Board Candidate Announcement

[Cgkdisc]

As a member org, the PDGA needs to regularly send some sort of printed media to their membership with org updates because not everyone is on the net yet. So you might as well make it a marketing and sport documentation piece in addition to the member org info updates since no other org or DG mag (none) will record the history of the sport in pictures.

 

[shawnsinclair]

i find that number way excessive. I am a proponent for a magazine but i don't think the Org. should be paying for it. especialy to the tune of the number above. Print media is dying a miserable death. which i feel is a bad thing. But plain and simple from a business standpoint if the magazine can not pay for itself through advertising dollars then it should be discontinued or gutted to get the cost down.

I completely agree! Which is why I stated in my platform statement we need to discontinue old media and focus on newer instant media. I said it in a previous post anyone can submit content the pdga for the website.

 

[_MTL_]

As a member org, the PDGA needs to regularly send some sort of printed media to their membership with org updates because not everyone is on the net yet. So you might as well make it a marketing and sport documentation piece in addition to the member org info updates since no other org or DG mag (none) will record the history of the sport in pictures.

I agree 100% except for one thing.

The sport shouldn't pay over $200,000 because people are out of date.

 

[vonDrehle]

I agree 100% except for one thing.

The sport shouldn't pay over $200,000 because people are out of date.

Exactly. Why not make the magazine available online and then allow members to request a mailed copy if they wish. No need to make enough for everyone.



Also Chuck if you need someone to start touring the country to do different big tournaments and getting pictures to document everything I'm available.

 

[onemilemore]

i find that number way excessive. I am a proponent for a magazine but i don't think the Org. should be paying for it. especialy to the tune of the number above. Print media is dying a miserable death. which i feel is a bad thing. But plain and simple from a business standpoint if the magazine can not pay for itself through advertising dollars then it should be discontinued or gutted to get the cost down.

1000% agree. $200, 000 for a quarterly magazine is absurd, especially when there are online websites (see my sig) covering those same events in a timely fashion. Put the mag online only with a membership wall of some kind and you save a ton of money.

Or, take that $200k and help subsidize one of these entities that are already online and publishing top-notch content.

 

[Cgkdisc]

We don't hear too much complaining about the quality of the magazine with the exception of too much content being old news. Well, that's what history is all about. But the magazine is also useful for marketing the sport and establishing credibility. The magazine has moved from being important to the members for information to being important for marketing, documentation and sport credibility. If anything, we can point to the magazine as relevant to the local scene for helping get sponsorships and courses installed. Having a full color magazine for the sport still has a level of importance to decision makers.

Now if we look at part of the $200K say $100K as required for the member communication pages ($5/yr per member) then the other $100K as a printing effort with a broader purpose to promote the sport at the same $5/member per year, that $200K may seem more reasonable. In fact, I would suggest that if all members simply read the few parts they were interested in each magazine and passed it on to their local Park Dept, media outlet or potential sponsor, the magazine would have more far reaching impact than it does now and it would be something the PDGA does to directly help the local DG scene.

 

[_MTL_]

We don't hear too much complaining about the quality of the magazine with the exception of too much content being old news. Well, that's what history is all about. But the magazine is also useful for marketing the sport and establishing credibility. The magazine has moved from being important to the members for information to being important for marketing, documentation and sport credibility. If anything, we can point to the magazine as relevant to the local scene for helping get sponsorships and courses installed. Having a full color magazine for the sport still has a level of importance to decision makers.

Now if we look at part of the $200K say $100K as required for the member communication pages ($5/yr per member) then the other $100K as a printing effort with a broader purpose to promote the sport at the same $5/member per year, that $200K may seem more reasonable. In fact, I would suggest that if all members simply read the few parts they were interested in each magazine and passed it on to their local Park Dept, media outlet or potential sponsor, the magazine would have more far reaching impact than it does now and it would be something the PDGA does to directly help the local DG scene.

our magazine has too many phrases used within the sport - hyzer, anhyzer, ratings, etc - for non players to understand it.

 

[Dave242]

In fact, I would suggest that if all members simply read the few parts they were interested in each magazine and passed it on to their local Park Dept, media outlet or potential sponsor, the magazine would have more far reaching impact than it does now and it would be something the PDGA does to directly help the local DG scene.

Excellent point! If this is not already being done, there should be a slip of paper in the plastic bag that magazine comes in (I assume it is delivered this way) encouraging people to do exactly this.

All 5 quarterly magazines I got in my 4 years of membership are sitting in a box somewhere in my basement. They would be much better to be at one of the organizations you mention.

 

[BgWvDave]

We don't hear too much complaining about the quality of the magazine with the exception of too much content being old news. Well, that's what history is all about. But the magazine is also useful for marketing the sport and establishing credibility. The magazine has moved from being important to the members for information to being important for marketing, documentation and sport credibility. If anything, we can point to the magazine as relevant to the local scene for helping get sponsorships and courses installed. Having a full color magazine for the sport still has a level of importance to decision makers.

Now if we look at part of the $200K say $100K as required for the member communication pages ($5/yr per member) then the other $100K as a printing effort with a broader purpose to promote the sport at the same $5/member per year, that $200K may seem more reasonable. In fact, I would suggest that if all members simply read the few parts they were interested in each magazine and passed it on to their local Park Dept, media outlet or potential sponsor, the magazine would have more far reaching impact than it does now and it would be something the PDGA does to directly help the local DG scene.

were is add revenue in all this? While i aggree that the Org. does need somthing tangible to show people the sport like a magazine (i am pro magazine, i need something to look at while i do my business in the bathroom) i can not support these production costs. even at 100K it is WAY to expensive.

 

[Cgkdisc]

The funny thing about the idea to distribute them is that despite the complaints about stale information in the mag, I suspect just like me, players want to hold onto them for historical purposes to eventually look something up later, especially if their name is in there. I don't know how many times I've gone back into the old issues even prior to the color mag. So despite the complaints, I suspect players don't wish to acknowledge their historical value even if they only look at part of each new issue now.

 

[onemilemore]

This still just seems like way too large of an expense for what is a potential marketing arm that really relies on the readers to distribute. That's like having someone at the LA Times say, here's a subscription, now let all the people on your block read it and generate more subscriptions for us.

Seems like the cost could be cut by going digital, and then using the savings for actual PDGA parks and rec outreach, rather than just hoping members will drop their magazines off at the local park ranger's office.

 

[scarpfish]

As far as printed publications go, I think the PDGA would be better off with an annual "how to" on disc golf book aimed mostly at new players, parks departments and the like than it is printing a quarterly publication full of advertisements, six month old tourney results, and maybe a few nice articles on technique, course design or sport history. You could put the rulebook, competition manual, technical standards and course directory all inside of it.

 

[Dave242]

were is add revenue in all this? While i aggree that the Org. does need somthing tangible to show people the sport like a magazine (i am pro magazine, i need something to look at while i do my business in the bathroom) i can not support these production costs. even at 100K it is WAY to expensive.

This questioning of the finances of the magazine is bordering on charging the PDGA with financial mismanagement.

I have no background in publishing, but starting from the ~0.50 per page I pay at Kinko's for a color copy as a benchmark (and knowing the price of marketing glossies we use in our business), it is extremely expensive produce and deliver a magazine....and then there is the cost of editing it and also the cost of marketing it to the sponsors.

I do not think the ~$10 each member pays for the magazine ($2.50 per issue) is out of line at all!

 

[jeverett]

I know there have been conversations about the PDGA mag elsewhere before, but I just wanted to add that, for me, the highlight of the mag is the course design article (although the 'forum' style of the most recent publication was a little weak, imo). I will definitely sometimes go back and read those articles again.. but I *really* wish they were available online! Instead of having to look back through a stack of the mags, I want to be able to just search online for the specific course design term (e.g. PITTSBORO's or NAGS's) that I'm thinking about at any moment.

I think allowing members to 'opt-out' of a physical copy of the mag, along with producing the mag online (probably with some kind of login security to make it exclusive to members), could reduce the overall costs of production, while still allowing it to serve its intended marketing/promotional purposes.

 

[jenb]

When I was on the Ratings Committee, I advocated for the PDGA to provide incentives, structure, and support to TDs for running events that didn't include Adv and Pro divisions. I don't know if that was a good idea, but I thought it was at the time.

p.s. This included providing X number of memberships for the tournament to give as prizes to the highest-finishing non-members (or whoever they wanted to give them to).

I'm in the process of planning a non-pdga event that requires current pdga membership to play, has more ratings capped divisions (but no gender or age protected divisions), requires urated players to play open, and pays cash to all divisions. There are a lot of players rated under 900 whom I have talked to and, so far, they all love this idea. It may happen as early as this fall.

 

[Dave242]

I think allowing members to 'opt-out' of a physical copy of the mag, along with producing the mag online (probably with some kind of login security to make it exclusive to members), could reduce the overall costs of production, while still allowing it to serve its intended marketing/promotional purposes.

I am sure this has been discussed in depth many times by the powers that be. I can guarantee that a huge drawback to the opt-out idea is that then the costs per copy skyrocket....and the magazine could (would?) even end up costing even more (both to individual members and to the PDGA).

If you have a number well below the 15-20K members, what are you going to promote to advertisers to justify them spending money on advertising with you? That's right - advertising revenue goes way down. What happens to the economies of scale (fixed costs are now spread out over a much smaller number of magazines)? That's right - cost per copy goes way up.

Edit: should have considered your post more carefully (the overall costs of production part). I do not know the revenue produced by online marketing, but suffice it to say there are a lot more ads in a magazine than would ever be acceptable in an online version.

 

[jenb]

I'm in the process of planning a non-pdga event that requires current pdga membership to play ratings capped divisions, has more ratings capped divisions (but no gender or age protected divisions), requires urated players to play open, and pays cash to all divisions. There are a lot of players rated under 900 whom I have talked to and, so far, they all love this idea. It may happen as early as this fall.

FTFM

 

[mashnut]

I'm in the process of planning a non-pdga event that requires current pdga membership to play, has more ratings capped divisions (but no gender or age protected divisions), requires urated players to play open, and pays cash to all divisions. There are a lot of players rated under 900 whom I have talked to and, so far, they all love this idea. It may happen as early as this fall.

Just out of curiosity, why not sanction it? All of what you're talking about can be done under PDGA sanctioning as long as you advertise ahead of time what divisions are offered.

 

[_MTL_]

I'm against divisions based on ratings because it doesn't offer growth. Tell a new player they have to play open in your event because they don't have a rating.

"No big deal," they think, "I'll just play it once and then I'll get a rating and play in the appropriate division next time.

Wait, I don't get round ratings at this? So I'm stuck in Open until I play an event that has nothing to do with this one?

I think I'll pass..."

Just saying...it's not a good idea in general, IMHO, but to not sanction it is even worse. How can you honestly say "we are going to use PDGA ratings for divisions" but then not have ratings in the event?

 

[onemilemore]

Re: the magazine. I appreciate Chuck's standpoint that it provides a visual history of the sport. However, we are living in a digital age, and all of this stuff can be archived online. Look at sports Illustrated: It has an entire "Vault" website that you can search for old articles, photos, etc. Taking the content of the magazine and putting it online would probably be a better use of the PDGA's funds than sending out print copies. And while I acknowledge that everyone does not have Internet access, the PDGA needs to embrace digital content in order to evolve.