2019 Pros Switching Sponsors Official Thread

[Flick Maniac]

As an aside from there... If I didnt know Ricky was Lat64 I might think he's DD though. (=the Trilogy effect) I watch tourney footage a lot and from the discs they have him throwing, (or my recollection of it) Harp, Compass, FELON (big time) and Enforcer. Oh and the Dagger of course (which currently I dont even remember whose disc that is, and not going to google since this is about the subjective effect of footage disc choice anyway). The Explorer is on his shirt but so far any mention or a great shot with it hasnt really registered on my radar to make a lasting impression. Whereas, the drop in Harp approaches from any angle and distance really are a given in my head. The Compass is just like "its the midrange he uses" nothing special. Felon seems to always get to where he wants it. If I were asked what is his distance driver I would say Enforcers in range of stabilities.

Bottom line, Lat64 guy has made the biggest impression on me with a Westside disc and 2 Dynamic Discs. :/

 

[DiscFifty]

Dynamic Discs Top 3:
- Melton
- Risley
- Oakley (or Keegan)

Wow...DD top 3 is fairly weak. They could use a PMB for sure.

 

[DiscFifty]

How can Discraft sign all these players? One would think that already signing PMcB would take all their budget and more.

Yep. Apparently they have all this new found money. Jawbreaker plastic rules.

 

[DiscFifty]

Also, FWIW I think Owens is clearly the more marketable player vs Kieth and bell.

wow..totally disagree with that.

 

[Jolt]

DD's top #2 and #3 Oakley and Risley? Both too streaky really. Hot round, abominable round, meh round. I dont know the team well enough to suggest substitutes (hell Paige even would do) but to me that only tells me about the team. For the other top dogs I could name probably 5 top players but struggling to remember who plays with DD tbh. Sorry to fans of the two gentlemen or the team.

DD´s top3 has to be Paige, Paige and Melton. . Melton hade a good 2018

 

[DiscFifty]

Discraft is a fine company, but let's not pretend like they haven't been rebounding since 2012. On the touring team scene they've been borderline irrelevant for the entire Paul-and-Ricky show, and completely irrelevant if MJ or Doss isn't signed up. It seems now they've been waiting for an opportunity, and found it.

That only negates to market shift vs market growth imop. Time will tell what it means to their long term bottom line, how much Paul brings in vs how much it cost to bring Paul in. It will be interesting to see if we see a 100% re-branded social presence from Discraft w/ Paul on board. Again...it just seems so strange that they wouldn't have already done at least "some of that" with Nate, Val, MJ already on board. Assuming they have all this money.

 

[wolfmandragon]

That only negates to market shift vs market growth imop. Time will tell what it means to their long term bottom line, how much Paul brings in vs how much it cost to bring Paul in. It will be interesting to see if we see a 100% re-branded social presence from Discraft w/ Paul on board. Again...it just seems so strange that they wouldn't have already done at least "some of that" with Nate, Val, MJ already on board. Assuming they have all this money.

Either you are trolling or you need to take a time out and center yourself. Who signs with whom is a fun game for most of us; you are taking this way too serious. All of your objections have been explained again and again.

 

[_MTL_]

That only negates to market shift vs market growth imop. Time will tell what it means to their long term bottom line, how much Paul brings in vs how much it cost to bring Paul in. It will be interesting to see if we see a 100% re-branded social presence from Discraft w/ Paul on board. Again...it just seems so strange that they wouldn't have already done at least "some of that" with Nate, Val, MJ already on board. Assuming they have all this money.

I can't speak for the past, but their marketing guy suddenly passed away this time last year.

I can confirm the website and team profiles are getting a huge face lift in 2019.

And before anyone says it has to do with McBeth, we were all notified of this before the McBeth rumors started.

 

[elmexdela]

1725 posts in and the overall misunderstanding of how big Discraft is still exists.

discraft wouldnt be anything if it wasnt for the buzz and their ultimate discs

mostly their ultimate discs

 

[_MTL_]

discraft wouldnt be anything if it wasnt for the buzz and their ultimate discs

mostly their ultimate discs

One of the 5 best and most used / sold products in the world within a target customer pool is a success for a business. Doing it twice is called a company. Doing it twice with two different customer pools is a dream scenario for a business.

 

[bwgort]

I can't speak for the past, but their marketing guy suddenly passed away this time last year.

I can confirm the website and team profiles are getting a huge face lift in 2019.

And before anyone says it has to do with McBeth, we were all notified of this before the McBeth rumors started.

I still find it weird that Fish isn't on their website. He's won like 5 A-tiers in the last 2 years and been top 20 at worlds both years as well. Most underrated player in the world?

 

[GoldeyeGolf]

I still find it weird that Fish isn't on their website. He's won like 5 A-tiers in the last 2 years and been top 20 at worlds both years as well. Most underrated player in the world?

Brian Earhart isn't listed either, and he toured extensively this last season and had some good showings. I think he's been sponsored by Discraft for at least a couple years.

And yet, you can find all you would want to know about Scott Papa (and then some).

 

[Three Putt]

That only negates to market shift vs market growth imop. Time will tell what it means to their long term bottom line, how much Paul brings in vs how much it cost to bring Paul in. It will be interesting to see if we see a 100% re-branded social presence from Discraft w/ Paul on board. Again...it just seems so strange that they wouldn't have already done at least "some of that" with Nate, Val, MJ already on board. Assuming they have all this money.

With Discraft it has been a back and forth. A decade ago, Discraft started using youtube and embedding videos with Mark Ellis on their website. They were waaayyy ahead of the curve there. Those were among the very first quality disc golf videos that were made. They had a good website. They had Doss and McCabe at the top of a solid Pro team. They had the deepest FPO team in the sport. There was no question that they were the #2 brand and doing some things better than Innova.

Then the whole "Ultimate as a pro sport" thing started and Ultimate got really hot. Discraft shifted to an Ultimate focus and lost most of their sponsored disc golf team, their website stinks and the disc golf videos that did such a good job of pushing the brand in the late '00's stopped happening. To me it really looked like the company is big enough to profit from a variety of disc sports but not big enough to support a lot of marketing in multiple sports. Put that up against a hype machine like DD and a company like Innova and suddenly the whole landscape looks like it's Innova/Trilogy. It's not, Discraft is a force in our sport. They have been kind of a sleeping giant, but they are a giant.

What is happening now to me just looks like Discraft deciding that they need to focus on disc golf again and react to the changes in the market over the last 6-8 years while they have been focused on Ultimate. The sleeping giant is waking up. That's a very, very good thing for disc golf.

 

[DiscFifty]

Either you are trolling or you need to take a time out and center yourself. Who signs with whom is a fun game for most of us; you are taking this way too serious. All of your objections have been explained again and again.

Have your fun then... there are several peeps that are looking at this from a business point of view and trying to find out how/why it makes sense financially. Plus whether you care to understand it or not, this will set a precedence for all of the pros for years to come. Have the big sponsors kept the money to themselves, are they going to have to ante up their investment to acquire the best talent? If all this turns out to be true...the elite pros will have an entirely new tool to bargain with.

 

[DiscFifty]

With Discraft it has been a back and forth. A decade ago, Discraft started using youtube and embedding videos with Mark Ellis on their website. They were waaayyy ahead of the curve there. Those were among the very first quality disc golf videos that were made. They had a good website. They had Doss and McCabe at the top of a solid Pro team. They had the deepest FPO team in the sport. There was no question that they were the #2 brand and doing some things better than Innova.

Then the whole "Ultimate as a pro sport" thing started and Ultimate got really hot. Discraft shifted to an Ultimate focus and lost most of their sponsored disc golf team, their website stinks and the disc golf videos that did such a good job of pushing the brand in the late '00's stopped happening. To me it really looked like the company is big enough to profit from a variety of disc sports but not big enough to support a lot of marketing in multiple sports. Put that up against a hype machine like DD and a company like Innova and suddenly the whole landscape looks like it's Innova/Trilogy. It's not, Discraft is a force in our sport. They have been kind of a sleeping giant, but they are a giant.

What is happening now to me just looks like Discraft deciding that they need to focus on disc golf again and react to the changes in the market over the last 6-8 years while they have been focused on Ultimate. The sleeping giant is waking up. That's a very, very good thing for disc golf.

Had to quote that again...such a good read. Thank you for replying to my post.

 

[Three Putt]

I still find it weird that Fish isn't on their website. He's won like 5 A-tiers in the last 2 years and been top 20 at worlds both years as well. Most underrated player in the world?

I think 100% of people will agree that their website stinks. They havn't updated it and the layout of it looks like a vendor website, not a manufacturer website. They make discs that you can't get any information about on their website. The team profiles haven't been updated in years. It's a terrible, terrible website. We could start another thread about it and do 1,000 posts of different people pointing out 1,000 horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad things about the Discraft website. It's awful. Just horrible. I can't say enough bad things about it, and it's actually embarrassing for Discraft that in this day and age they have allowed it to be so bad for so long.

If they fix it, all that goes away. They just need to do that. No excuses. If they fix that with the McBeth rollout, they look like a business with a plan. If they announce the McBeth sponsorship and link people to that horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad website, THEN we should start a thread about what a joke it is. Until then I'm willing to give them another couple months to fix it.

 

[Streets]

With Discraft it has been a back and forth. A decade ago, Discraft started using youtube and embedding videos with Mark Ellis on their website. They were waaayyy ahead of the curve there. Those were among the very first quality disc golf videos that were made. They had a good website. They had Doss and McCabe at the top of a solid Pro team. They had the deepest FPO team in the sport. There was no question that they were the #2 brand and doing some things better than Innova.

Even in 2012 when I was starting to get into this...Discraft's videos were awesome starting points in learning putting and BH technique from that purple haired guru (Scott Papa). The production value wasn't as good as say Deep in the Game, but good lord the information was so much better.

 

[biscoe]

Have the big sponsors kept the money to themselves, are they going to have to ante up their investment to acquire the best talent?

This is already occurring mostly due to Prodigy changing that market.

 

[ru4por]

Have your fun then... there are several peeps that are looking at this from a business point of view and trying to find out how/why it makes sense financially. Plus whether you care to understand it or not, this will set a precedence for all of the pros for years to come. Have the big sponsors kept the money to themselves, are they going to have to ante up their investment to acquire the best talent? If all this turns out to be true...the elite pros will have an entirely new tool to bargain with.

I think there are many here interested in the business angle. The point being, we have no starting point to base any real discussion on. We don't know anything about Discraft, as a business. We don't know their revenue, capital, overhead, sales or vested interest in either golf or Ultimate. I mean, I guess the utter speculation is fun, but to consider any business discussion here as serious........

 

[Flick Maniac]

That strikes me as odd. Companies here in Finland do list their capital & revenue etc. How could you ever invest in a company if you have no idea how much they make and how much they need to make it etc. I am no economist though maybe I just dont see the big picture.