Is Disc Golf Really "Exploding"?

[slicemaster]

wait...what did you say...I was too busy putting

 

[Stud Muffin]

Anyone who has played the game seriously for more than a few months has probably heard it: "Disc golf is...the fastest-growing sport in the world/exploding in popularity/experiencing record growth!" We hear it from not only the PDGA, but from locals who've been playing for years, as well as our regional clubs and message boards/forums. But is it really blowing up the way we think it is?

It depends where you live. If the sport has been there a while, no.

But about a year and a half ago, in my area, Potosi put up a 9 hole course. I played it for a year and never saw 1 other disc golfer on the course while I was on it.

Then Potosi put up another 9, and Farmington (Engler) put up a 18 basket course. Now, I have seen other disc golfers at Potosi, and almost every time I go to Engler, I see one of my playing buds. There are golfers everywhere. So here, it definitely looks like it is exploding.

 

[garublador]

It looks to me like the number of people playing might not be increasing, but the frequency at which they play and just how in to the sport they are is increasing. More and more people are getting serious about it, but the total popularity of the sport and how many people are aware of it seems to be staying level. I'm not sure how anyone could really say that this isn't a valid data point when it comes to evaluating the popularity of the sport. It's not the whole story, but it's absolutely worth analyzing. Most methods (tracking disc sales, tournament attendance, PDGA membership or anecdotal evidence of the number of people on the course) don't track the number of unique people playing all that well. They don't differentiate between the sport being more popular among those that are already interested in it with the same number playing and it being just as popular with those that know about it but with more people getting interested. This Google Insight thing probably does the best job of anything I can think of off hand of tracking the number of people who are aware and interested.

So I guess it boils down to what you mean by "exploding." Does it mean that those that already play are playing more and are getting more serious or does it mean that more people are interested in it? There seems to be data to show that the total amount of interest is growing, but this Google Insight thing seems to show that it might not be because more people are becoming interested. Totally ignoring the data, IMO, is a mistake if you really want to grow the sport because you need both types of interest if you want the sport to be more mainstream.

I tried a few other things quick and found that MMA rose in popularity for a while and then plateaued off. Poker is much less popular now than it was in 2004. Golf has a similar sinusoidal pattern as DG but is trending downward. Tennis has a different repeating pattern but is trending downward a bit, too. Soccer gets really popular around the World Cup but is pretty level otherwise. All of those seem very reasonable to me.

 

[DavidSauls]

Coincidentally the PDGA just updated the demographics chart. It shows steady growth in everything except for purse size.
http://www.pdga.com/files/documents/Demographics_Growth_Charts_2000-2011.pdf

Bascially, tripling in almost every category over an 11-year span.

That's the organized part. Is the casual side growing even faster? If there are 3 times as many courses, and courses seem to be twice as crowded as they used to be, that's roughly 600% growth in casual players.

"Exploding" is undefined so you can argue either way. But the growth is definitely impressive.

 

[thrembo]

I have seen the sport go from almost zero courses to several thousand, and from throwing catch discs at trees to fully organized play with high tech specialized equipment on "basket" style modern courses, in around 35 years. I'd say thats pretty good growth. We used to think that you could play every course in the country in a lifetime. I haven't even played all of the courses in Florida yet now, and new ones are popping up all the time, and Florida is way behind places like the midwest and Texas.

When I got into disc sports, freestyle was king. Guts was way more popular than disc golf. So to see it now from a long term perspective, is been an amazing growth. The future imo will hopefully be more pay-to-play courses. When I played at Hudson Mills for the first time shortly after it opened, I realized that disc golf was coming out of its infancy, and blossoming into a serious mianstream type of sport. It wasn't just hippies and upstart punks (Like me and my friends) playing the sport anymore. The course was awesome, well maintained, and treated with the respect of a serious sport.

Other subculture or counterculture sports have become popular, and still maintained thier flair or uniqueness. As long as more courses are built to keep up with the growing demand, this grizzled old vetrean will be happy with its growth.

 

[DavidSauls]

15 years ago South Carolina had 2 or 3 courses. Today it has 82 listed on this site, with more currently under construction and at least a couple of courses not listed.

15 years ago, if we wanted to play a tournament a month (winter excluded) we had to be willing to drive over 100 miles to most. Today we're fighting over calendar conflicts.

 

[ceteebird999]

It looks to me like the number of people playing might not be increasing, but the frequency at which they play and just how in to the sport they are is increasing. More and more people are getting serious about it, but the total popularity of the sport and how many people are aware of it seems to be staying level.

In Houston, we have the complete opposite occurring. We have more and more casuals who aren't interested in the serious aspects of the sport and will probably never go further with it than chucking one disc around.

Our leagues and mini's used to have between 30-50 players every week at several courses, now we are lucky to get 5-10

There are definitely more courses now than 10 years ago so in that aspect there is growth

 

[gwillim]

Oregon Sanctioned Event Totals:

2002 - 6 events
2003 - 8 events
2004 - 12
2005 - 13
2006 - 11
2007 - 11
2008 - 19
2009 - 24
2010 - 29
2011 - 24
2012 - already 27 on the schedule.

 

[Lordlucid]

I've noticed in my neck of the woods that they're way more people playing. I used to just see the "Regulars" out at the course. Now I'm seeing new players that I've never seen before. Even Whole families playing. So it seems to me that, in my small demographic at least, that the sport is expanding maybe not exploding and why not, its free for the most part, Disc are cheap!

 

[Omega SuperSloth]

if disc golf isnt #1 what sport would be #1 ?

cycling?
xtreme hackisack?
spelling bee?

 

[Omega SuperSloth]

yo yo

 

[ZAMson]

if disc golf isnt #1 what sport would be #1 ?

cycling?
xtreme hackisack?
spelling bee?

one of my professors in college was a former State Footbag Champion. they are serious about Footbag and not hackey sack.

so yes Footbag would be in the running with Disc Golf for most emo.

 

[timg]

From a course perspective it's growing, there have been about 2000 courses added to the site since early 2008. I've found that more people are aware of the sport's existence in casual conversation as well.

 

[garublador]

one of my professors in college was a former State Footbag Champion. they are serious about Footbag and not hackey sack.

so yes Footbag would be in the running with Disc Golf for most emo.

Calling it Hacky Sack is the same as calling disc golf, "Frisbee golf."

 

[Osmo]

Calling it Hacky Sack is the same as calling disc golf, "Frisbee golf."

I will never call Hacky Sack "footbag".

 

[Hampstead]

I have never Googled anything disc golf related, but I do read and post here. How many other people come here instead of using Google? What is the growth rate of this site?

 

[DavidSauls]

if disc golf isnt #1 what sport would be #1 ?

cycling?
xtreme hackisack?
spelling bee?

Depends on the criteria, doesn't it?

If it's purely percentage growth, I could invent a sport, get someone else involved, and it's doubled in one year.

You could probably create some criteria with which Disc Golf is #1.....or whichever other sport you wish to crown.

 

[Rip Van]

15 years ago, if we wanted to play a tournament a month (winter excluded) we had to be willing to drive over 100 miles to most. Today we're fighting over calendar conflicts.

I see this as having a downside as well. In the past, people got out of town and explored new courses and cities. It was cool to travel and see a bit of the world, just because you love competing in the sport. Now, I get strange looks when I tell folks I've driven three hours to play in their C-tier event.

With the price of gas and the lousy economy, a ton of local events is definitely a good thing. But we are heading toward a future where the vast majority of tournament players will never leave their home town.

 

[chickenonabun]

As a kid who is only in his third year of playing and hoped to be playing for a LOOONG time, all this talk I find to be extremely amusing and interesting.

 

[Mongo97]

Popularity and participation are two different animals.

There are plenty of searches going on for other sports by non-participants looking for things from a casual fan perspective.

DG so far really doesn't present itself as a spectator driven sport, so the 'casual fan' element is not going to be there to the same degree as other sports, and the searches that go along with it will not factor in as much.

What would paint the truest picture would be a combination of all factors:
Internet traffic
Courses
Membership in groups (local and otherwise)
Number of sales outlets (local, interwebs)
and the one we're least likely to get, financial numbers from DG manufacturers

Put all of that together, and then you'll really be able to show if it's exploding, going up in a whiff of smoke, or just holding steady.

Kudos to the work that's been done so far, though, it's definitely interesting, and fun to discuss.