Club Financial Weakness

[BuiltTooLong]

Are the clubs going to be the ones to make new courses? I have seen no evidence of this. I have seen clubs go to city council and plead for courses being put in, citing low cost and shared use, but little in the way of finance.

What benefit does being a member of a club bring the common player? I don't need a club to go play with my friends.
I carry an arborist saw and do course clean up on my own, no need for a club there.
I know of no events that one has to be a club member to participate in other than bag tags, so very little draw there.
The social elite doesn't play disc golf, so no draw to be a club member there either.

I think clubs are weak in disc golf as they serve the common player very little. Make the club serve either a capitilist function or a social function, then you will see the clubs become stronger.

The bolded text is exactly one of the reasons to have a club. Joe Schmoo should NOT be out there making changes to the course. It's not Schmoo's personal course to make whatever change he deems fit, and once a branch/tree/bush is removed, there's no going back. There may have been a strategic reason for it that player is unaware of and the decision should be up to the club or course designer.

 

[ru4por]

The bolded text is exactly one of the reasons to have a club. Joe Schmoo should NOT be out there making changes to the course. It's not Schmoo's personal course to make whatever change he deems fit, and once a branch/tree/bush is removed, there's no going back. There may have been a strategic reason for it that player is unaware of and the decision should be up to the club or course designer.

I was assuming Wolf had park permission to trim up the course.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

I normally try to not speak of politics here . . .

I think the best way to look at the lack of local government cooperation with installation of new courses is to compare disc golf with sports that have the least trouble getting government cooperation/support. This doesn't required any kind of skewed or flawed analysis based on on pseudo political sciency sounding arguments.

The real answer is votes/money and the details are going to vary widely among different regions and localities. In my area, baseball, basketball, soccer, football and tennis get the money. If I try to get $15,000 out of a local city council for a disc golf course for which the land is available and unused, you'd think that I had stormed a city council meeting with a shotgun by judging the amount of cooperation that I get (they've bought the baskets btw and they are sitting in storage where they have been for two years - for the cost of storage, the course could have already been completed).

Compare that to the $800,000 spent recently to install new tennis courts that fewer people will actually utilize. Millions have been spent building and renovating baseball/softball and soccer fields locally. Millions more have been spent renovating a facility whose primary use is a once-a-year state high school basketball tournament. That last renovation was backed by an easily-passed tax election.

But it's easy to see why the local hotel association and convention and visitors bureau hounded the city government to put in a new baseball and softball complex. During a summer travel baseball or softball tournament, hundreds of kids each pay over $100 to participate in a tournament ($180 for each player for the last one I heard about), they travel here and fill the hotels for the Friday and Saturday nights, they eat at the local restaurants, which are packed during one of the tournaments, and they accept nothing more than a trophy for winning. One of these kid's baseball bats can cost more than all the equipment a disc golfer might use in a tournament.

By contrast, most of the disc golfers who play in a tournament drive in the day of, carpool because they can't afford the gas, won't show up if they're not guaranteed a players pack with at least one disc it in and, if the tournament is multi-day, are constantly trying to find a place where they can camp for free or someones couch to crash on. These are not the kind of people that a city council is going to prioritize spending money on.

It is, at once, disc golf's greatest strength and weakness, that it is so inexpensive to play. IMO this explains both its quick growth and poor ability to attract the attention of local government.

 

[wolfmandragon]

The bolded text is exactly one of the reasons to have a club. Joe Schmoo should NOT be out there making changes to the course. It's not Schmoo's personal course to make whatever change he deems fit, and once a branch/tree/bush is removed, there's no going back. There may have been a strategic reason for it that player is unaware of and the decision should be up to the club or course designer.

Dude, chill the hell out.

Even the clubs here can't make changes to the courses. That has to go through the city or state, according to which course it is.

What I do is saw up fallen logs and trees that have fallen on the fairways....because you know, the tragedy of the commons.

Now how do you feel?

 

[BuiltTooLong]

Dude, chill the hell out.

Even the clubs here can't make changes to the courses. That has to go through the city or state, according to which course it is.

What I do is saw up fallen logs and trees that have fallen on the fairways....because you know, the tragedy of the commons.

Now how do you feel?

If you reread my comments, I generalized my statement to "joe schmoo" not you in particular, so that perhaps my point would be heard and not just trigger you.

I have first hand witnessed rogue players ruin holes by hacking and chopping away trees they thought made the hole too difficult. As someone who has spent a great deal of time working on course design and planning specific maintenance, this is infuriating and not a personal attack upon you.

 

[Spinthrift]

Interesting thread. I don't believe PDGA payout/players pack value requirements keep clubs from making money. It depends on how an event's expense/revenue projections are planned out beforehand. I'm president of the Charlotte Disc Golf Club, which will host more than 350 events in 2019, including leagues, sanctioned tourneys, fundraisers, educational sessions and charity functions. We're a 500-member club with a goal of 1,000 members within the next year.

Yes, your club can make money - even substantial money - on sanctioned tournaments but the profit structure is far more dependent on sponsorships and in-kind contributions to defray expenses than it is on entry fees. Our most profitable events are not even sanctioned tourneys, they are two weekly handicap leagues at Sugaw Creek and Reedy Creek parks, where each $1 in revenue brings $.58 profit, and each event averages between 40-70 players paying $5 (Club member) or $6 (non-member).

We talked with several very successful clubs across the country that have the benefit of federal 501(c)(3) non-profit status. This allows partner contributions to be tax deductible and presents a very compelling argument for becoming a sponsor. Our Club recently gained 501(c)(3) status so we're creating a Marketing Manager position and Sponsorship Committee to begin taking advantage.

It's troubling to hear of the issues DG clubs have with their P&R departments. We're lucky to have the advantage of long-standing, solid relationships with P&R departments in our home county. Those partnerships have so far produced 18 tournament-level courses, which the Club built and maintains, with more in the planning stages. Non-Club events that use our courses pay us a fee, dependent on the size/scope of the event and number of courses used.

Tournaments come and go, but again, the most reliable revenue stream for us is the weeklies -- multiple doubles leagues, women's league, glow league, putting league, handicap leagues, match play league. Obviously that kind of league stable takes years to build, but you have to start somewhere. Do the homework to ensure your event makes a profit, then build on it.

-- Jim Banbury

 

[filobedo]

also dg attracts a certain demographic of players

Cheap people suck

 

[filobedo]

…..and with that said, I wish the PDGA would loosen the guidelines and allow clubs (or individuals) to retain more of the entry fees, or run lower-entry, no-payout or players pack, events.

With no certainty that players would attend them. The players might forego the events that are more profitable for the promoters, and demonstrate that the problem is not the PDGA guidelines, but us. But I'd like to try.

Leadership in most clubs would just add the funds to ace pots instead of creating a reserve fund to fund new courses.

 

[DavidSauls]

Leadership in most clubs would just add the funds to ace pots instead of creating a reserve fund to fund new courses.

I can't speak for most clubs. I was an officer for the Columbia club for 13 years, the last 8 as treasurer; during that time we never added to the ace pot, and since then I haven't heard of the club doing so.

 

[GoobyPls]

Leadership in most clubs would just add the funds to ace pots instead of creating a reserve fund to fund new courses.

I've literally never heard of this. Every dollar our local club raises goes to maintenance of existing courses (replacing old baskets, pouring new concrete tees, etc.) and fees associated with running their 9 weekly leagues (including paying for insurance). Ace funds here are paid entirely by the league players themselves.

 

[biscoe]

I've literally never heard of this. Every dollar our local club raises goes to maintenance of existing courses (replacing old baskets, pouring new concrete tees, etc.) and fees associated with running their 9 weekly leagues (including paying for insurance). Ace funds here are paid entirely by the league players themselves.

Yeah, this. What money our club makes goes into improving the courses and sponsoring events for the most part. Currently our efforts are focused pretty heavily on the USWDGC which will be here in September. We have a fundraising goal of $30k for that and have raised $20k plus at this point.

 

[Future_Primitive]

Always interesting to see the variation from state to state, minus this nasty, cold weather it appears to be financially good to be in Michigan. To add on to Ru4por's post, our club does pretty well running a variety of events throughout the year. Weekly dubs league, sanctioned events, unsanctioned events, charity tournaments and running/hosting one or two of the local women's series events as well. Lucky enough to be in an area with quite a few pay to play courses that do quite well maintaining courses themselves so we can donate time and effort instead of money which also helps.

We've been able to build a team of sponsored players and reward them with incentives, clothing and a year end team party as well. Think we are up to 13-14 players total now including council members. Also reinvested some funds into things like a vinyl cutter and heat press to make our shirts, towels, and various promo items for the club. Gives players at our tournies other items besides just plastic to spend their funny money on. Also able to do things like provide grilled food and beverages for the ladies tournament(s) we help run each year as well. If run well with good people and a variety of events clubs can make money.

 

[DavidSauls]

Always interesting to see the variation from state to state....

My guess is that it varies from town to town.

In a club I'm familiar with, it has varied a bit from year to year.

For the same reasons: at least until a club reaches a certain size, its success is dependent on a few motivated go-getters. Leadership, in other words. In a place where inspired leadership comes and goes, the club's effectiveness waxes and wanes. I suspect that same variable applies from town to town: where a club is blessed with a few dedicated leaders, it's much more successful than places without them.

 

[Future_Primitive]

My guess is that it varies from town to town.

In a club I'm familiar with, it has varied a bit from year to year.

Always gonna have your fair share of new clubs, casual clubs and some bad ones. Not directed specifically at you David, but do other states have a central organization that tries to make clubs more consistent in how they run things?

Speaking locally, we have the MDGO (Michigan Disc Golf Organization) that clubs can join. They are in charge of awarding our State Berths to clubs for the year to then hand out at tournaments or at the end of league season. Number of berths is dependent on club reputation, years of existence, number of events and various other criteria. I am sure there are members of the MDGO on here that could into more details if needed.

Club reps attend a yearly meeting and schedule tournaments together to avoid major conflicts. I heard this year they also offered like a TD workshop for new TDs to attend and get a feel of entry fees around the state and tips on running events. I think stuff like this can be helpful so a newer TD is not on their own trying to figure things out.

 

[DavidSauls]

Wow. That's cool. I can only speak for South Carolina, in which there is no organization of clubs.

We have a great PDGA state coordinator who works with TDs for scheduling tournaments. But he doesn't work with club operations (other than his local one), as far as I know.

 

[ru4por]

Always gonna have your fair share of new clubs, casual clubs and some bad ones. Not directed specifically at you David, but do other states have a central organization that tries to make clubs more consistent in how they run things?

Speaking locally, we have the MDGO (Michigan Disc Golf Organization) that clubs can join. They are in charge of awarding our State Berths to clubs for the year to then hand out at tournaments or at the end of league season. Number of berths is dependent on club reputation, years of existence, number of events and various other criteria. I am sure there are members of the MDGO on here that could into more details if needed.

Club reps attend a yearly meeting and schedule tournaments together to avoid major conflicts. I heard this year they also offered like a TD workshop for new TDs to attend and get a feel of entry fees around the state and tips on running events. I think stuff like this can be helpful so a newer TD is not on their own trying to figure things out.

I am not sure the MDGO does much more than State Championship and the Michigan Hall of Fame, in all honesty....but, the idea is sound.

State Coordinator here in Michigan just held a four hours summit on tournament and league coordination. He had about four speakers on different topics and a really great opportunity to have a collective of club leaders and an exchange of ideas and thoughts.