Why Can't Disc Golf Get Big Sponsors? One person's thoughts.

[jeffmonty]

As long as there's Jomez, CCDG, Gatekeeper, etc., I'm ok with the disc golf coverage we have right now. If a bigger sponsor stepped up to support those guys that would be great, I'd be happy for them. Other than that, "Growing the sport" is not really very important to me outside of new course development. Larger payouts are even less important. Expanding our audience and reaching more people? Meh. Let it happen naturally.

 

[DavidSauls]

DanJon has it right in post #16. Seven to fifteen years ago I was a member of a management team (large Rx co.) which, amongst other things, decided where to "put our sponsorship money toward". It always came down to "return (r) on (o) investment (i). Let me repeat that. roi. Roi. ROI. NOTHING else counts - unless it's a one-in-a-million shot and you'vyou've found a totally altruistic bazillionaire who's fond of colorful plastic plates! Any "large" entity willing to 'temporarily part with a boat load of money' WILL be looking for ways to recoup it - and then some - in some future time. If you think otherwise you're wrong.
Bill F., you're not incorrect in your OP, you just 'narrowed' your scope (of 'solutions' to this issue) by immediately jumping into the 'media' aspects of it (IMO). Let's take it a step or two back...and start with "Investors want ROI". What form(s) ROI take is an earlier / different discussion.

This, with a footnote:

You've got to not only convince the potential sponsor of a good ROI, but that they'll get a better ROI than other places they could put that money.

That, of course, means eyeballs, lots and lots of eyeballs.

 

[elmexdela]

As long as there's Jomez, CCDG, Gatekeeper, etc., I'm ok with the disc golf coverage we have right now. If a bigger sponsor stepped up to support those guys that would be great, I'd be happy for them. Other than that, "Growing the sport" is not really very important to me outside of new course development. Larger payouts are even less important. Expanding our audience and reaching more people? Meh. Let it happen naturally.

watch espn wipe out jomez ccdg and gatekeeper and well be happy as hell cuz grow the sport right

 

[Casey 1988]

There are other successful sports where it's difficult to see the action on coverage without slow motion replays;
Ice Hockey, Baseball, Cricket, Golf

I don't think DG is anywhere near as difficult as most of them. For one I think players should be required to throw discs that are easily visible on footage. If more courses had platforms to film from and drone footage during shots easily available the DG coverage could be awesome. All of this requires budget though.

I think DG is pretty easy to view on many courses and is currently filmed very well by the best teams. As soon as you drop out of the top few crews though it gets ropey really quickly.

I agree, as this is what is holding back Major League Lacrosse or MLL from becoming a big USA sport is the speed of play in the USA and Canada, the fact that a camera will never be fast enough to capture the footage ever, they had experts in high speed movies to do the math and found this out. This is why NBC Sports is the only place covering the sport, even online the camera is a few seconds behind the throw.

Disc Golf is not even close to as difficult to view as Golf, the ball is very hard to see in 90% of the cases even on a 3k-4k TV as best as we can see is 4k, anything after that is not going to look sharper to the viewer.

After the top 5-6 crews doing disc golf video, the video quality goes down or in the case of . I say though for a single person, I saw a video in 2019 that was not bad due to the quality of camera the single person was using that had the tracking on the item being viewed, the disc. Scary thing is that Paul McBeth was almost beat by John E McCray in that top level A tier Tournament. The Event was on YouTube a week after the tournament.

 

[disco40]

Do big sponsors even know about disc golf? If you didn't play, would you?

I'm not trying to be a smart a**, but how much disc golf do you see on a daily basis in regular life? (outside of your own participation of course).

No sponsor is going to pony up big bucks to endorse a sport the general population knows nothing about.

Until last September, I didn't think about "frisbee golf" ever, for any reason. Except for a joke every couple of years.

In fact, it was a random YouTube recommend from watching ball golf highlights that made me realize it was being played competitively and had champions. And I felt like a goofball the first couple of rounds, but said "ah what the hell, let's give it an honest go."

I think it's easy for us to get in a bubble and it's easy to forget how obscure our hobby is.

 

[Orioles_Lefty]

I witnessed ultimate frisbee trying to attract bigger sponsors 10-15 years ago, and it's an uphill grind. The big three sports + hockey all have the vast advantage of being deeply embedded in a large percentage of American families. People, as kids, engage with these sports by family obligation. I wonder if that will be true for baseball in 15-30 years, but it remains true for now.

Any other sport has to cultivate a following. Soccer is plenty popular but that interest is spread out across upwards of 10 leagues across the world. Golf is a wealthy lifestyle thing and also had Tiger. Tennis is also wealthy.

It's just hard to grow spectators for a sport outside of cultural indoctrination via families.

Take any fringe sport. Say, ultimate frisbee. How many players grew up with that sport as a spectator since birth/childhood? Almost none. Same with DG, other than Paige Shue. Every fringe sport has to capture a spectator one person at a time with no foundation to work from. It's nearly impossible.

 

[jdm0514]

You're in a disc golf echo chamber. To most people in the sports veiwing demographic they don't know of disc golf. Until the big wigs at big corporations can see that their advertisements can turn a profit they would never advertise for disc golf.

 

[disco40]

And yeah disc golf is (relatively) easy to film. Put cameras in the woods. More drones. Discs are big and colorful. This is not really an issue, and the solutions will easily scale with the growth of the sport.

 

[DiscFifty]

22 Years (27 and counting) Later..still not mainstream?
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117487

One of the problems with the sport for decades imop is the PDGA trying to keep the AMs and PROs under one umbrella. The pros should dissolve their relationship with the PDGA. Let the PDGA continue to focus on AMs and growing the recreational side of the sport. So now everyone who "doesn't want the sport to grow", "doesn't care about it getting on ESPN", "doesn't want any of their membership fees going towards the pros", well...all those issues go away.

At first I wasn't on board with the idea of the DGPT being the home for pro disc golf, but they've come a long way so wth......they need to set up their own rating system, membership fees, sanctioned tournament structure and run with it. Would probably be much easier for a big sponsor to deal with the streamlined DGPT compared to the PDGA anyway due to the DGPT just focusing on pro$.

 

[DavidSauls]

....probably be much easier for a big sponsor to deal with the streamlined DGPT compared to the PDGA anyway due to the DGPT just focusing on pro$.

Wasn't this one of the American Disc Golf Tour's platforms?

*

Ease of dealing with the organization is way down the list of factors. Way below lack of eyeballs---there has been no evidence that anybody wants to watch disc golf, not non-disc-golfers in significant numbers, and no reason for someone to gamble their money in hopes that they can make it happen.

 

[Audible Vibration]

I just did a quick google search:

Golf invented in the 15th century
Baseball invented 1839.
Basketball invented in 1891.
Football invented in 1920.
Disc Golf invented 1976.

I'm not saying we'll ever be as big as any of these sports, but we are a lot younger than the ones we're comparing ourselves to. Maybe we're doing just fine, and in 50 years there will be hundreds or thousands of pros that can make a living playing disc golf.

 

[biscoe]

22 Years (27 and counting) Later..still not mainstream?
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117487

One of the problems with the sport for decades imop is the PDGA trying to keep the AMs and PROs under one umbrella. The pros should dissolve their relationship with the PDGA. Let the PDGA continue to focus on AMs and growing the recreational side of the sport. So now everyone who "doesn't want the sport to grow", "doesn't care about it getting on ESPN", "doesn't want any of their membership fees going towards the pros", well...all those issues go away.

At first I wasn't on board with the idea of the DGPT being the home for pro disc golf, but they've come a long way so wth......they need to set up their own rating system, membership fees, sanctioned tournament structure and run with it. Would probably be much easier for a big sponsor to deal with the streamlined DGPT compared to the PDGA anyway due to the DGPT just focusing on pro$.

How does the PDGA currently prevent a big sponsor from supporting the DGPT?

 

[ru4por]

22 Years (27 and counting) Later..still not mainstream?
https://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117487

One of the problems with the sport for decades imop is the PDGA trying to keep the AMs and PROs under one umbrella. The pros should dissolve their relationship with the PDGA. Let the PDGA continue to focus on AMs and growing the recreational side of the sport. So now everyone who "doesn't want the sport to grow", "doesn't care about it getting on ESPN", "doesn't want any of their membership fees going towards the pros", well...all those issues go away.

At first I wasn't on board with the idea of the DGPT being the home for pro disc golf, but they've come a long way so wth......they need to set up their own rating system, membership fees, sanctioned tournament structure and run with it. Would probably be much easier for a big sponsor to deal with the streamlined DGPT compared to the PDGA anyway due to the DGPT just focusing on pro$.

Wasn't this one of the American Disc Golf Tour's platforms?

*

Ease of dealing with the organization is way down the list of factors. Way below lack of eyeballs---there has been no evidence that anybody wants to watch disc golf, not non-disc-golfers in significant numbers, and no reason for someone to gamble their money in hopes that they can make it happen.

I agree with David here. IF this is an issue....it is WAY down the list of potential issues. The vast majority of pro players would not benefit from the described action by Nifty, only a few handful of touring pros.

 

[davetherocketguy]

I like how we compare the coverage of DG to sports that have been around for literally generations. Baseball, football and golf have been around since (or before) the 1900's. Each have had over 100 years to gain a foothold in culture whereas DG has been around - kinda - since 1976?

(Edit: Dangit Audible you beat me to it lol)

Wanna grow the sport? How about instead of wringing our hands over how little coverage we get how about we focus on making the quality of our sport overall better. Increase the quality --> more participation --> more coverage.

 

[Karl]

I just did a quick google search:

Golf invented in the 15th century
Baseball invented 1839.
Basketball invented in 1891.
Football invented in 1920.
Disc Golf invented 1976.

I'm not saying we'll ever be as big as any of these sports, but we are a lot younger than the ones we're comparing ourselves to. Maybe we're doing just fine, and in 50 years there will be hundreds or thousands of pros that can make a living playing disc golf.

If you talk with the REAL old-timers (80+ y.o.), I think you'll realize that disc golf was 'invented' quite a bit before 1976 (although I get the point you're trying to make).

 

[U_NICED_ME]

I have yet to see a disc golf advertisement on TV, not for discs or educational/promotional. That is how you grow the sport. You don't modify all the challenges that make it great and equitable. No one will want to watch the same handful of players crush the field week in and week out on boring, unchallenging courses. Not to mention these courses are often less picturesque.

We see Paige dominate an FPO field on open courses, but we see her challenged when it comes to hitting technical lines and/or setting up approaches. See the Preserve vs Silver Cup. And you can film in the woods, I see it being done now.

Advertising costs according to legalzoom for cable television: "Prime time spots on network television that may cost $2,000 to $3,000 per spot usually cost around $175 on cable. For a 30-second spot in a suburban area, advertisers may only spend $25 per spot on channels like CNN and ESPN, $20 for Nickelodeon and TNN, and $15 for channels such as VH-1."

 

[Audible Vibration]

If you talk with the REAL old-timers (80+ y.o.), I think you'll realize that disc golf was 'invented' quite a bit before 1976 (although I get the point you're trying to make).

I'm sure that's true for every sport. I don't imagine someone created an organization and detailed set of rules for a game nobody has ever played.

 

[nothinbuttree]

While I have nothing against the concept of more pros being able to make a living in this sport, I agree with the general thought that before the tip of the pyramid can bring in the big bucks, the foundation or base much get much much larger. The path to a few hundred top players making a true living at disc golf as a sport rests solely in the ability to grow disc golf as a game. I believe all our focus should be on the latter, not the former.

Growing the game of disc golf will benefit everyone, including the 99% of individuals, who will never have any aspirations of changing careers.
Growing the game of disc golf should include addressing the lack of diversity at present. I am biased, but I truly believe that most people, regardless of gender, skin color, national origin, or anything else, would get hooked on the game of disc golf were they to play a round with an appropriate disc(s) at a course suitable to their beginning skill level.
Growing the game of disc golf should also focus on getting every more elementary schools involved.
Growing the game of disc golf could include traveling clubs, like the Ryder Cup in bolf, just at a lower level. Having 10 players from town or neighborhood A go up against town B could be fun, and a potential way to draw in some local sponsorship money anyway. Or have local schools form teams. They have teams for everything else. Go past your local high school baseball field--look at the outfield walls. See all the advertisers? That sort of thing. If you can get schools competing against each other, the rest will take care of itself.

I will never win one single dollar at disc golf. Most who play are in the same boat. But we minions are eventually where each dollar that Paul or Ricky or Eagle wins starts out at. We purchase the discs that innova and discraft produce, which they then turn around and give to top players as their sponsors. I have probably never shot a round over 950 in my life. But I have spent probably close to a thousand bucks on products just in the last couple years. We minions would also buy any products that a larger corporate sponsor would sell, and in turn then have to money to pay top players.

So you want to grow this sport? Grow it for me. I am disc golf.

 

[ru4por]

This thread seems to be traveling down the path of almost all "grow the sport" threads. There is a prevailing belief that if given exposure, the game will soar. This discounts some realities, IMO. The game is not that compelling, interesting or difficult. These things might enhance grass root growth, but not big time, mainstream viewership. Disc golf is a tiny, fringe sport, wallowing in the midst of hundreds and hundreds of other participation games, that really offer little for the mainstream public to be interested in.

 

[DiscFifty]

How does the PDGA currently prevent a big sponsor from supporting the DGPT?

I never said the PDGA prevented a big sponsor from supporting the DGPT.