The Inevitable 2017 Pros Switching Sponsors Thread

[Reniger]

OK, and just to confirm, it is on a per disc sold basis? So the more popular the disc is, the more money the Champ would make?

From my understanding talking to Prodigy pros, it's a certain (low) percentage of each disc. So, yes. They get - depending on the pro's status, and disc's popularity - like $1-$3 from each sale. Still, say Sexton sells about a thousand Sexton Color Glow Firebirds a year, that's still a potential $3,000 increase in salary.

From Innova's website; "(Pro) will receive a substantial portion of every (disc) sold." What they consider "substantial" is up for guess, but the Innova pro I know told me $1-$3 depending on their own popularity and the disc popularity.

 

[JC17393]

If you think Val going to Discraft is the answer let me ask you this...How many sig discs does Elaine King (5x) have? It may be an answer, but not the solution.

This assumes that King wants/wanted a sig disc. When King was at the top of the FPO mountain, no one was getting signature discs from their sponsor except Climo (and it took seven, I believe, before he got that). Her lack of a sig disc could be simply timing.

A closer look shows that Discraft rewarded more recent World Champs of both genders with signature discs. Nate Doss has had multiple signature discs to go with his multiple World titles: ESP Surge, ESP Avenger, Ti Nuke, Ti Buzzz. Eric McCabe and Paige Pierce each got a signature Ti disc after their World titles as well (Wasp and Stalker, respectively), then they left the company. Cam Todd got a signature disc as a World Champ even though he wasn't throwing Discraft when he won.

It's entirely possible that Discraft could give her a signature disc, or two or three or four, if they think it will help bring her on board.

 

[slowplastic]

Her leaving is definitely a good way to shed light on this for all. And she (and Innova) handled it well by just going business as usual throughout the season. As much as I have said that the women's side isn't nearly as developed as the MPO side, etc., she has been such a constant presence for the brand and had continued success over many years. She did a good job expressing her frustrations in that piece. I can see that Innova was concerned with the female name selling...but at the same time promote your company to female players through her, she always seems so positive and giving her a sig model gives more credibility to her success.

In comparison I do feel like Prodigy in the last year or so pushed the women's competitive side more into the spotlight than Innova has, and I'm really interested to see what promotion PP gets from Dynamic.

 

[SD86]

Her leaving is definitely a good way to shed light on this for all. And she (and Innova) handled it well by just going business as usual throughout the season. As much as I have said that the women's side isn't nearly as developed as the MPO side, etc., she has been such a constant presence for the brand and had continued success over many years. She did a good job expressing her frustrations in that piece. I can see that Innova was concerned with the female name selling...but at the same time promote your company to female players through her, she always seems so positive and giving her a sig model gives more credibility to her success.

In comparison I do feel like Prodigy in the last year or so pushed the women's competitive side more into the spotlight than Innova has, and I'm really interested to see what promotion PP gets from Dynamic.

Agree.

Also, with the PDGA offering that membership discount (however quickly and poorly it was done), and the entire DGWT fiasco from last year, it is clear that DG women and women's issues are exploding into the forefront. Hopefully, changes will be for the better. Debate will still rage on, of course.

 

[runningDoc]

those Hannah Leatherman terns sold great. because they're star terns, a very very popular mold. people (men and women) loved supporting hannah and also got a popular disc that was bagged/thrown/collected.

Val got the star SL... which is not so popular.

there's ways to almost guarantee revenue through those tour support discs... let Val choose something that almost certainly sells well like the Aviar P&A with a nice simple gender neutral logo, flat top ring of gators (which sell out no matter what), champ tern, etc.

 

[DanJon]

congratulations in advance on her fourth baby, but not the first three

Well it is a lot easier to make a baby than win a World Championship.

Also, does MVP have any plans to sponsor a top FPO player now?

 

[SD86]

Val got the star SL... which is not so popular.

More for me, then! Seriously, the Star SLs sold out, and I did my part by stocking up.

But I do understand the gist of your point... why wasn't Val given a popular, good-selling disc? For me, giving her the poorly-selling Starfire as a sig disc was the slap in the face.

Oh well, Val moved on and rightly so. If she continues with DG, I hope she'll do well with new sponsorship.

 

[SD86]

Well it is a lot easier to make a baby than win a World Championship.

Also, does MVP have any plans to sponsor a top FPO player now?

Does MVP sponsor any top MPO players now?

 

[loki the trickster]

those Hannah Leatherman terns sold great. because they're star terns, a very very popular mold. people (men and women) loved supporting hannah and also got a popular disc that was bagged/thrown/collected.

Val got the star SL... which is not so popular.

there's ways to almost guarantee revenue through those tour support discs... let Val choose something that almost certainly sells well like the Aviar P&A with a nice simple gender neutral logo, flat top ring of gators (which sell out no matter what), champ tern, etc.

I verry well could be wrong but i believe Val had to choose the disc or at least okay the disc that her name goes on.

 

[runningDoc]

I verry well could be wrong but i believe Val had to choose the disc or at least okay the disc that her name goes on.

either way its on both sides to chose a disc fitting for a 3x (at the time) champion - that will produce good revenue for both sides. the star SL isn't that disc. :\

 

[alfonseski]

I follow Tennis. Let me chime in on the Tennis Piece mentioned earlier Men vs Women. Technically women do earn more than men in Tennis. In Grand Slams where most of the money is made men and women make the same. Now you say, how is that more? Well men play best of 5 sets and women best of 3. So they are doing less work and earning the same. It may look like one of the men make more but that has to do with dominance, the womens game there is not as many dominant players. Sure Federer and Rafael Nadal make more in endorsements. But we are not talking strictly Tennis endorsements. Federer has some crazy endorsements, Rolex being one of them and there is no way to control that. For a short period of time in the heyday of womens tennis women were actually making more in endorsements(but not equal at the time in prize winnings) That was in the early Venus Williams, Martina Hingis Era when womens tennis got very popular and they started using their looks in endorsements. Anna Kournikova is worth 50 million dollars and was never ranked higher than 8th. However with the ascendance of the big 4(Nadal, Federer, Murray and Djokovic) The mens game became more popular again and they made more in endorsements. The reason for this is they slowed the game down. In the Pete Sampras era it was super fast points and not as interesting to watch. Anyway that explains the tennis thing....

 

[Ender175]

From my understanding talking to Prodigy pros, it's a certain (low) percentage of each disc. So, yes. They get - depending on the pro's status, and disc's popularity - like $1-$3 from each sale. Still, say Sexton sells about a thousand Sexton Color Glow Firebirds a year, that's still a potential $3,000 increase in salary.

From Innova's website; "(Pro) will receive a substantial portion of every (disc) sold." What they consider "substantial" is up for guess, but the Innova pro I know told me $1-$3 depending on their own popularity and the disc popularity.

I talked to Nate at the vibram he said he gets $5/chicken, and paul gets 25 cents/production destroyer, roc3 etc. The sales of production discs are so much higher than tour series that Paul still comes out way ahead without even counting mcpro discs.

 

[JTacoma03]

I verry well could be wrong but i believe Val had to choose the disc or at least okay the disc that her name goes on.

Yes pros have a say in what disc they get. There can be multiple pros with the same mold for Tour Series, but for sig series no overlaps (see Avery -> Paul destroyers)

I talked to Nate at the vibram he said he gets $5/chicken, and paul gets 25 cents/production destroyer, roc3 etc. The sales of production discs are so much higher than tour series that Paul still comes out way ahead without even counting mcpro discs.

This is correct, and pretty standard since Climo's days, from what I've heard as well...though I don't talk to Innova about that sort of stuff directly.

 

[DiscFifty]

"and disc's popularity - like $1-$3 from each sale." Considering the distributor-retailer cost/margin, 1-3$ a disc sounds like a very high royalty per disc.

 

[jeffsk]

Just saw Paige put up a video (with a really pretty mid throw) for DD yesterday.

 

[Snaques]

There's also two different groups of buyers: 1) serious (though casual) players that know it's about the disc, not the name on it, and will buy the disc if they want it, and 2) those newbies or weekend/family players that don't know, see a woman's name on the disc and say "ewww, not a woman's disc!".

Most here on DCGR are in the first category; we do not care about the names as much as the discs.

This is exactly what I was thinking.

Those "newbies" will create most of the sales. When you add to the equation the gender ratio of 92:8 in favor of men, it is no surprise why McBeth's name sells more discs than Val's.

Meresmaa actually even confirmed that the Valkyrie sales went down after Korver's name was stamped on it.

 

[Snaques]

Guess what I was trying to say is, that while it sucks for Val, Innova is actually probably over committed to women, not the other way around, considering the monetary value of the market.

 

[Ender175]

Guess what I was trying to say is, that while it sucks for Val, Innova is actually probably over committed to women, not the other way around, considering the monetary value of the market.

That's only the current market. When you're the market leader, it's good business to try and expand into new areas. Even if it's less profitable short-term, it has the potential to add new revenue streams down the road.

 

[bhadella]

A bunch of the Val sig Star Starfires are old PFN stock that has been laying around for years that they add a additional hotstamp too. LOL on how weak of a seller the Starfire is.

 

[Snaques]

That's only the current market. When you're the market leader, it's good business to try and expand into new areas. Even if it's less profitable short-term, it has the potential to add new revenue streams down the road.

I don't think the question is about building new markets. Even Val said that Innova is doing good job promoting ladies events and "growing the sport".

Her concern was the immediate respect towards current players. So while it might be nice for her to have sig Tern, it would probably hurt the company more short term and not really improve long term.