This was a really insightful post, thank you. I'd be curious for your thoughts on this follow up: I've also thought about the e-sports model as one that can compare to disc golf, but have always thought that a driving factor behind e-sports being able to grow quickly is that potential sponsors are selling products that are more expensive than disc golf equipment, thereby bringing a larger influx of money. Is this something you've observed, or am I way off base?
Actually, I think that's a bit off base, at least in my opinion. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the comparisons and contrasts between disc golf coverage/accessability versus the growth of esports since I really like both. DG is my main hobby, but I love playing Smite and following the Smite Pro Leagues as well.
The growth of esports is due to one thing - pure accessibility.
The accessibility of the games -
League of Legends is a great yardstick for esports in this department. You don't have to have some state of the art computer or huge investment in hardware at all to run the game. That makes it very accessible to a large portion of gamers these days. All you really need is a halfway decent computer and internet connection to play, and it's actually a free to play game to boot, which gets a lot of people in the door in the first place. More people playing the game means more people potentially buying hardware or things through in-game stores to help along prize pools. Smite is a good example of this too - there are literally team 'chests' that you can buy unlocks for that the % money spent on the chest goes directly to supporting that team. This is in addition to the bundles and 'Odyssey' purchases that go to fund the Smite World Championships as well. DOTA2 and LoL have their own versions of this crowd funded prize pool generation as well.
With disc golf, the accessibility is actually quite limited for a game that can be very cheap to play. First, you have to have a course nearby. As much as we spout the growth of the sport, there's still not a lot of local access to play it. Plain and simple fact, you can't play if you have no courses to play on, and I'm pretty sure there's always going to be more computers that can run esports related games compared to disc golf courses in America. Second, you have to know the courses and sport exist! I grew up in Columbia, and there's been a course here almost my entire life...I knew nothing about disc golf until 2 years after I moved back here from college. If it wasn't for my friend I went to college with taking me out to play, I'd likely still never know a thing about it, even though I've lived within 5-10 miles of 3 courses in Columbia since I've been back.
Streaming and live viewing accessibility -
Twitch.tv (and now youtube gaming, to a much lesser extent) have a huge jump on being able to bring esports in to your home, versus finding DG related content. Twitch.tv has been around independently since 2011, and was a spin off of the now defunct Justin.tv which I think was the original 'game channel' streaming platform. There are content creators and people streaming for fun in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, everyday. All you need is a mic, streaming program, and a game to play. Webcam not even necessary (although gets more viewers that way)
Disc golf lacks content creators. Sure, the few we have are really good. Not everyone has the items needed to create dg content - one thing of which often includes a really nice camera (because we know no one is going to watch your videos if you record in potato quality) Terry runs his podcast once a week during season, and we only really hear anything from CCDG, Jomez, or whomever when they release a video.
Esports has content creators that literally dedicate their lives and careers to streaming/professional play, and are readily available on a (usually) daily basis and interact with fans all the time. Disc golf does not have that sort of availability, as no one has stepped up as a content creator the same way. I don't really blame them, because even the people playing the sport can't really make a real living, I don't imagine that someone who focused their career on creating disc golf content would be able to do much better. Is it possible to do so? Maybe, but is the audience even there to watch/listen/support even one persons efforts to make a career out of it? Highly doubtful.
Conclusion -
Esports follows a different developmental path from obscurity than disc golf can possibly take. Infrastructure is available to get these games and live streams to people's houses/phones very easily. Disc golf infrastructure is obviously much different, and people have to make an effort to find and play the game, much more than just logging in from the comfort of their own home. Sure, it's a cheap and accessible game, but only if you have a course close by.
Drawing comparisons between the two is very difficult. They were/are fringe activties - though esports is becoming much more widely accepted worldwide as a legitimate competition; see the advent of ESPN eSports coverage, as well as Yahoo eSports. Hoping that one day, disc golf will share the prize pools of eSports is, in my opinion, a pipe dream.
Calm down, not better than disc golf, just than the spinning wheel of death.
