Talent Out Pacing The Money?

[jmdaire27]

Like others have said, touring and playing is their job. Like other individual sports, if you are good, you will make money. If you market yourself well, you will make money.

However, not all jobs are for everyone. If you aren't good at either of those, then you're working a dead-end-job... and need to find a new career.

Also, I'd like to see the correlation that is being drawn to conclude talent is outgrowing the money. Can't quite wrap my head around this, as both talent and money opportunity has grown through time.

As long as we got youtubes (especially Jomez and CCDG) that I can watch, courses I can play, and local leagues/tournaments I can 'donate' my money to, I am a happy camper.

 

[JC17393]

Also, I'd like to see the correlation that is being drawn to conclude talent is outgrowing the money. Can't quite wrap my head around this, as both talent and money opportunity has grown through time.

The way I understood the OP's question, he was strictly talking about tournament purses, using the example of last weekend's BSF where some fairly prominent touring players failed to make the pay cut. The implication being that if such good players are failing to cash at a big event, is there more "talent" than available money. Seems like a myopic way to look at it, especially using just the one event and overlooking the alternative means these players have to earn money.

 

[Broken Shoulder]

(Professional) gambling has its risks.

 

[brutalbrutus]

Not all events have this size a field either. GBO had more than double the players in MPO than Masters Cup and BSF. Also, not every event has this size field with so many of the top players. BSF and Masters Cup were both stacked with 1000+ rated players. 50ish at BSF, so not a lot of "donators" in that event. Most of the guys have to bring their A game to cash in a field like that.

 

[VictorB]

There are endless jobs to choose from.
They chose disc golf.
Not my problem.

That's kind of how I feel. I'd love to scratch out a living on the road, not worrying about a mortgage or 9-5 desk job, playing the sport I love and seeing the country.

I don't particularly care if there's ever any money in the pro tour for disc golf - this is, and always will be, an amateur 'bottom up' driven sport.

 

[Streets]

Maybe he shouldn't have tripled a hole in the final round...

 

[Royalhghnss]

Paul has stated that there are several players making six figures a year. And when you mentioned how much Sexton and Jerm make from commentary, it sorta blew my mind. As for Eagle, he probably spends more money a month just on food than I make total. They're doing just fine.

Nate and Jerm don't make much from commentary directly. Their money comes from tour series discs and Sexton shootouts. Those sell much better because they do commentary.

 

[JTacoma03]

To get a sense of scale

:thmbup::thmbup: Nice.

Sure. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. Just acknowledging that the pool of very skilled players may be outpacing the money---or, at least, outpacing the tournament payout money.

Key distinction for sure. In that case, 100% agreed that tournament purse growth is being outpaced by talent level at NT/Major events.

I'll take the same stance as you, not passing judgment, but agree with that observation.

 

[Halcón]

Nate and Jerm don't make much from commentary directly. Their money comes from tour series discs and Sexton shootouts. Those sell much better because they do commentary.

Gotcha. I was remembering this quote wrong:

Bitter - it annoys me when pros ask for money to do commentary. They already make FAR more money than any of the media people do, plus just doing it raises their profile exponentially and sells their sig/tour discs. Some of these people are getting 5-figure royalty checks monthly, yet they feel like they need to take my job and get paid for it (on top of getting paid for doing theirs)

Either way, not too shabby.

 

[MasonCountyDiscGolf]

I don't know. At the risk of sounding selfish....I don't really care. If I were in support of any large "grow the sport" concept, the touring pros would not be on my radar. I don't believe there is any scenario where TV or internet interest is large enough to make much of an impact on "grow the sport". I think the concept should be focused on bringing in new players on a local level, both tournament and casual play. I am not even sure I want that, just means more crowds on courses and more work for the old farts around here responsible for tournaments and putting new baskets in the ground. Trying to make a living, playing disc golf is a decision. It does not seem so significantly more difficult than making a living at a lot of other, less fun occupations. *grumblegrumblegripegripe*

I was hoping to see the common sense of this quote early on in the thread and I did. This on so many levels.

 

[DiscFifty]

No, not really. The pros that know how to hustle for it are making tons of money outside of tournament purses.

I've seen mentions of this before. I've been at several big name local clinics, c-tiers, un-sanctioned events, etc, and this is in the DFW area where disc golf is pretty big. Not seeing how they could be "making tons of money" outside of purses, unless your definition of tons of money is different from mine. But...if you're talking about the biggest names in the sport (Paul, Ricky, Eagle, Simon, and a few others...) ok.., but certainly not for the lesser known names, the guys who routinely might "bank" on being in the top 10-20 of each event, certainly their situation is more dire as the talent pool at the top gets more competitive.

 

[DiscFifty]

The ones that are successfully doing it are making money in other ways by running their own events, running clinics, having sponsors, and selling tour discs. The benefit of placing high in tournaments, as well as growing your brand through various outlets, is getting/keeping your name in the spotlight to show sponsors that you're worth investing in.

ok... but my point is..it HAS to be getting harder...quickly...to keep making the extra money this way when there is new players entering the market and they're bringing savvy business, marketing skills, with them, taking attention away. Hell..we had a national touring pro who made headlines nationally recently, play a local tournament and basically no one had any idea who he was.

Sometimes slow growth at the top is good for a sport because it allows media attention to stay focused on each player longer, growing the sport and the player's "brand". I think Paul Mcbeth is the perfect example of this. The guys at the top are doing fine, no doubt about that, but the guys who were used to placing 5-10, I think that's going to be where careers are made and lost. Would be interesting to see some stats on player diversity and payouts for the "middle class" pro disc golfer at some point.

 

[Dr.Smooth]

Their is a law of dimensioning returns on this guys. And this is important. If you can finance to a degree a professional who is dedicating his life to something. Great things happen like-improvements in disc technology, technique, better courses, etc.

And why should the Joe Hack care? It is all a trickle down effect. Like now we have more private courses, we got super wow discs like the destroyer and nuke, better equipment, etc.

 

[BrotherDave]

Nate and Jerm don't make much from commentary directly. Their money comes from tour series discs and Sexton shootouts. Those sell much better because they do commentary.

Good, Nate and Jerm shouldn't make much money from commentary directly.

They know **** all about identifying tree species. :|

 

[Monkeypaws]

I agree with the general sentiment of the OP. There is some serious compression at the top of the scoring, and a stroke or two means no cash, minimal cash, or reasonable cash. Lead cards are no longer routinely the top 4 at the end of the tournament. I imagine a few hundred bucks can mean a lot in terms of touring if you don't have tour disc income, or generous sponsors.

 

[JTacoma03]

I've seen mentions of this before. I've been at several big name local clinics, c-tiers, un-sanctioned events, etc, and this is in the DFW area where disc golf is pretty big. Not seeing how they could be "making tons of money" outside of purses, unless your definition of tons of money is different from mine. But...if you're talking about the biggest names in the sport (Paul, Ricky, Eagle, Simon, and a few others...) ok.., but certainly not for the lesser known names, the guys who routinely might "bank" on being in the top 10-20 of each event, certainly their situation is more dire as the talent pool at the top gets more competitive.

In this context, grossing 6 figures.

 

[Casey 1988]

Nate and Jerm don't make much from commentary directly. Their money comes from tour series discs and Sexton shootouts. Those sell much better because they do commentary.

Also saw from a year Simon Lizotte was touring with Avery Jenkins and how they got to buy a number of disc for dealer price and sold them to the people for regular store price to make money. Also it was hard to watch the camera mounted on RV Dash as they were driving while talking about touring and having smaller bus sized RV bounce around.

 

[JTacoma03]

Also saw from a year Simon Lizotte was touring with Avery Jenkins and how they got to buy a number of disc for dealer price and sold them to the people for regular store price to make money. Also it was hard to watch the camera mounted on RV Dash as they were driving while talking about touring and having smaller bus sized RV bounce around.

Hmm, I think you may have misunderstood something in there. Discmania pros can't sell discs like that unless they are running a legit business (like Nate Perkins). Innova pros are under similar restrictions, that's why you can't buy the discs off of them at the events, they'll direct you to the pro shop website.

 

[JTacoma03]

Gotcha. I was remembering this quote wrong:



Either way, not too shabby.

Yeah "monthly" was a bit misleading I think too considering the runs go out of stock rather quickly. I could have phrased that better.

 

[Casey 1988]

Hmm, I think you may have misunderstood something in there. Discmania pros can't sell discs like that unless they are running a legit business (like Nate Perkins). Innova pros are under similar restrictions, that's why you can't buy the discs off of them at the events, they'll direct you to the pro shop website.

Well it was hard to hear over the motor of the vehicle in that YouTube post. Also Aver Jenkins talks so annoying with all his ums it was hard to hear. They had discs to sell was all I could make over the Motor of the Vehicle they were using. I think they had bought the disc from Innova and Discmania to sell themselves but were selling them slightly over price, had to buy them off the pro shop website or something. It was really hard to hear, they may have been using the discs for an event or something. I see a few years ago Simon and Avery were doing the Training events as part of the Discmainia Scout team so they may have had some of the the discs for the event at the time as well as some of the equipment. They should have not been doing the Webcast while driving that was the scary part and annoying with the bouncy film.