Am Payouts stifle pro growth?

[F.Luke]

Is a banquet hall owner allowed to host a dinner party and use the difference in wholesale to retail food pricing as they see fit or is a home owner allowed to host a dinner party from their own generosity with zero gain (pot luck/BYOB) or at a loss?

I don't understand what point you're trying to make with your question but my answer is "yes."

 

[Three Putt]

I understand the "you are paying for an experience" comment and I agree with it.

My issue is what difference in experience is an Am getting from a Open player that justifies a portion of their payment being shifted to another division?

I mean the tournament organizer has the right to do what they want with it. How much transparency do we need? If they say it's going into a Club fund, do we need to know if the fund is being spent on course improvements or on Kegs for an end of season party?

At any rate, the argument is that players like to play in events with better players. So if the tournament organizer throws all the discretionary funds into the Open payout maybe Gregg Barsby sees a payday and shows up to win your money, and you get to hang out with Gregg Barsby. So for your wholesale/retail differential you could have a story about the day you hung out with Gregg Barsby that you can embellish and repeat on social media for the rest of your life.

*once "hung out" with Ron Russell long enough to get glared at*

 

[JC17393]

More like the TD paid $10-15. I have been part of organizing multiple charity c-tiers and a TD can get a Premium plastic disc for $6.50 and custom t-shirts for $2-3.

So in your estimation, should every business in the world reduce their prices? I mean, Infinite Discs probably paid $8 for this VIP Harp. Why should you pay them $13.99 for it? So they can make a buck or two? Ripoff.

 

[VictorB]

From a consumer perspective if the TD is charging me $40 and giving $10 to the Open payout he could have just charged me $30 and added nothing. I don't gain anything from my extra $10 going to the open field.

This argument is asinine. Your $40 entry fee is the basis for the calculations for the Am payout. Player's packs plus payout contributes to the total of the Am prize pool. TDs are required to give out at least 100% retail payout to Am divisions (and more often than not, you're getting well above that) and up to 120% for A tier and above if I remember correctly.

The real problems here are that

1) Players packs are part of the prize pool

2) Am players expect both players packs and prizes

3) In the majority of my interaction in person and online, Ams will not play trophy only

4) Pros almost never get anything like a players pack

5) TDs directing their retail savings to Open divisions is a positive, they could be taking it as profit but instead redistribute to the players.

 

[Karl]

A lot of this discussion seems to be dancing around the perhaps 'hidden issue' of "pros get BETTER value out of an event (as they're now potentially / predominantly structured) than are the ams". 'Tis human nature to NOT want your buddy to 'benefit' more than you

 

[biscoe]

A lot of this discussion seems to be dancing around the perhaps 'hidden issue' of "pros get BETTER value out of an event (as they're now potentially / predominantly structured) than are the ams". 'Tis human nature to NOT want your buddy to 'benefit' more than you

The majority of pro players (those who do not cash) get way LESS value out of an event than the am players, particularly if you feel all the value in events lies in money and trinkets.

 

[biscoe]

More like the TD paid $10-15. I have been part of organizing multiple charity c-tiers and a TD can get a Premium plastic disc for $6.50 and custom t-shirts for $2-3.

You are getting some hella good deals- particularly on the t-shirts. I owned a screenprinting company for a number of years and at that point could conceivably produce shirts for that cost to me as the business owner as long as the shirts were white and only one color print.

 

[Broken Shoulder]

I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend how anyone would want to TD a disc golf tournament at this point.

 

[Three Putt]

More like the TD paid $10-15. I have been part of organizing multiple charity c-tiers and a TD can get a Premium plastic disc for $6.50 and custom t-shirts for $2-3.

I guess I can't see that. I had super-mongo high volume pricing for Innova in the 90's and I was paying $6.85 for pro plastic. Premium plastic for $6.50 would be a huge discount that I would guess had to do with the charity. I would not expect your average everyday event to have anywhere close to that sort of a profit margin.

 

[Three Putt]

I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend how anyone would want to TD a disc golf tournament at this point.

At any point, really. It's a burnout proposition. I TD'ed PDGA events for three years and flamed out hard. It was so much work, so much stress and impossible to make everybody happy.

I ran one B Tier and got cursed out by the guy who won advanced during the awards ceremony; part of his winnings was a bag and he already had a bag, so he cursed at me and yelled that I ran the worst event ever because he won a bag. During the awards ceremony. :| Uh, your welcome. I ended up putting something like $250 of my own money into that event to cover something that the Club voted not to pay for when I turned the tournament report in. I worked like a dog, spent my own money, got cursed at...never, ever again.

 

[VictorB]

It's so funny that Ams so often point out that they think the pros have entitlement issues. Having been on both sides of that fence, it's definitely an Am problem also.

 

[DavidSauls]

I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend how anyone would want to TD a disc golf tournament at this point.

With the hope that these aggrieved people, will be aggrieved enough to not show up.

 

[JC17393]

I guess I can't see that. I had super-mongo high volume pricing for Innova in the 90's and I was paying $6.85 for pro plastic. Premium plastic for $6.50 would be a huge discount that I would guess had to do with the charity. I would not expect your average everyday event to have anywhere close to that sort of a profit margin.

In general you are correct, but some companies do offer some pretty deep and generous discounts for custom stamping. Discraft's prices for custom stamping are extremely generous compared to their regular wholesale pricing (e.g. Z for $6.50 a piece). And Dynamic discounts a selection of their blank inventory every couple months so you can get some pretty sweet deals if you choose wisely (though it isn't usually the "in demand" molds that are discounted). Can't really speak to other companies with as much authority since I haven't done custom orders with them in some time, but I imagine there are similar deals to be found with them if you work (or beg) hard enough.

The other catch, though, is that even if you get a good deal on pricing, you're still required to buy a minimum number of discs to get that good pricing. And typically that quantity is greater than your need. Even if you sell out the event, you might not necessarily sell out your inventory. You might end up with enough cash from entry fees to cover the cost of the discs but then you still have 30-40+ discs left over that need to be sold in order to realize an actual profit.

 

[biscoe]

With the hope that these aggrieved people, will be aggrieved enough to not show up.

That has definitely become my stance- if you don't feel an event provides the value you are looking for please feel free to shop elsewhere. There are only eleventy bazillion events to choose from with almost as many structures/payout formats. Judging by attendance at my events I must be doing OK.

 

[biscoe]

At any point, really. It's a burnout proposition. I TD'ed PDGA events for three years and flamed out hard. It was so much work, so much stress and impossible to make everybody happy.

I ran one B Tier and got cursed out by the guy who won advanced during the awards ceremony; part of his winnings was a bag and he already had a bag, so he cursed at me and yelled that I ran the worst event ever because he won a bag. During the awards ceremony. :| Uh, your welcome. I ended up putting something like $250 of my own money into that event to cover something that the Club voted not to pay for when I turned the tournament report in. I worked like a dog, spent my own money, got cursed at...never, ever again.

I got burned out at one point and quit for a couple years. Nature abhors a vacuum though.

 

[JC17393]

That has definitely become my stance- if you don't feel an event provides the value you are looking for please feel free to shop elsewhere. There are only eleventy bazillion events to choose from with almost as many structures/payout formats. Judging by attendance at my events I must be doing OK.

Exactly. This whole tangent got started by someone suggesting that a particular practice be banned by the PDGA. No need for bans. If there are truly TDs doing players wrong, they're going to get suffocated out of the marketplace soon enough.

 

[drivesforshow]

Just my $.02 here... I am cool with a TD keeping the $5 difference (or whatever it is) between the wholesale and sticker price of a disc, PROVIDED the overall am price is reasonable. In my area we have a recurring theme of TDs pushing Am (especially Rec and Int) entry prices up into $40/50/60 range instead of the PDGA recommended $25-40 range. I respect TDs greatly for the hard work they put in, but there needs to be a way for them to break even without raising Am prices up to double the PDGA guidelines.

 

[riltim]

If that portion were being shifted with no compensation to the am player, you'd have a point. But if the amateur player is paying $40 and getting $40 worth of product (or, say $20 worth and the opportunity, with good play, to win more than $20 worth of additional product), how is that player's experience diminished?



I guess what I'm bumping on in this discussion is why anyone else can add money to the purse via sponsorship, perhaps through selling a product to raise funds, but when the TD/club does it, it's somehow robbing Peter to pay Paul and wrong. If the club were selling CryZtal Buzzzes as a fundraiser for the tournament, would you insist on only paying $15 instead of $25 for that Buzzz because you want the disc but not to put any of "your" money into the pro purse? How is that different than paying a $25 entry and getting $25 worth of merchandise and swag, let alone the "experience"?

If I were buying a fundraiser CryZtal Buzzz I wouldn't care where the money went because that is something I actually wanted and chose to buy. My issue is the entire AM field being taxed for the benefit of the Open payout.
*
If the main value of a tournament is the "experience" then what value do I gain with $10 tacked onto my entry fee with the return of coozie, towel, bottle opener, etc? These are $3 junk items but they have a retail value of much higher. If they were removed and the AM entry was $30 instead instead of $40 would the AM player have less of an experience? However if the AM players pay an extra $10 and the profit is shifted to the Open purses they get a much greater value.
*
I was burnt by this a few years ago. We paid something like a $50 entry in AM2 and were given an absolute garbage player pack. It didn't even have a disc, it was just a bunch of random crap that might have added up to the PDGA guidelines for payout. It was pretty obvious where the added cash in the Open divisions came from. It's a shame because I enjoyed the course, and would love to play an event on them again, but I can't see myself playing it ever again for this reason.


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[BENFTS]

Sorry...Not Sorry

Pros play for cash, AMs play for prizes.

IMHO no AM should be paid for playing in a sanctioned event as an AM. :|

 

[krupicka]

I respect TDs greatly for the hard work they put in, but there needs to be a way for them to break even without raising Am prices up to double the PDGA guidelines.

Since the PDGA won't let TDs deduct pavilion fees, printing costs, cost of trophies, etc. when computing if an event meets minimum value, event fees need to be high enough (or have sponsorship from somewhere) to have sufficient funds to cover all of these real costs.