Jenga54
Double Eagle Member
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2010
- Messages
- 1,976
What's the next Frontier for Disc Manufacturers?
Some data I put together from the PDGA Approved discs list below. There was a notable disc speed race from '82 to '88 and a plateau for over a decade, and another speed boom from 2000 to 2008 and here we sit for another decade.
I don't expect another speed boom, there doesn't seem to be a need, nor do I think they would work ergonomically for most everyone.
1964 - Wham-O /DTW make PDGA approved discs
1979 - 2nd and 3rd company with approved disc
1995 - 7th company with an approved disc
2005 - 11th company with an approved disc
2009 - 21st company with an approved disc
2018 - We now have 74 Unique companies with approved discs (as of this writing), with 1,071 Unique, PDGA Approved disc models
Companies are busy making tweaks of other similar molds, shooting every mold in every type of plastic for their fanbase, with ever new stamps and foils. Maybe there's no new frontier - but if there is, it would create some excitement and some cash. So what's NEXT?
The Top 10 Manufacturers by # of molds:
(144) Innova-Champion
(99) Discraft
(57) Latitude 64
(51) Disc Golf Association
(51) Gateway
(44) Wham-O
(43) Lightning Discs
(41) Prodigy Disc
(40) Westside
(34) MVP
Some data I put together from the PDGA Approved discs list below. There was a notable disc speed race from '82 to '88 and a plateau for over a decade, and another speed boom from 2000 to 2008 and here we sit for another decade.
I don't expect another speed boom, there doesn't seem to be a need, nor do I think they would work ergonomically for most everyone.
1964 - Wham-O /DTW make PDGA approved discs
1979 - 2nd and 3rd company with approved disc
1995 - 7th company with an approved disc
2005 - 11th company with an approved disc
2009 - 21st company with an approved disc
2018 - We now have 74 Unique companies with approved discs (as of this writing), with 1,071 Unique, PDGA Approved disc models
Companies are busy making tweaks of other similar molds, shooting every mold in every type of plastic for their fanbase, with ever new stamps and foils. Maybe there's no new frontier - but if there is, it would create some excitement and some cash. So what's NEXT?
The Top 10 Manufacturers by # of molds:
(144) Innova-Champion
(99) Discraft
(57) Latitude 64
(51) Disc Golf Association
(51) Gateway
(44) Wham-O
(43) Lightning Discs
(41) Prodigy Disc
(40) Westside
(34) MVP