How to attract new players

[bigt]

Hi everyone,

We are looking for ways to attract new local players.

We have about 12 players in our group but really only 7 show up just about every week.

We do get 15-20 players from the college but they seem to not want to play with us as a group I guess that could be because they are playing more for the fun of it not as a competitive sport, I guess it also could be because we are OLD........

Our town is not very big there are about 13,000 people here full time and another 3,000 during college.

Our course has not changed much other than new tee-pads in the last 4 years, but we are working on that now adding alternate baskets locations and pro-tee pads and another full 18 holes with alternate basket locations and regular and pro tee-pads.

Here is our course http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=718

Any ideas would be great.

Thanks.

 

[1978]

About how many people play your course per day / week?

 

[Beable]

Have fun, cheap events. Don't require PDGA membership. Set up a good message board or at least have an event calendar somewhere.

 

[bigt]

About how many people play your course per day / week?

Well last night we had 13, as a group we play on Mondays at 5PM singles one week then blind draw doubles the next.

That is the most I have seen, but I have only been playing about 3 months.

Since college started late August we will have around 6-10 college students playing just about everyday they seem to like to play as one large group.

All total I would guess that we average about 20-25 rounds a week from the regulars and the college kids play just about everyday but we just can not seem to get them to play on Mondays.

Now we did pick up a couple of high school kids about a month ago they have even gone to the last 3 tournaments of a reagional series with us one even qualified to play in the championship round to be held at our course 10-30-10.

Have fun, cheap events. Don't require PDGA membership. Set up a good message board or at least have an event calendar somewhere.

We have an event calender on a big sign at the start of the course, but it seems the guys that set up the club got tired of setting up events then no one showing up, kind of why I have posted this so maybe I can get some ideas so I can maybe get something started again.

I am working on getting a club webpage set up to help get the word out.

Thanks for the help you all

 

[KMaC]

Have fun, cheap events. Don't require PDGA membership. Set up a good message board or at least have an event calendar somewhere.

Do this with prizes. People will flock to you if you have a little casual tourney and give out a bunch of plastic.

 

[Daffron24]

Market it. Put up fliers, facebook event, newspaper, social event. Maybe set up a meet and greet where you can just play a round with local players and from there maybe have a tournament that has a fun prize (disc).

 

[12StonesScott]

Set up a league at DiscGolfScene.com and keep track of points from week to week -- take a buck or two each week from each player (cheap enough that no one has to beg off as being too broke) and put it into a fund for end-of-season prizes for the top 3 or 4 point-winners. If people have DiscGolfScene.com accounts, you can link to their accounts so that results, notices, etc. posted for the league are automatically e-mailed to them. Create a Facebook page as another way of getting the word out.

If someone wants to take on the administrative burden, consider calculating and using handicaps so that even weaker players have a chance to "beat" the better ones if they have a particularly good round.

If you have enough players and a significant spread in ability, consider multiple divisions or pools -- say an Open and a Recreational division, with higher buying and cash payout for the Open group, and the nominal entry fee with no cash payout for Rec.

Doing those things this year has probably quadrupled our participation in our weekly singles league this year -- we've had over 90 different people take part at least once, and have 35-40 that could be considered "regulars" (not there every week, necessarily, but once or twice a month at least). We've started getting a solid contingent of 5-6 kids per week from the high school across the street participating, from a pool of 12 or so who've shown up at least once, even though most of the rest of us are older. We're doing a portable basket as first prize for most points in the Rec division, with prizes totaling about another $100 for 2nd through 5th place -- all funded out of $1 of the $2 minimum buyin for Rec (the other $1 gets split between the club and the park).

 

[chrishysell]

Run an organized weekly event. Keep the entries low. Run an ace pot that pays $50 per ace. I have a system that I use and I average over 60 players a week. It takes a little bit of investment money to purchase merchandise. It also requires some of your time and commitment to be there each week. In the long run it will pay off.

 

[bigt]

Run an organized weekly event. Keep the entries low. Run an ace pot that pays $50 per ace. I have a system that I use and I average over 60 players a week. It takes a little bit of investment money to purchase merchandise. It also requires some of your time and commitment to be there each week. In the long run it will pay off.

We have a weekly round on Mondays at 5 PM everyone that wants to can put a dollar in the ace pot as of yesterday it was at $105 I think that's the second highest total ever the highest was just over $400

This weekly round has been going on for almost 5 years and the numbers have not gone up much, it just seems like there is not that many players in town.

It took me the 5 years since the course was put in to give it a try, I would see a few people playing and say to myself that looks fun I need to give that a try but I can not tell you why it took so long to give it a try.

Now I can't get enough

 

[jeverett]

People will flock to you if you have a little casual tourney and give out a bunch of plastic.

Getting plastic into the hands of new players is the first thing that occurs to me, too. Is there a store in town that sells discs? If not, it could really be the case of people just not having plastic to throw. Casual tourneys where new players could get a disc or two as a player's pack could translate into a lot more people wanting to play the course..

 

[scarpfish]

I was just in Marshall last week to play IFP. Excellent course guys. Well worth the detour off I-70. Will probably be even better when they get their second course installed.
:thmbup:

Living in a small town myself, I can understand the struggle to get players. I think one of the biggest inhibitors that you really can't overcome is that not everyone has the same schedule and therefore getting them together at the same time. I think yet another is that its hard to get somebody in town to sell the equipment.

I've always thought that a charity tournament was a good idea, perhaps with a $10 entry and DX caliber discs being given out for entry, but you have to get the media involved to tell people that its happening.

 

[agent_peebody]

just show them this

 

[Beer]

And feed 'em beer!

 

[bigt]

AP I could only wish.........LOL

I would be glad to buy the beer, in fact after the tournament the 30th I have got Viking Package Liquor to give us some beer we are also having a glow tournament that night.

Only players that have made it to the championship of the series can play that day but for the glow anybody can play.

Scarpfish are you by chance the guy I helped find the tee box for 13?

Thanks for all the input guys

 

[scarpfish]

Scarpfish are you by chance the guy I helped find the tee box for 13?

That would be me. Good to see you on DGCR.

 

[chrishysell]

My event costs $4 to play. I give all women who enter a free disc. Guys bring their gfs. sometimes we have 7 or 8 women playing.

 

[Berryiowa]

We are try in to start a church league this is our 1st year we started with 6 players and now have 12, We would always have 1 or two younger players come once or twice and then not come back. What we found work to get the younger players to keep coming was to put some more experianced players with them to help teach them and show them diffrent things. When we started we always put the good players together and the weaker players together till one of our youth group girls said that she felt like she was not learning anything so we started puting some of the better players that like to work with the younger players with them. as the learn and see improvment they now come every week.

 

[jrawk]

My event costs $4 to play. I give all women who enter a free disc. Guys bring their gfs. sometimes we have 7 or 8 women playing.

slowest...... round..... ever......

:devil horns:

 

[chrishysell]

slowest...... round..... ever......

:devil horns:

when we get over 80 players it is slow. Of course I split up the ladies. I'm usually playing with the pretty one. Being the TD has it's benefits.

 

[andrewkh]

i have been having this problem myself since i started running the local league. there are a lot of small things you can do to get players coming out, the hard part is keeping them coming out on a weekly basis. here are a few things i've tried that seem to work.

-stick with random doubles, it makes things more casual then with singles
-offer ctp's for small prizes, discs, or small amounts of cash
-ace pool (when an ace pool gets big, players flock weekly to try and hit it)
-buy, sell, trade days where players can bring there unwanted plastic
-disc golf clinics to help newer players improve
-group bulk disc orders (littleflyer has a great deal on bulk order over 25 discs)
-bbq after the round....a big pack of hotdogs and buns are inexpensive and people will show if they know they are going to get fed...this would work very well with the college kids who are always up for a free meal