in the fairway to have any chance of making the green in three and not give up any more strokes, instead of throwing an upshot from the fairway. No way of knowing what would have happened then.

Maybe it wasn't sustainable because pros couldn't make it their career? There wasn't very much outside money I guarantee that.

Yeah, $50k and $30k purses in 1979 were chump change.
 
Ran out of edit time...:eek:

The hole plays as a peninsula shape and is surrounded by OB or BH (Bunker Hazard) on the hole map. The only option is to throw to the island.

The big break on this hole is that you only count strokes/throws to get in there, no Penalty strokes are incurred, you just keep tacking on one at a time until you get there.

there was room to lay up for a 50 meter approach versus a 90 meter approach, but who's really going to go for a 40 meter shot? just like mcray at usdgc.
 
There will never be coverage of DG like ball golf or any of those situations you mention. Its boring really which is why no one will give us a serious shot. We just love DG here.....

Never be coverage of DG like ball golf? Probably not. Simply because ball golf had a several hundred year head start, and more importantly, was already well established as a professional sport by the time sports became a mainstay of the network broadcasting weekend schedule.

But I take argument to say DG is inherantly more boring to watch than ball golf. Do you seriously believe that? No one expects casual viewers to watch only the lead card play an entire 3 hour round, watching them walk from hole to hole, wait on the card in front of them, etc. But casual viewers don't have to do that with ball golf either. There's coverage of more players than just the lead cards, they fill gaps with lower card play, highlights from previous holes, analysis of swings, etc.

If anything, taking away ball golfs history, wouldn't you say disc golf has more interesting viewing/commentating/analysis potential? Now of course it would take time, purposeful promotion, some luck, a lot of patience, and more time, but imagine a time in the not so distant future where a larger player and spectator base understood enough of the basics of DG to follow along with the action/commentating/analysis. Now imagine ESPN level commentating and info graphics detailing the disc used for each throw. But not only the disc, but the approximate wear of a particular disc. And then the decisions of a particular throw. Wind direction and speed. Showing footage, from the exact same angle, of other throws made from that hole from other players and the same player from earlier in the tournament. And with more money, the discussion of the mental game becomes increasingly important. And with more money, imagine what could be done with the courses. Courses as well maintained as ball golf, but with all the added features that DG brings (wooded vs. open, dramatic elevation changes, etc).

But that damned several hundred year lead that ball golf has. But guess what, now is a better time than ever to be a fringe sport. Not only internet coverage, but even ESPN is understanding that people are as short-attention-spanned as ever and show highlights from all kinds of sports instead of talking about the Patriots for the 959th time that day.

In the end, I think we're all just arguing where in the continuum between mainstream professional sport and fringe hobby disc golf moves to in the future. To make absolute statements is just silly imnsho. As mentioned, no one predicted there'd be a device like a goPro and how it would impact action sports. The decline of boxing has been obvious for quite some time, but wasn't always obvious. What happens to football as concussions mount their tolls. Anyone want to predict the popularity of baseball in 25 years? Soccer in the U.S. (MLS, etc)?

And trust me, I'm not saying I think DG *will* be make it to that upper end of the mainstream sport continuum, BUT, I don't agree it's because of an inherent lack of excitement in the game. Like any newer sport, it'll take some luck and/or some very creative visionaries, with money, to help it break through. Heck, even a sport like basketball had guys like Sonny Vaccaro to help take it to a new level.

Hopefully we'll get those lucky breaks we need. I'd rather watch well-funded, well-edited, disc golf than 90% of the other sports on tv. Then again, I'd much rather see more World Rally coverage than Formula One coverage in the U.S., but that's also probably not happening anytime soon.

Speaking of F1, now THAT's boring to watch! And this is an admission from a former huge F1 fan.

Regardless, unless you want to keep the sport small (which is another argument), you have to applaud efforts from guys like Jussi. I don't think any of us can argue that he's working hard, and that he's trying something different. If you don't like it, it's one single tournament a year, plenty of others for you to see the type of coverage you prefer. And bonus points for the folks going out and putting in their own efforts to growing the sport. Bringing up problems is okay, bringing up solutions a bit better, but we need the folks who are actually implementing the solutions.
 
Why does everyone on these forums think disc golf magically appeared 5 years ago? Disc golf HAS been on TV. It was on Wide World of Sports multiple times. That show, for those of you too young to know, was all about fringe sports. They were experts at editing out all the boring stuff and making even something super boring like freaking Aquajogging look exciting.

We aren't in a disc golf golden age. That already happened. There was outside money. There was outside media. But Iit wasn't sustainable. Why? Because disc golf isn't a team sport. Most (not all) individual sports suffer from lack of viewership/interest simply because they lack a built-in fanbase.

Disc golf can get there again. But not within the next year or even two. The steady growth needs to continue. There needs to be much more interest in the tournament side. I promise you it can be done, because it's been done before.

This is something I hadn't really thought of until now, but Andy makes a great point. I would love to see all of the coverage effort given to the EO shifted to the President's Cup, much like the Ryder Cup in golf. The team aspect, plus U.S. versus Europe, makes it much more compelling from a viewership standpoint.

Maybe it wasn't sustainable because pros couldn't make it their career? There wasn't very much outside money I guarantee that.

I agree with the steady growth and feel it's happening. Pros are able to make disc golf their career more so (still needs to get better), rivalries have been formed, people are diehard fans of players. Exposure is key now imo, but doesn't happen overnight. Showcase the pros battling it out, get aces on SC, increase payouts so more pros can tour fulltime. EO missed the mark, but o well.

This is a chicken/egg situation, though. How do you increase the payout without the tour existing? And how do you bring the big money in that will sustain these payouts? Right now, players are bringing the money in. And I don't know that players want to keep paying for the pros to tour.
There will never be coverage of DG like ball golf or any of those situations you mention. Its boring really which is why no one will give us a serious shot. We just love DG here.....
The fact that we are here as much as we are, though, shows there is some entertainment potential. It's all about packaging it properly.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, despite all the work done for the EO by Discmania, Dynamic ends up being the ones to really get disc golf to crack in the U.S. Between the Marvel partnership, disc golf at Jerry World, and turning the GBO into a week-long festival, I think they are going to be the ones to bring it to the mainstream stateside. Just a hunch.
 
This is something I hadn't really thought of until now, but Andy makes a great point. I would love to see all of the coverage effort given to the EO shifted to the President's Cup, much like the Ryder Cup in golf. The team aspect, plus U.S. versus Europe, makes it much more compelling from a viewership standpoint.

There's been a lot of mention of Tennis around these here forums (because of the payouts to female players debate) and that's one I can think of that is a very mainstream individual sport. That's about it. NASCAR doesn't really count because each driver is, essentially, captain of an entire team i.e. Unser Racing and whatnot.

it doesn't mean the situation is hopeless, just that it is tougher to market from a mass standpoint.
 
This is a chicken/egg situation, though. How do you increase the payout without the tour existing? And how do you bring the big money in that will sustain these payouts? Right now, players are bringing the money in. And I don't know that players want to keep paying for the pros to tour.
Companies positioned well in the market should want to pay out more as an investment. They stand to gain a lot. Most companies understand that, so payouts should naturally go up with growth.
I'm not saying they should go crazy with it for every tournament from here on out, just that it should be a goal because it does add value to the company. Players will always support the tour whether it be entry fees, buying discs, watching it on tv, etc. unless everyone decided to quit playing. My main point is the goals at the EO don't seem to mesh with what has been working. I've really tried to understand their angle, but I have no idea. They do certain things well, but that "over $50,000" invested on "coverage" is a headscratcher.

I agree DD does an amazing job!
 
This is 1983, professional film crews, sponsored by Mazda car company and huge massive crowds... (3min mark)



What a time warp, seems like it was more popular. What happened?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, despite all the work done for the EO by Discmania, Dynamic ends up being the ones to really get disc golf to crack in the U.S. Between the Marvel partnership, disc golf at Jerry World, and turning the GBO into a week-long festival, I think they are going to be the ones to bring it to the mainstream stateside. Just a hunch.


I agree with this. Latitude is doing big things. And the live coverage of the Scandinavian open was fantastic. Dixon Jowers did an amazing commentary IMO. Very tough job and executed very well!

GBO is done masterfully too, you're right. Masterfully.

There is a huge, huge, huge difference when someone, a pro disc golfer is doing the commentary vs. an average joe. It lends credibility and a professionalism.
 
Prediction time for me. If disc golf goes mainstream anytime in the near future, Avery Jenkins has a job waiting at ESPN.
 
This is 1983, professional film crews, sponsored by Mazda car company and huge massive crowds... (3min mark)



What a time warp, seems like it was more popular. What happened?



I agree with this. Latitude is doing big things. And the live coverage of the Scandinavian open was fantastic. Dixon Jowers did an amazing commentary IMO. Very tough job and executed very well!

GBO is done masterfully too, you're right. Masterfully.

There is a huge, huge, huge difference when someone, a pro disc golfer is doing the commentary vs. an average joe. It lends credibility and a professionalism.

Is there a link to the replay of the coverage? I'd love to check it out.
 
There is a huge, huge, huge difference when someone, a pro disc golfer is doing the commentary vs. an average joe. It lends credibility and a professionalism.

I don't necessarily agree with that. While I will agree that having a pro does lend some credibility, it doesn't mean that "average joes" will do a bad job. The GBO live coverage that I saw had the best commentary I've heard to date, and I'd never heard of any of the announcers before then. It was obvious that they were familiar with the game, the courses, the players, and even the players' discs, and they were able to give listenable narration over the course of the event. They got the facts straight, and had good chemistry together, and really made the coverage a pleasure to watch.

On the flipside of the coin, I have seen some coverage where pros were doing the commentating, and it was pretty much the opposite of everything listed above. Just because someone has a recognizable name doesn't mean they'll be a good commentator, and just because someone is unheard of doesn't mean they'll be a bad one.
 
There will never be coverage of DG like ball golf or any of those situations you mention. Its boring really which is why no one will give us a serious shot. We just love DG here.....

And golf isn't boring? I watched The Open Championship today. Good lord can it get boring. But me, who has never played a round of golf in his life, was still excited watching these people battling it down to the last bit. That was exciting. I think we've had plenty of close finishes the past couple years to get back onto television; the trouble is explaining to the general public what's going on, and why this is so exciting. I agree it would take a network partnering with Disc Golf to really give it a go...maybe something like Fox Sports 2 or ESPN3 or something at first, if we ever got there.

I mean, they show Aussie Football at 3 am on some sports channels; talk about not knowing what's going on lol
 
That Mazda coverage just reminded me of this. Did anyone else notice that Toyota had a pretty decent presence at the SO and Mercedes-Benz at the EO? Why aren't we talking more about the fact that our two majors in Europe each had a pretty big car company pay for advertisement?
 
Hey guys,

Just wanted to pop by real quick - we're working on the geoblock. YLE told us it would be disabled for 6 months so the link should work, but right now it's back up. One way or another we'll find a way to get the English commentary version for everyone to see.

The international deal came through at the 23rd hour so there were bound to be some hiccups. Please be patient with us. I'm disappointed to hear that the Finnish audio came through the English broadcast as well - it actually was in my headphones as we were talking live also so that was a trip. All in all, we want to give the best experience to everybody and even though the tournament is done we are still working to make that happen.
 
I still think they need to concentrate on showing the flight of a disc so people realize how legit it is including ESPN, etc.
(...)
Most people just think of disc golf as throwing a catch frisbee in a park

Merely watching wont change that. People have no idea how hard this is to master (easy to pick up, sure!) until they try and throw a golf disc and it goes nowhere but left and into the ground. They think throwing golf discs 400 feet with accuracy in wind is basically the same thing they have experienced throwing that Sprite frisbee on a beach back in the day.
 
What a time warp, seems like it was more popular. What happened?


I'll tell you what happened. The shorts got longer and the hair got shorter. The sex appeal is gone, ergo the money is gone.



I was hoping that the money from the EO fundraiser discs would go towards an epic (relatively of course) payout for the players, not the crazy whatever media stuff. Now i know to only buy tour series discs and avoid tournament fundraiser discs.
 
Finland is an awesome disc golf community, but national television there is like if one of our medium populated states televised an event, which kind of makes it local coverage. It didn't reach very many television sets which makes it a huge waste of money.

Not sure if I understood what you meant, but there is basically less than ten non-paid TV channels in Finland and YLE2 which showed the EO is one of top channels, and everybody with TV (ie everybody) can watch it free. Basically that was best option in terms of channel choice.

Anyway, I was disappointed with the coverage overall, not much progress compared to last time. You don't get new people excited by jumping straight to final holes, you need more prehype and build-up just like in other sport events. Insider show was great but for casual disc golfer probably not. And it was all backwards, hype and speculation without actually showing the rounds...
 
Not sure if I understood what you meant, but there is basically less than ten non-paid TV channels in Finland and YLE2 which showed the EO is one of top channels, and everybody with TV (ie everybody) can watch it free. Basically that was best option in terms of channel choice.

Anyway, I was disappointed with the coverage overall, not much progress compared to last time. You don't get new people excited by jumping straight to final holes, you need more prehype and build-up just like in other sport events. Insider show was great but for casual disc golfer probably not. And it was all backwards, hype and speculation without actually showing the rounds...

:hfive: *and doesn't live in the US! So this was shown on public TV like local news stations or more in line with public access broadcasting? ... which NO one watches here free or not.
 
What a time warp, seems like it was more popular. What happened?

What happened was the teat dried up in 1982 when Whamo, which was dumping boatloads of money every year into promoting disc sports of all shapes (golf, ultimate, freestyle, distance, SCF, etc.) and advertising, got purchased (sold out to) Kransco Group (think vulture capitalists), which promptly cut the promotion/advertising budget to practically nothing.

No advertising -> no television -> no exposure -> no eyeballs -> no new sponsorship $$$$$, and there we jolly well are, aren't we?
 
Great example: I'm a HUGE Tour de France nerd, and watch it religiously every summer. And every summer, NBC Sports is adding more and more pre-packaged coverage - features on pros, features on fans that have made the trip to the event, "Inside the Race"-type features - while also tacking on more Americanized terminology and analogies with the commentary. This is what is going to need to be done with disc golf in order to fill the space and make it more watchable, in my opinion, and it takes a lot of extra resources and a lot of extra work. Can it happen? Sure. But it's going to take a partnership with a network that can throw some coin at it, as well as partnering with some people outside of disc golf who are given free reign to make their opinions known about how it will show best.[/QUOTE]

I am the same way. I don't even ride a bike, but every summer I watch the historic vids and stage summary videos because the condensed version is enjoyable to watch.

With that being said I love disc golf, so I watch endless tourney vids.
 
Coupe is dead on with what some consider the "Golden Age" or disc sports. The golf side was emerging in the early 80's because of Steady Ed's push and also because of the Wham-O Midnight Flyers. Heavier, more wind resistant, etc.

The early 90's saw another big surge in disc golf's popularity. That's when I started playing (though my dad has been playing since the 70s) and that was the first time real outside money flowed in. It wasn't a ton, but it was there. Look at Climo's early winnings compared to today's winnings. In some cases, Climo was making more in the early to mid-90s.

Now we are seeing another surge, but this time with more players than ever before. The caveat to that is the players are providing their own purses...or at least a large chunk of the purses. Outside money is a great, albiet lofty, goal and would really push disc golf into a true professional direction. Not everyone has the same idea on how to do it. Some ideas are going to fail.
 
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