Changes I would Like to See in Disc Golf
Y’all cannot fathom how bored I am. I’m broke, have class, and don’t have finals to study for. That being said I actually cannot stand doing nothing so allow me to flood your brains with this propaganda.
Paying Ams with Merchandise:
Many tournaments pay out amateur disc golfers with an onslaught of plastic from the tournament’s primary sponsor (e.g. I took first at Santa Maria Open in MA1 and was given 8 DGA Breakers) and this is outrageous. By giving people plastic they don’t want, you are discouraging amateurs from signing up and therefore providing the professionals with less cash for the payout. While a few local loyalists will sign up for your B Tier because they love the course, your pro fields will most likely be lacking because people cannot make a profit off of traveling to your tournament.
There is literally zero reason for your tournament to not have a credit payout. For example, my local tournament, The Evergreen Open, has worked with Marshall Street Disc Golf for years now where the amateur cash is paid out as credit towards the website. This results in huge amateur turn outs at a B Tier at a very mediocre course. There are several sites through which this alternative is possible but nobody seems to utilize this concept when it could benefit everyone involved. This could dramatically affect the popularity of both the sites and tournaments. So to you, the reader, I pose the question: What is there to lose?
There may be an issue as far as websites affording sponsorship, but there is no reason that the current sponsors couldn’t employ this method. Relating back to my previous example, why give out 10 DGA Breakers when you could give credit to the DGA factory store?
There is clearly a lot to gain and I would love to see this concept come to fruition at more and more A, B, and C Tiers.
Less Personal Brands in the Media:
Clearly, there are more than one firms who could give themselves a more professional name but I’d like to talk about Jomez Productions. Now let me make something very clear, I am NOT trying to remove any credit from Jomez nor his team. I am a huge fan of their videos and I absolutely love that they are on tour. That being said, labelling themselves as something else (e.g. Tour Live) could really give people a more professional sense. For instance, when you introduce someone to golf, you watch it on The Golf Channel; I see no reason for introducing someone to the most popular way to watch disc golf on a personal account.
Subsidizing Coverage:
A couple of years ago, I made the immature, uneducated choice to call out Terry Miller (TheDiscGolfGuy) for providing rocky live coverage of the 2016 GCC in Las Vegas. He replied (very professionally may I add) with how it costs a lot of money to provide the smooth coverage we see in other sports. I formally apologized in person and made it very clear that I nothing but respect what he is doing for the game, which is true. However, with giants like Innova, Dynamic Discs, and Discraft, I cannot help but wonder why none of these companies subsidize live coverage so that our sport can come across as more professional than not.
It is an indisputable fact that the next large step for our sport is improved live coverage; it is the only thing that other sports have that we don’t. This has been an issue for years now and it is an incredible opportunity for one company to make one of the biggest changes for our sport to date.
The PDGA:
I have absolutely zero idea what they are doing in general at any given time so if you know, please relay that to me because I would love to know. This is not me doubting the PDGA, I’m just curious.
Edit: I’ve been informed that the PDGA insures tournaments as well as the stuff I knew about. Good show.
#ActuallyGrowTheSport