When I say level I mean
Money/ Tournament purses
Television coverage
Major advertising


Is it just that the average Joe doesn't know about DG in particular or what. I mean with the current number of people who play, including all the non PDGA casual players is huge. I think its time we shed the notion that this is a " hippy" sport amongst the average person.

Whats it going to take to get this sport moving on up?
Now you can argue that there are a bunch of new courses springing up all over but then again so are playgrounds.
I really think some seriouse thought needs to go into marketing this sport alot better than having it just seen as a recreational sport.

Hello Drew, In regards to television coverage I produce a program titled Disc Golf Monthly that is viewable mostly in the greater Philadelphia area and Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania on both Local Origination channels and via Comcast's On Demand service.

The program is viewed over a 1,000 times alone on the On Demand service.

I continue to market and try to distribute the program to newer markets and stations on a regular basis.
Perhaps one day the program will make it onto a nationally distributed cable/satalite sation.

This program is brought to you by the PDGA and the MADC.

If you have any other questions feel free to send me an email at [email protected]

Kevin McGorry
Producer/Director Disc Golf Monthly

Bathrooms, bathrooms, bathrooms! I can't say it enough, bathrooms! If I have to play one more tournament this year where I have to pee in the woods, that will definitely become my first asked about prerequisite for any more tournaments. In other professional sports, they don't pee (or whatever else) where they play! I'm pretty sure no one has ever seen Tiger Woods walk to the side of the fairway and unzip.

And dress professional. There are too many whining about collars. If want to wear your grubby favorite tee, fine, but play casual golf. Would a polo shirt and a nice pair of shorts kill you? You may find that a player who dresses better, feels better and shoots better. If you want to play like a pro, dress like a pro.

Get rid of the drugs and drinking. Yes, it's in the rules, but the rules aren't being enforced and some TD's are afraid to enforce them for fear of losing friends, losing attendance, whatever. If you feel the need to be high and/or drunk to play, again, play casual golf. We're hearing too many instances of drugs in front of juniors even. Do you want to elevate the sport or corrupt the juniors?

Cut out the pissy, whining, bag kicking tantrums. If only we could fine anyone for courtesy violations the way many other sports do. It only takes one rude, angry person to ruin a fun tournament for a lot of people.

Our sport will become elevated when the majority of players chose to elevate themselves to a level WORTHY of major sponsorship, television coverage and big purses. Until then, the drug using hippies, peeing in the woods image will remain. But please, if that's the image you like, again... play casual golf somewhere else.

Our sport will become elevated when the majority of players chose to elevate themselves to a level WORTHY of major sponsorship, television coverage and big purses.

cant say it better than that! in addition to the points Kathy makes in her post, things like course location, course design, and weekend vs. four day events as items on which we compare unfavorably to almost all other major sports. we could hasten the breakthru by each picking just one issue, figuring out how we're unworthy and why it matters, and then doing something, anything about it.

Bathrooms, bathrooms, bathrooms! I can't say it enough, bathrooms! If I have to play one more tournament this year where I have to pee in the woods, that will definitely become my first asked about prerequisite for any more tournaments. In other professional sports, they don't pee (or whatever else) where they play! I'm pretty sure no one has ever seen Tiger Woods walk to the side of the fairway and unzip.

And dress professional. There are too many whining about collars. If want to wear your grubby favorite tee, fine, but play casual golf. Would a polo shirt and a nice pair of shorts kill you? You may find that a player who dresses better, feels better and shoots better. If you want to play like a pro, dress like a pro.

Get rid of the drugs and drinking. Yes, it's in the rules, but the rules aren't being enforced and some TD's are afraid to enforce them for fear of losing friends, losing attendance, whatever. If you feel the need to be high and/or drunk to play, again, play casual golf. We're hearing too many instances of drugs in front of juniors even. Do you want to elevate the sport or corrupt the juniors?

Cut out the pissy, whining, bag kicking tantrums. If only we could fine anyone for courtesy violations the way many other sports do. It only takes one rude, angry person to ruin a fun tournament for a lot of people.

Our sport will become elevated when the majority of players chose to elevate themselves to a level WORTHY of major sponsorship, television coverage and big purses. Until then, the drug using hippies, peeing in the woods image will remain. But please, if that's the image you like, again... play casual golf somewhere else.



I second that.

I was definitely thinking of the polo shirt rule today. As far as I know the major NT events require you dress according to the code. We may have to do that next year for Lexington Open IX.
I agree that there needs to be a distinction between casual play and Tournament play.

While I agree with DiscDiva about the factors restricting disc golf from taking a prestigious step forward (GREAT post DD), I wonder to myself what's wrong with disc golf just the way it is?

For these changes to take place, there is one major factor missing: MONEY. The number one factor that has kept me playing disc golf for 8 years is the fact that its free. Yes, ball golf does have a better image and there is a lot more money to be made. But ball golf is already accepted and established around the world - so why on earth would "people" (meaning societies / the masses) really want some inferior version of an already established sport that's relatively boring to watch? When I say inferior, I'm referring to the way a society would perceive it: an immitation of golf, easier to play, easier to putt, one-third the length, cheap people play it.

So what does ball golf do to cut out the hippies? They make it cost $50 just to play a round (with yuppies )! Do we really want that? Or do we want the current community of players that are from all different backgrounds with similar underlying social characteristics that make the nature of a tournament more like a Harley convention than an athletic competition? I think the current status of disc golf speaks for itself in answering that question.

In addressing this issue, my words of wisdom are "careful what you ask for." Hey look, its my first post /msgboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Fly 18 has his and hers, and carts, and other nice optoins.Change the venue,change the coustomer, change the the coustomer, change the results......... ;)You are what you eat, you are where you play....,# 16 for fly 18....Riverside CA......

With all due respect to the original post, the current number of players is not "huge". It's not just way behind the major sports, but way behind bowling, handball, badmitten, softball, equestrian, and dozens of other activities (I heard there are 4,000 adult league kickballers in San Diego alone----how far behind adult kickball are we?).

There's a lot we can do and a lot we should do to move forward, including the suggestions in this forum and actions in many different directions already being undertaken by others. But there won't be major television or money until there are major sponsorships, and there won't be major sponsorships until there are truly "huge" numbers of potential customers.

So while we spiff up the image at NT events and pay to play on ball-golf courses and get Timmy Gill on ESPN and get a national sponsorship---all important steps forward---we also need to spread the gospel and get more folks, especially kids, playing so one day we truly have "huge" numbers.

where i'm from most people 30+ generally have no idea what disc golf is. also i chat with casaul players and they don't even realize what the pdga is or what the rules are. there needs to be more positive media coverage; not just tv but newspapers. going national before going local is going to prolong the process. getting the older crowd on broad will increase the money. i ask you; who has the $$$?

In only nine posts so far we have hit on the two separate issues in the growth of disc golf. The earlier posts tended to concern the national image of disc golf. Its great to see the NT events on discgolftv.com and elsewhere when we can find them. Yeah, I think it would be cool to see some disc golf on ESPN one day. I keep thinking of the movie dodgeball- will we see disc golf on the Ocho? :D That image needs to be cleaner. We see top players looking like players, dressing like players, acting like players and ****...shooting like players!

The second, and bigger, issue is local. Smythe touched on that. I am a very low rated rec player who has been playing in Bruce's IOS tournaments in the Chicago area the past two years. We get new players each time. Locals come to the park and see us out there and get interested. I was playing a casual round in a local park last month and saw a foursome of septugenarians on the course. Afterwards they had some questions about why I carried so many discs. They had very light plastic garbage can lid frisbees. I talked to them about a local place where they could get a putter and perhaps a Roc which would fly much better for them. Its still cheap to buy plastic and usually free to play. This helps get people started. I agree that we don't want to pay $50/round to play. Few would. I rarely go to the local fly 18 even though it is the closest to my house. I still want to play for free. Get more courses, more active local clubs, more school programs, more park district programs, more local tournaments that will feature pros but cater to hackers like me.

In only nine posts so far we have hit on the two separate issues in the growth of disc golf. The earlier posts tended to concern the national image of disc golf. Its great to see the NT events on discgolftv.com and elsewhere when we can find them. Yeah, I think it would be cool to see some disc golf on ESPN one day. I keep thinking of the movie dodgeball- will we see disc golf on the Ocho? :D That image needs to be cleaner. We see top players looking like players, dressing like players, acting like players and ****...shooting like players!

The second, and bigger, issue is local. Smythe touched on that. I am a very low rated rec player who has been playing in Bruce's IOS tournaments in the Chicago area the past two years. We get new players each time. Locals come to the park and see us out there and get interested. I was playing a casual round in a local park last month and saw a foursome of septugenarians on the course. Afterwards they had some questions about why I carried so many discs. They had very light plastic garbage can lid frisbees. I talked to them about a local place where they could get a putter and perhaps a Roc which would fly much better for them. Its still cheap to buy plastic and usually free to play. This helps get people started. I agree that we don't want to pay $50/round to play. Few would. I rarely go to the local fly 18 even though it is the closest to my house. I still want to play for free. Get more courses, more active local clubs, more school programs, more park district programs, more local tournaments that will feature pros but cater to hackers like me.



Maybe making Disc Golf a FOR PROFIT ORGANAZATION.
;)

How about someone throws in a relatively small amount of money and makes a indie film about disc golf, or find a hollywood producer and pitch him the idea, it would be tough developing a good plot and not just make it all DG, but it would propel the sport even if it was only aired on channel 522 or some other random cable channel.

What about a reality show about a group of touring players trapped in an RV together for the whole tour ?

They could eliminate one person every week for not cashing or finishing last among the RV. :D

that WOULD be entertaining, but a network would steal the idea and use a more mainstream sport to get it a broader audience.

It would be really fun to have to play for your ride. If you lose, all you get is the discs on your back.

One caveat: If you can make it to the next tournament, you can win your way back on the bus and bump someone else off. If you fail to show at the next tournament, you are history.

How about someone throws in a relatively small amount of money and makes a indie film about disc golf, or find a hollywood producer and pitch him the idea, it would be tough developing a good plot and not just make it all DG, but it would propel the sport even if it was only aired on channel 522 or some other random cable channel.



I have been thinking about that topic for a while.
You could call it " #$*&$! Shack " ( big inuendo there )
With all the antics in disc golf, it would not be hard to parody Caddy Shack, with our own little flair!

How about Phatty Shack!
Censorship sucks

How about Phatty Shack!


Yeah, right. That's exactly what we need to move disc golf forward.

I think you should go to eBay and look for a movie called "Discs and Dorks". Something tells me you would really enjoy it. :p

Lets face it. Disc golf simply isn't a sexy sport. If it were, it would be on ESPN just like this was on yesterday...

...Updated: July 5, 2006, 12:59 AM ET
Kobayashi edges Chestnut in hot dog contestAssociated Press


NEW YORK -- A 160-pound wonder from Japan set a record by devouring a sickening 53� frankfurters in 12 minutes to win the annual Independence Day hot dog eating competition on Coney Island.

Dog gone: Kobayashi's winning marks since 2001
2006 53�
2005 49
2004 53�
2003 44�
2002 50�
2001 50

The feat earned Takeru Kobayashi, 27, his sixth straight title in the event, held at the original Nathan's Famous hot dog stand on Brooklyn's seashore. His prize: the coveted Yellow Mustard Belt.

Kobayashi broke his record of 53� hot dogs, set at the same competition two years ago.

Thousands of raucous spectators jammed the streets in front of the hot dog stand, a block from the famed Coney Island boardwalk, to watch the competition and Kobayashi -- a top-ranked eater who once ate 17.7 pounds of pan-seared cow brains to win $25,000.

His strongest competition was Joey Chestnut, a 220-pound civil engineering student from San Jose, Calif., who set a U.S. record by eating 50 hot dogs during a qualifying tournament in Las Vegas.

Chestnut jumped to an early lead in the competition, sometimes jamming franks into his mouth with two hands as the crowd roared.

But Chestnut struggled, red-faced, with veins bulging in his forehead, as the Japanese star methodically chomped dog after dog, often dipping them in a soft drink before cramming them into his mouth. Kobayashi passed Chestnut with about three minutes left in the contest.

When the clock expired, Chestnut had swallowed 52 Nathan's franks -- not quite enough.

"I hit a wall. I just felt tired," he told ESPN, which broadcast the competition live.

Kobayashi, his hair dyed yellow like a Nathan's billboard, vowed through an interpreter to return next year to conquer even more hot dogs than he did this time.

Among the competitors were another favorite, 100-pound Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, of Alexandria, Va., who once ate 65 hard boiled eggs in a little more than 6� minutes, and a local favorite, Eric "Badlands" Booker, a 425-pound subway conductor from Long Island who holds speed-eating records for pies and matzo balls.

First-time competitor Erik "The Red" Denmark, 28, of Seattle, who downed 22 hot dogs, said he was happy just to be there.

"It's like making it to the World Cup," said Denmark, who can boast of having eating 98 jalapenos in 15 minutes.

Yeah, and their controversies are much more interesting than the normal ones that come up at a DG tournament:

"At about 1:50 p.m., with just a few minutes left on the clock, the 6-foot-1, 230-pound Chestnut was tied with his diminutive competitor as they neared the 50-dog mark. Suddenly, Kobayashi appeared to regurgitate -- a move that results in automatic disqualification and that speed eating experts call "a reversal of fortune."

As Kobayashi lifted a cup of water to his mouth, a spray of bread chunks and wiener bits shot into his cup, which the 170-pound champion immediately gulped down. Chestnut, unable to spit out words, pointed and gestured toward judges to draw their attention to the slip.

"The judges found a quarter of a hot dog in his cup," said Patrick Chestnut, Joey's older brother who witnessed the spew from the front row as he cheered on his brother. "If that's not grounds for disqualification, what is?"

Gersh Kuntzman, the judge who ruled in Kobayashi's favor, saw it differently.

"The effluvia never touched the table," Kuntzman said, a distinction he claimed was part of the International Federation of Competitive Eating's official rules.

"When the hot dog came up, and some of it came out his nose, Kobayashi sucked it back down. To me, that's the testament of a champion and great athlete."

See: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/05/MNGT2JPD2D1.DTL

"It's like making it to the World Cup," said Denmark, who can boast of having eating 98 jalapenos in 15 minutes.



if those jalapenos were hotties, that couldn't have been two comfortable a sitting when the digestion leftovers were discharged :eek: /msgboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Yeah, and their controversies are much more interesting than the normal ones that come up at a DG tournament:

"At about 1:50 p.m., with just a few minutes left on the clock, the 6-foot-1, 230-pound Chestnut was tied with his diminutive competitor as they neared the 50-dog mark. Suddenly, Kobayashi appeared to regurgitate -- a move that results in automatic disqualification and that speed eating experts call "a reversal of fortune."

As Kobayashi lifted a cup of water to his mouth, a spray of bread chunks and wiener bits shot into his cup, which the 170-pound champion immediately gulped down. Chestnut, unable to spit out words, pointed and gestured toward judges to draw their attention to the slip.

"The judges found a quarter of a hot dog in his cup," said Patrick Chestnut, Joey's older brother who witnessed the spew from the front row as he cheered on his brother. "If that's not grounds for disqualification, what is?"

Gersh Kuntzman, the judge who ruled in Kobayashi's favor, saw it differently.

"The effluvia never touched the table," Kuntzman said, a distinction he claimed was part of the International Federation of Competitive Eating's official rules.

"When the hot dog came up, and some of it came out his nose, Kobayashi sucked it back down. To me, that's the testament of a champion and great athlete."

See: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/05/MNGT2JPD2D1.DTL



Can you say Acid Reflux ?

How about Phatty Shack!


Yeah, right. That's exactly what we need to move disc golf forward.

I think you should go to eBay and look for a movie called "Discs and Dorks". Something tells me you would really enjoy it. :p


just arrived FedEx overnight, it is going on the shelf next to my participation ribbon from the 2nd grade spelling bee and my Dungeons and Dragons Limited Edition Collectors Set.
Thanks for the GREAT advise Rett!

Lets face it. Disc golf simply isn't a sexy sport. If it were, it would be on ESPN just like this was on yesterday...

...Updated: July 5, 2006, 12:59 AM ET
Kobayashi edges Chestnut in hot dog contestAssociated Press




So you mean to tell me that a hot dog eating contest, World Series of Poker, World Series of Darts, A Spelling Bee Contest, and some other stuff that has nothing to do with the word "Sport" is sexy?! I mean come on, ESPN is the World Wide Leader In Sports!!! Now if they had all of that crap on a sports channel, then we can definetly get DG on ESPN or any other sports channel for that matter. I tell everyone that I go to school with or my neighbors about Disc Golf and they have never heard of it. That is the problem. Nobody has heard of it. Now if we get more people exposed to it, which is happening, then everyone else will realize that is becoming a bigger sport every year. And Timmy Gill showing up on Cold Pizza was a fantastic start to a better future for Disc Golf. We just have to have a lot more people informed about this sport (which again is improving every year).

Start taping events. high quality coverage and send in the full coverage and let them look through it and do the editing and they'll put it on. easily one tournament can by covered by 1-2 hrs.

Start taping events. high quality coverage and send in the full coverage and let them look through it and do the editing and they'll put it on. easily one tournament can by covered by 1-2 hrs.




That too. :D

It appears that ESPN is dying to put non mainstream sports on tv right now. You forgot about the World Series of Dominoes! There's no doubt that disc golf could make it on ESPN. It'll just take a person or group of people with the time and motivation to make it happen. Disc golf won't magically appear on ESPN one day. I'd love to do it, but I got too much on my plate right now. So, it'll have to take someone else :p

Some good points have been made so far. There's been a few things that I've liked and disliked so far that I've seen the past few years. I started playing in central Iowa while I was going to school 4 years ago I guess. My next door neighbor in the dorm played a lot, and I started going for reasons a lot of college kids start playing, to go drink beer in the woods and have a good time. Not long once I got playing, I quit drinking so much out on the course, because I was actually having a good time doing it, and wanted to get better. As much as people would like to clean up the sport, you're going to lose a lot of first timers who have a friend that says, hey, come check this out, we'll bring a few beers with us, you'll like it. After school I moved to St. Louis, and the atmosphere is a bit different. There seems to be more tournaments, albeit hardly any of them are PDGA sanctioned. Everything in Iowa was sanctioned, and it was a cool thing to say, hey, I'm a member and have a player rating, I mean something, I'm part of an organization. I'd like to see more sanctioned tournaments in St. Louis, because then you'd get more people traveling from surrounding states, etc. Larger tournaments mean sponsors for prizes and whatnot, and by calling for sponsors and all the advertising is only promotion for the sport. On the other hand, the smaller, more frequent tournaments are very beginner friendly. Typically if a non club member wants to play in a tournament, they can pay club dues, receive some free stuff, and be allowed to play in the tournament for free for becoming a member on site. I think there is some hesitation down here for having more sanctioned tournaments due to not really knowing how well people are willing to pay 40 bucks annually to become a PDGA member. Maybe if the PDGA did some promotional sign up periods during the year, where a new player could get a bit better of a rate, or some sort of referral discount, or be able to work out an affiliate deal with local clubs, then maybe more people would be willing to take the step from a casual partier on the course to a PDGA member who plays in a few events over the summer. Casual players don't know how much fun a tournament can be, not to mention it's a good way with supplying yourself with plastic throughout the year. Just my two cents.

Start taping events. high quality coverage and send in the full coverage and let them look through it and do the editing and they'll put it on. easily one tournament can by covered by 1-2 hrs.



Yeah, send in tapes!

Want it on TV? Send it to me.

BTW, I don't know about others, but I liked the Dominos coverage. I'd watched locals play when in Jamaica but it all goes so fast I never paid enough attn to learn the rules. I guess dominoes aren't just for standing on end after all.

I am not sure about the rest of the world, but here in Ft. Worth on the bottom of the front page of the newspaper there is a " news tip " section. It simply states " got a news tip call this number " . Check your hometown newspaper chances are there is a section similar to this. Next time you have a sanctioned event in town, call it up. I am planning on getting the Star Telegram involved in the Z-Boaz Open next year. If it introduces 1 percent of the daily readers ( approx 250,000 readers daily ) to the ever growing sport of Disc Golf, that is true progress. It sucks to say this, but, we should learn to crawl before we walk.
Act locally, you never know what can happen...