I'm not really disagreeing, but I'd soft-pedal this a little. It's sounds a lot harsher than I think the reality is.
I guess this is why I'm a little fuzzy about going on. DGTP puts on events and everybody gets paid, except DGPT and the tournament hosts. You would think that the players, the PDGA, the major manufacturers and the video crews would have a major incentive to work together with the DGPT to fix that before the underpinning of the gravy train collapses. The current system seems unsustainable and the perception of disc golf takes a big step back if it fails.
Unless it's all smoke and mirrors and the train doesn't really deliver the gravy we think it does.
That's a huge disc golf culture issue. It's a players game. You earn your reputation on the course. You win your compensation on the course. Everything is centered around that competition, that's valued above all.
If I'm a TD and there is money for a prize pool, what I'm doing in the classic disc golf sense has not ever elevated to anything that has "earned" any of that money. If I keep any of it as compensation for my work, in the classic disc golf way of thinking I'm "stealing" from the players who did earn it on the course where it matters.
That way of thinking has to be stomped out to really move the culture. To me the people who could make that statement would be the players themselves. If the touring players organized and pushed for some % of the purse to be dedicated back to the event TD's, that cuts Johnny Old-School's argument against paying TD's off at the knees.
