Alright, I'm googled out, and am one lousy researcher. Someone less able than me has tasked me with finding a source for the following claim: "disc golf is the fastest growing partipation sport."

I doubt the claim, but in my googling, it appears that the claim is made pretty often, or at least it was made once and repeated often. I ask the question here only because I can't think of any other place to ask it. Does someone here actually know a source for this claim, if indeed it is true?

Thanks in advance for doing my work, which is actually just doing someone else's work. :D

i dunno... Nascar, lacrosse, bullriding, paintball and rugby are all on the first yahoo search page for "fastest growing sport"... these all have claimed to be just that, or one of those, within the last couple years.

i'd claim DG is the fastes, but someone wold point out that there goes another ex-Director spreading untruths :)

You think much more clearly than I do: you type "fastest growing sport" and I type "disc golf fastest growing sport." I wonder why paintball didn't show up and all my links mentioned disc golf.

Nascar??? That is no sport. :p :D

The only claims that I've heard repeatedly are that disc golf is growing faster than ball golf (with BG dropping at 5% a year recently) and disc golf has been growing at a 15% annual rate over the past 20 years. The source of that quote has been Innova people but I don't know if I've seen it in writing. Here's what they do show about growth but this graph stopped in 2002
http://www.innovadiscs.com/coursedesign/index.html

Another old stat was the one that indicated 7% of people threw a Frisbee at least once in a calendar year, not necessarily played golf. That was maybe the 3rd or 4th most common sports activity annually done by the average person. Then there's the annual growth percentages of the PDGA that will be available again once the new site is launched. But I've not seen our growth ever compared directly in chart that had growth rates of different sports compared in the same table.

I would contact the National Recreation & Parks Association to see if they have any stats like that. If anyone tracks those things, they would or at least subscribe to the industry trade and marketing publications that likely published studies on that.

A sport as small as DG growing by a certain percentage is easy for me to comprehend. Even if we grew by 100% we would be small.

we're higher than the Dow

so is the curb

Ball golf rounds played per year in the US have declined from over 600,000,000 in about 2000 to under 500,000,000 in 2006. There are something like 6-7 times as many ball golf courses than there are disc golf courses.

Based on DGRUS survey results about how many rounds of disc golf a year people play, factoring in some inside vendor information about those who place on line orders for disc golf merchandise, my estimate is that there could be 70,000,000-100,000,000 rounds of disc golf being played in 2008.

Don't have info that would let me show a growth curve, though. And the same numbers indicate that the average disc golfer probably plays many more times the number of "rounds" in a year than the average ball golfer does.

since Terry doesnt show the math (wanna harp about proper research and reporting Terry?) i did some to support this claim if its reasonable.

these numbers are rounded for easy math.

courses: 3,000
rounds/year: 90,000,000
...............equals 30,000 rounds per year per course

avg # playable days/year/course: 300
...............equals 100 rounds per day per course

does this pass the reality check?

hmmm... prolly could make a case both ways. for a *typical* city park course on the weekend seems ok for an average, but the error is probably on the high side overall. if you want a safe number (a fair, realistic and defensible number), i'd go with more around 35-50M.

At 100 rounds / day, that comes out to about 25 foursomes. Seems reasonable.

For a source on that quote... it could be from the Chains trailer where someone states that disc golf is "the fastest growing sport you've never heard of."

I've heard it was the fastest growing sport in the public park systems. I don't recall the source, sorry.

You think much more clearly than I do: you type "fastest growing sport" and I type "disc golf fastest growing sport." I wonder why paintball didn't show up and all my links mentioned disc golf.


Nascar??? That is no sport. :p :D




"Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports ... all others are merely games. - Ernest Hemingway

Day job's way too busy (as is my passion for browsing the political blogosphere in this election year + time spend on course development) to spend time on cleaning up and then sharing the math - never did that too well in school either ;-)

From Ben's experience, heading for 1,000 courses played, there are a lot of courses that don't get played much, or at all.

OTOH, some courses get a LOT of play. I stopped by a local course near my office last spring on an okay day and spoke with 39 players starting rounds in a single hour.

What I can share on my math, quickly:

* One very big time disc golf merchandise vendor/fulfillment house has stated that roughly 3 percent of less of the folks who order disc golf stuff on line seem to be PDGA members.
* Assuming 13,000 PDGA members and multiplying that x 33 and that x160 rounds a year = something close to my figure of disc golf rounds played by disc golfers avid enough to make an online disc golf purchase. So, counting casuals, probably even more.

"x160 rounds a year = something close to my figure of disc golf rounds played by disc golfers avid enough to make an online disc golf purchase"

not trying to pick a fight or anything, but this is way off. "avid enough"? i know marshall street in MA sells to total newbies in TX - total newbies who have played like 3 times. assuming online buyers are somehow more avid or active is very debateable.

btw, i am not saying any number is wrong. your methodology for figuring out hte answer is as good as any. as with all studies, reports from one travelling player, a survey at a local course, etc is useful as anecdotal information.

also btw, your assumptions show that there are 33 times the number of avid disc golfers (160 rounds per year) who are NOT pdga members than who ARE. one might think the organization would have achieved deeper penetration by now. especially considering the lack of competition.

Regarding the penetration, www.DiscGolfersR.us (http://www.DiscGolfersR.us) is absolutely free and we're just at 5,300 signed-up members, even though we have nearly 20,000 unique visitors each month.

".



also btw, your assumptions show that there are 33 times the number of avid disc golfers (160 rounds per year) who are NOT pdga members than who ARE. one might think the organization would have achieved deeper penetration by now. especially considering the lack of competition.



please explain "the lack of competition"...?

"disc golf is the fastest growing partipation sport."



Someone told a friend of mine at the MSDGC a few years ago that "disc golf is the greatest sport for someone who is unemployed." Maybe his words became twisted into what you are searching for James.

Im ready to pull a Maceman inspired move and quit my job to play disc golf.

maybe we should say that "disc golf is the greatest unemployment promoter"

:D

".



also btw, your assumptions show that there are 33 times the number of avid disc golfers (160 rounds per year) who are NOT pdga members than who ARE. one might think the organization would have achieved deeper penetration by now. especially considering the lack of competition.



please explain "the lack of competition"...?

explain it? well, imo its mostly because the PDGA does a good enough job that no one has so far tried to create a directly competitive organization. my fear for the PDGA is that the barriers to creating such an org are becoming lower.

".



also btw, your assumptions show that there are 33 times the number of avid disc golfers (160 rounds per year) who are NOT pdga members than who ARE. one might think the organization would have achieved deeper penetration by now. especially considering the lack of competition.



please explain "the lack of competition"...?

explain it? well, imo its mostly because the PDGA does a good enough job that no one has so far tried to create a directly competitive organization. my fear for the PDGA is that the barriers to creating such an org are becoming lower.



ok, now i understand. i thought you were talking about individual competition, of persons, whether they were recreational players or pdga members.
i dont think you have to worry about those barriers being lowered. the pdga is still the standard for anyone who wants to play competitively. and should be for a long time to come. sure the pdga makes mistakes, its run by humans, everyone makes mistakes. of course being an organization those mistakes are amplified by the number of people it affects, but the pdga learns from those mistakes just like we do, and becomes better for it. hopefully. :D

the pdga is still the standard for anyone who wants to play competitively. and should be for a long time to come. sure the pdga makes mistakes, its run by humans, everyone makes mistakes. of course being an organization those mistakes are amplified by the number of people it affects, but the pdga learns from those mistakes just like we do, and becomes better for it. hopefully.





How dare you bring logic and reason to the message board!

"disc golf is the fastest growing partipation sport."



Someone told a friend of mine at the MSDGC a few years ago that "disc golf is the greatest sport for someone who is unemployed." Maybe his words became twisted into what you are searching for James.



John, apparently, I am a pawn in a virtual treasure hunt and I have completed this task. I did another google search for news, and found some news article making the claim. Whether it is true or not does not matter, my job is complete. ;)

Paintball. Nascar. We pity them. :p