The Official 'Ask Paul McBeth' Thread

[CrowLegs]

I think a lot of the "problem" is that at the root of it, DG is not a spectator sport. Skate/Snow boarding is so extreme and fun to watch, but DG not so much.

I follow cycling (talk about drug issues), and it has a similar problem. It's too hard to show the skill and toughness of the competitors through the TV. It's a great sport to participate in, but I know it will never have a huge following.

Ball golf has made the jump from participant sport to spectator sport, but it's taken a very long time. It's only been in the last few years that anyone cared about watching it on TV. It had to be pervasive as a participant sport first.

At the end of the day, DG will grow (or not) because people discover it and play it (or not). I do think this has everything to do with the image of the average player. People who play stoned, exhibiting public intoxication, littering, swearing, generally behaving badly will drive newcomers away. Especially newcomer families, who will be bringing the next generation of players (and spenders).

This is probably all off topic for the McBeast thread. I'll make it relevant by sating thanks to Paul. I've really enjoying keeping up with this thread....:thmbup:

 

[akguanja]

Thanks i knew it wasn't just a rumor.

ever consider coming to alaska? if so lmk we would all love to have a pro clinic.

 

[keltik]

Time to test your "Mexicanness"

Pastor, Tripa, Lengua ó Cesos?

 

[tbird888]

Ams who cash are many times "held hostage" as spectators to watch a Final 9 before they can get their merch prizes.

The videos I saw of Worlds last year seemed to have a decent amount of spectators. Was that because of ams waiting on their payouts? Not being a smartass, actually asking.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Players at Worlds hope they make the semis on Saturday and plan their lodging accordingly. Even if they don't make the semis, they'll still be there on Saturday. In addition, it was a combo Worlds so enough Ams were there already to watch the pros. The Final 9 venues at Worlds are also getting set up more as festivals so there are things going on separate from watching the Finals. Regardless, I'm not sure how many local people were at the World Finals as spectators that weren't connected to a player in the event. Attracting those people are critical for any future increases in sponsors to increase purses.

 

[Royalhghnss]

It might not be the best spectator sport due to limited number of good sight lines, but I think it looks awesome on video if done well.

 

[The Hammer]

You know whats holding disc golf back? We throw frisbees in public parks. Do you really expect the world to think that is cool?

 

[WOTI]

I got into disc golf because it was cheap, fun, and good exercise in the company of good friends. It was basically a cheap replacement for ball golf. Now I enjoy it because of the creativeness and non-judgmental aspects of it. No one really harps on you for hitting a tree on a near impossible anhyzer to an out of site basket. Even at a highly competitive level. However, in ball golf, the polar opposite is true. Every shot is criticized. I can't count the number of un-enjoyable rounds I've had due to players losing patience with a newer player.


Ball golf is a slowly dying sport. Mainly because of the price and exclusivity of it all. Those are also the reasons that they are able to do high payout tournaments. Businesses are only really interested in sponsoring events that they can make money from. If the price of a 13 speed driver was $100 retail, then Innova would probably be sponsoring events with $1 million payouts. The problem created by this scenario is that a new player isn't going to pay an outrageous amount of money to try out disc golf. So you end up with a sport growing in money but not in members.


The other way to grow the sport is to introduce everyone you know. Grow the amount of people playing. Cities will build free parks when they see player numbers increasing. And companies will provide larger sponsorships because 10,000,000 players buying $10 discs will net the same as 1,000,000 people buying $100 discs.


Having said all this, drug testing is not going to legitimize the sport. They did this in the chess world as well. What will legitimize disc golf is taking a new player out and showing them a good time. Working together to grow the number of people to play disc golf.

 

[aPfaff]

Out of all the holes you have ever played, which one is your most favorite?

 

[costoid]

What situations are you throwing the Roc3?

 

[Noobaque]

A lot of pros say they want to elevate the sport but most of us dont see it. Ex. X games is in aspen right now.
I think its boring but I lnow its there becuase of Twitter. Every person competing is talking it up. Posting pictures of practice. Etc etc. I have a lot of pro dgers on fb and twitter and I don't see much ex spring support me so i can go here or ill bitch about this becuase I disnt win. Your not who im talking about. But why go watch whiny mooch when I can relax and have fun practicing to be the next will,paul or Ricky?

 

[AndyJB]

Paul:

What hole would you rather play...a 700 foot wide-open bomber, or a 300 foot super tech hole littered with trees and a nice fat creek running right through the middle of it?

I ask because this discussion has come up a lot in my area. They keep using the phrase "pro level courses" when they really mean "boring courses that are stupidly long and will draw no traffic from casual players". Sorry for the mini-rant, but I'd like to get an actual pro golfers opinion on this. I definetly prefer shorter, technical holes that can be enjoyed and played by all skill levels.

 

[Emoney]

Paul:

What hole would you rather play...a 700 foot wide-open bomber, or a 300 foot super tech hole littered with trees and a nice fat creek running right through the middle of it?

I ask because this discussion has come up a lot in my area. They keep using the phrase "pro level courses" when they really mean "boring courses that are stupidly long and will draw no traffic from casual players". Sorry for the mini-rant, but I'd like to get an actual pro golfers opinion on this. I definetly prefer shorter, technical holes that can be enjoyed and played by all skill levels.

A great course has a combination of both

I got this one paul
Lol

 

[TheWCG]

Paul, If you really are the 2012 world champion, how come you have 0 courses played? How is this possible?opcorn:

 

[techn9cian4life]

Paul, If you really are the 2012 world champion, how come you have 0 courses played? How is this possible?opcorn:

He's answered this before.. he's played so many courses it's difficult to keep track of.

 

[PMcBeth]

Bolf have about 15,700 courses in USA, 25.7 million players and 463 million rounds played (2011 figures, peak year was 2000 with 518 million rounds). Disc golf have like about 4,000 courses, how many players? and how many rounds played? We definitely need to keep building new courses so we have more players, "Build it and they will come..." kind of thing. Focus on grassroots kind of thing to the point where market will be attractive enough for sponsors. We need growing fan base that loves to follow top players.

It is true that PGA Tour have like $5 or so million in purse basically almost every weekend due to big sponsors as they have huge fan base. We need to get execs of big companies to play disc golf rather than bolf so they can start to sponsor us more. "Let's make business deals at disc golf!"

thats one way.

 

[PMcBeth]

Paul,

How do you feel about private/pay-to-play courses? 99.99% of the courses here in Maine are private and ptp. I enjoy the fact that everyone there is to play disc golf and not picnic, walk their dog, etc...

I enjoy them, they are peoples land so they are well taken care of and seem to get more respect then just random dirty park. plus you get to meet the owners more often and have a connection with them.

 

[PMcBeth]

find a article that says he smokes daily like most dg players?

 

[PMcBeth]

I agree with a majority of this. But, other sports have had to deal with this as well. The 2 biggest I can think of, that pertain to us, is Skateboarding and Snowboarding. Both are relatively inexpensive (especially skateboarding). Both have an image of "slacker", "stoner", etc. But both have become HUGE!!!.

How did they do it? How did they shed those negative images? Or did they just ignore, and push the stronger more positive images (Tony Hawk is a pretty good "straight"(as in not stoner) skater, that helped the image of the sport to the common public)

Is it really on the shoulders of the folks like Paul, Ricky, Will, and other younger, "clean" players? Or even older players that also are clean? Is it a matter of getting a rich guy to buy space on ESPN 2 to play a 1 hr edited worlds review (or some other very well put together show) to get the word out to folks, and show how cool it is?

I'm going to try to figure out a tournament this year in Indy to get my cousin's husband to come take some video of. He works for a local TV station as a camera guy, so he might be able to edit together a 2 minute section or something like that. I figure, that can't hurt right? damn, honestly an Ice Bowl would be the best place to do it, since it's for charity and would help out with creating a "good image"..... might have to text him about this.

extreme sports seem to have that over looked more often, also the videos for charity events are a huge +

 

[PMcBeth]

I can prove out sport infact does have a drug problem in one sentence.

We label players who are clean instead of the other way around.

The biggest overall issue facing our sport is numbers. We simply don't have enough people who play or are interested in it to generate support. There are multiple factos that are in play that affect those numbers, drugs / image being one of them.

yes many situations hold the sport back but i know here in HB alone there are over 75,000 people who have played disc golf at least once or twice... about 20% of our city population i would say atleast 50,000 or more people play a year there. so its really growing here in socal.