What does Disc Golf need?

[art_vandelay]

Personally, I'm in the indifferent-to-growth camp. However, I love every single discussion about disc golf growth. Always nice and juicy.

The biggest requirement for growth is a large & growing audience. I've heard & read disc golfers carry on and on about how all the sport needs is big fatty sponsorships from Red Bull or Pepsi or Budweiser, etc. and then everyone will get rich and the GBO will lead Sportscenter over the NFL Draft or NBA Playoffs, blah, blah, blah. Large corporations don't give a **** about the actual event they're sponsoring (unless the event is somehow offensive to an important segment of their audience.) They don't care if the participants are edgy or cool or if they have anything interesting to say. All they care about is how many people will be watching. The number of these folks who are screaming for more corporate sponsorship in disc golf, who don't understand that corporations only sponsor events WITH A LARGE & EXISTING AUDIENCE, is a very clear indicator of the current status of disc golf.

So how does one build the disc golf audience? Get it into the popular culture. Having an advocate working in Bristol who successfully lobbies to have positive & exciting disc golf footage shown on Sportcenter's Top 10 more than once is a good start.

Another shrewd investment? Build excellent courses in Central Park, Prospect Park, Griffith Park and the west side of Los Angeles. A huge majority of the professionals who work in any advertising/marketing/entertainment/creative/media/culture/journalism field in this country, lives & works next to those four locations. It's in those four neighborhoods where culture becomes popular.

I can promise you that this is not the way large corporations think. Marketing Managers are given a finite sponsorship budget at the beginning of the year. Teams then spend a lot of time mulling over how to spend the money. There is a complex strategy behind each and every sponsorship and raw number of viewers is pretty low on the list of things that drive the strategy. It's one of the criteria, but it's more important to be communicating to the right group of people for a reason that aligns to a larger corporate strategy.

Sometimes marketers are trying to shape a market that they are not currently in. Sometimes they are just trying to show support for something a large customer cares about. Sometimes they are trying to show a presence in communities where their employees live and work so that employees feel good about themselves and the company. Anyway, that's probably more than anyone cares about.

 

[jeremyhilss]

I remember last fall when everyone was saying "we need to be on Sportscenter", now its happened and now everyones all "we still need a ton more"!!! Thats a pretty good step in the growth of our sport, we all know lots of people saw those. There was a lot of mainstrean exposure just right there. Patience is a good thing

In regards to higher greens fees, I think that is something where we should tread lightly. I like the $5-10 green fee idea, but also think we still will always need a decent amount of free to play public park courses (as long as the basket isnt put next to a jungle gym). Remember, a LOT of people are in this sport because it is economically feasible for their budgets. I cant count how many times people have said they cant play ball golf with me because it is too expensive.

 

[corin_brown]

There is a complex strategy behind each and every sponsorship and raw number of viewers is pretty low on the list of things that drive the strategy. It's one of the criteria, but it's more important to be communicating to the right group of people for a reason that aligns to a larger corporate strategy.

Really. Ratings is pretty low on the list of considerations that drive advertising & marketing strategies? What a relief. Then I guess we can expect a nice big ad buy by Chevy for Maple Hill this year. After all, I'm sure sponsoring an NT like that is way less complex than Coke's strategy for buying time on the Super Bowl broadcast.

 

[InnocentCrook]

I have to deal with NIMBYs on my private course. :doh:

Please elaborate. Curmudgeon of an old neighbor or just uptight?

 

[Royal Hill]

I get what Art is sayin'

If I sell a unique product that is not an "everybody" or "universal" product. I want to target my dollars. I don't want to spend (big x) amount of money to reach (big Y) amount of people where only 1-2% will have any interest (or ability to purchase) my product. It might make good sense for me to spend my money more wisely into target groups that are (80% or higher likely to have an innate interest in my niche products ie. upper tier fishing gear, bmx parts, disc golf apparel). And then, maybe it's targeted well enough to "go in" even more aggressively if it's working.

 

[Royal Hill]

Please elaborate. Curmudgeon of an old neighbor or just uptight?

He might be talking about the man in the mirror?
Or someone... Coming from inside the house!

 

[InnocentCrook]

He might be talking about the man in the mirror?
Or someone... Coming from inside the house!

Didn't even think about someone in the same household. That would be quite the battle. Hopefully my wife's support doesn't wane as time goes on.

 

[corin_brown]

This exists now. Discraft sponsors the Memorial, DD sponsors the GBO, Vibram (used to?) sponsor the MHO and various local/regional businesses sponsor various disc golf tournaments because they all have decided that the players, attendees & viewers comprise their market. My comments were aimed at the people who wanted disc golf to be sponsored by corporations that sell products to everyone - cars, food, drugs, phones, soap, banking services, etc.

 

[Dan Ensor]

He might be talking about the man in the mirror?
Or someone... Coming from inside the house!

I could definitely see some of my neighbors complaining about traffic on the road if a course at my house became popular.

 

[art_vandelay]

Really. Ratings is pretty low on the list of considerations that drive advertising & marketing strategies? What a relief. Then I guess we can expect a nice big ad buy by Chevy for Maple Hill this year. After all, I'm sure sponsoring an NT like that is way less complex than Coke's strategy for buying time on the Super Bowl broadcast.

You are getting advertising confused with event sponsorships which is what I thought we were talking about. But even if we were talking about advertising, you will probably not see Rolex sponsoring a NASCAR event for example. NASCAR is watched by millions of people, but not generally the Rolex buying crowd.

 

[hook_nuts]

Maybe free cheeseburgers at every course?

 

[sidewinder22]

Please elaborate. Curmudgeon of an old neighbor or just uptight?

Neighbors complaining about people going into their yard for OB discs and people taking a whiz outside, IIRC Flyboy Aviation DGC had similar issues. One neighbor complaining about people going into the sheep field. We had to move a couple baskets the other week, didn't really change the holes that much. Not sure what we can about people whizzing outside, it's a farm and there's a bathroom and typically a portapotty, and the neighbor across the street is a state trooper, but he's the one not complaining.

 

[DG_Before_Breakfast]

Lydgate State Park about 10 minutes north of the Lihue airport.

Cool. Great spot for one, used to snorkel there a lot when my daughter needed the protected bay. Course going around the Kalamani playground?

http://www.wailuabayview.com/lydgatepark/lydgateparkmap3.html


On topic: I like DG the way it is, but would also like to see it get more popular for the pro player's sake. Mostly I think it needs rich, probably corporate, sponsors to get there.

It is really hard to get around the issue of a Disc Golf course being a poor place to spectate, erosion considerations, etc. I think one thing that would help is to build 3-4 world class facilities that have the idea of spectating and filming built in, have supporting facilities, are maintained, is a paid course, etc. These would be used for the NTs. Basically, fancy Disc Golf country clubs. But that would be really expensive, and it is hard to imagine how that could sustain itself on a daily basis.

 

[thrembo]

The only thing DG needs is more courses/

 

[Cgkdisc]

Cool. Great spot for one, used to snorkel there a lot when my daughter needed the protected bay. Course going around the Kalamani playground?
http://www.wailuabayview.com/lydgatepark/lydgateparkmap3.html

It will pass safely nearby and more to the south beside the soccer/ultimate fields.

 

[Shamis]

blah blah blah. If disc golf becomes a main stream sport must of us won't be able to compete anymore. Enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[art_vandelay]

blah blah blah. If disc golf becomes a main stream sport must of us won't be able to compete anymore. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I consider softball and bowling main stream sports, yet it does not keep millions of people, including me, from having a lot of fun playing it. Just think of your 4.8 years of playing experience as a head start on all the interlopers.

 

[turbosteve]

Here is an article where one of the co-founders of Pinterest mentions that he likes to play disc golf.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9a217340-1775-11e4-87c0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3ZItE7cD1

 

[corin_brown]

You are getting advertising confused with event sponsorships which is what I thought we were talking about.

Besides the tedious distinctions in internal corporate accounting, budgeting, staffing & nomenclature, I'm not sure what the essential differences are between one company advertising for an event and the same company sponsoring the same event. If Sprint buys ads for the Super Bowl broadcast, are they not also sponsoring the Super Bowl? If Sprint sponsors the NASCAR points series, are they not also advertising at each race of the series? And in both cases, doesn't Sprint decide to spend that $ based on the size of the audiences, even if separate Sprint marketing employees in separate divisions reporting to separate managers in separate meetings are making those decisions?

I concede that Rolex would probably prefer to spend their $ on F1 (which they do) rather than on NASCAR, if you'll concede that the audience of F1 dwarfs the audience of NASCAR (which it does by a factor of 3.) But I get your intended point about Rolex, I think. I'm just not sure what it has to do with giant corporations like Coke, P&G, etc. not putting their $ into disc golf because of disc golf's comparably non-existent audience.

 

[art_vandelay]

I concede. We would just be boring all the people who don't give a crap about this kind of thing if we continued with this. It's fun to discuss this type of thing over a beer, but not as much on message boards about DG.