JomezPro Acquired by DGPT

[Dcinmd]

Interesting that DGPT is keeping Jomez's Patreon channel alive.

I wonder how many people will decided to keep on funding DGPT versus Jomez?

Q: What is happening to the JomezPro Patreon channel?

A: The JomezPro Patreon channel will remain active, and supporters are getting access to a new slate of benefits! If you're a supporter, check out the JomezPro Patreon page for a complete update, but here are a few highlights.

All JomezPro Patreon members will now have access to a 50% discount on a Disc Golf Network monthly subscription.
All Patreon members will also have access to a discount for the DGPT Pro Shop and JomezPro Shop (discount level varies by your support level).
All Patreon members will have access to a variety of exclusive JomezPro merchandise drops.
If you're a member of the FollowFlight Fam or the Founders Club, you'll get a discount on tickets to DGPT events!
If you're a Founders Club member, you'll receive 2 FREE full-event general admission tickets to a DGPT tournament of your choice!
As a perk for all Patreon members, you'll be able to enter into a huge giveaway for you and a friend to take an all-expenses paid trip to the 2023 PDGA Pro World Championships at Smugglers' Notch in Vermont this summer! One winner and their friend will receive flights, lodging, and Gold VIP passes which are full of exclusive perks and top-level event access. You can read more about the Gold VIP pass here. Be on the lookout for instructions on how to enter soon.

 

[VictorB]

Interesting that DGPT is keeping Jomez's Patreon channel alive.

I wonder how many people will decided to keep on funding DGPT versus Jomez?

I don't think it's a "this or that" proposition anymore, more like a "yes/both"

Jomez funding will almost certainly partially go to DGPT (see my previous post about Jomez still owing DGPT money for lead card coverage), but DGPT funding will also benefit Jomez

 

[dehaas]

Mannnnn, after skimming a bit of the Upshot and Smashboxx episodes with Gomez and Spring it sounds like the covid bubble burst and Jomez got stuck with its tail between their legs. DGPT basically offering a financial bailout it seems.

 

[Luckj]

It's interesting to me in that professional disc golf has historically not been a driver of the sport. The sport was more of a grass roots-driven experience propping up a façade of professional disc golf. Now that professional disc golf has found a billionaire to prop it up, it's fairly well detached from anything the grass roots-driven experience is doing.

I've seen a couple people mention a billionaire financially backing pro disc golf, who is that? Is Jeff Spring worth that much?

 

[VictorB]

I've seen a couple people mention a billionaire financially backing pro disc golf, who is that? Is Jeff Spring worth that much?

Todd Rainwater

He's usually just the man behind the curtain, but he does occasionally go on smashboxx or the upshot

 

[Shallows]

Mannnnn, after skimming a bit of the Upshot and Smashboxx episodes with Gomez and Spring it sounds like the covid bubble burst and Jomez got stuck with its tail between their legs. DGPT basically offering a financial bailout it seems.

Yeah, after listening to the interviews I wonder if DGPT paid any money to Jomez or just ate their biggest competitor for free. My reading between the lines is that DGPT basically scooped Jomez in three easy steps.
1. Decide to charge Jomez $500k to cover lead card while not charging other Youtube channels anything (and in fact paying other companies to cover chase cards).
2. Jomez can't pay that $500k money and is about to go into default.
3. DGPT forgives Jomez's debt to them while taking over.

 

[Three Putt]

I've seen a couple people mention a billionaire financially backing pro disc golf, who is that? Is Jeff Spring worth that much?

VictorB is on it; Todd Rainwater is the cash cow pro disc golf has dreamed of finding for decades.

 

[Three Putt]

Yeah, after listening to the interviews I wonder if DGPT paid any money to Jomez or just ate their biggest competitor for free. My reading between the lines is that DGPT basically scooped Jomez in three easy steps.
1. Decide to charge Jomez $500k to cover lead card while not charging other Youtube channels anything (and in fact paying other companies to cover chase cards).
2. Jomez can't pay that $500k money and is about to go into default.
3. DGPT forgives Jomez's debt to them while taking over.

I hate to speculate and spread rumors, but...yeah. DGPT faced a barrage of online criticism in certain places (including here) over their coverage vs Jomez. They could have bought Jomez and brought them in-house, but instead they price gouged them on coverage rights. Then when Jomez couldn't pay, they just absorbed them and waived the dept. No purchase necessary.

It could just be how something played out, or it could have been a plan. If it was a plan, cue Bon Scott....



We will never know if it was the plan, though. Maybe DGPT really thought $250K was a reasonable price for coverage of hippies and rednecks throwing Frisbees in parks. Jomez obviously thought they could cover it. So it really could be just how it worked out.

 

[Flick Maniac]

whoah. i never know that price. so Jomez thought there is at least 250K plus a lot more on top of that (250K first to even break even) to make it feasible to film disc golf. I have no idea how something like that would work.

 

[CaptainAnhyzer]

I hate to speculate and spread rumors, but...yeah. DGPT faced a barrage of online criticism in certain places (including here) over their coverage vs Jomez.

Yea that...... most of that "criticism" was from the laughable comparison to the two entities.
Live coverage has multiple hurdles that post produced never has to deal with. Wireless streaming, camera switching & live commentators(remote and on site) are the main complaints about DGN. Jomez has never dealt with those issues.

 

[@CD-]

From what I've seen, DGPT is providing the financial backing and management of JomezPro; which frees up JomezPro to focus on doing the camera work and post-production. JomezPro will be getting more cameras and people so they can cover FPO also. This will also allow JomezPro to get more post-production out faster. So, it seems like:

DGN - Live coverage
JomezPro - Lead card/Post production
GateKeeper - Chase card/Post Production

But it is possible that JomezPro will eventually be doing the Chase Card also as they get more equipment and employees (paid for by DGPT). It may also be possible that JomezPro will be doing the Live Coverage.

My thoughts on why this is happening....I've seen lots of complaints online about the poor DGN coverage. From DGN camera folks getting hit or being in the way, to missing shots, to below 'par' commentary. Maybe DGPT has seen the writing on the wall and wants a more professional output; which led to getting JomezPro.

This year it seems Jomez/CCDG/Gatekeeper camera operators are recording a lot of the lead/chase card coverage for DGN live already. The same HD recordings for post-produced throw/catch positions taken directly from the memory on the DGN live camera instead of the variable resolution version broadcast on the live where cell strength determines the quality. This may have started last year already which is where the 'combined resources'/'integration' comes up in some of the interview snippets/press releases -

"The Disc Golf Network media team and JomezPro have already taken steps to integrate and support each other this season,"

Watching live on DGN does not show shot-by-shot for every golfer, usually they are trying to follow the storylines of contenders more instead of showing the less than stellar play. Those shots are still being captured though which ends up in the post produced videos. When I watch post produced I sometimes recognize the shots from the same angles on live. Post-produced still has their slo-mo and reaction cameras separate.

 

[Three Putt]

whoah. i never know that price. so Jomez thought there is at least 250K plus a lot more on top of that (250K first to even break even) to make it feasible to film disc golf. I have no idea how something like that would work.

Jomez must have had generated enough income in 2020-2021 that they thought this was doable. I have no idea how, but they must have. Otherwise why would they sign the agreement?

 

[wims]

Jomez must have had generated enough income in 2020-2021 that they thought this was doable. I have no idea how, but they must have. Otherwise why would they sign the agreement?

Filming and producing high tier disc golf is Jomez' business. How would they be able to do that and make a living if they didn't have access? It seems like Jomez' was forced to either accept the terms or shut down

 

[Orioles_Lefty]

My first faculty job was at an institution that made major financial decisions off of what was actually a significant outlier year. Nothing like making year-after-year projections and major capital investments off of unrepeatable returns. Never struck me as sound financial decision making, lol.

Rusco said something kind of similar on his Upshot interview following the sell of DD. I'm paraphrasing from memory here and he was not totally explicit but he basically said they anticipated the bubble bursting but also found the burst to be quite unsettling business.

 

[robdeforge]

people who complain about this probably should think a little more about what could have happened to Jomez since they didn't pay the 250k they owed DGPT for 2 years of lead card coverage. Jeff et al were smart enough to see that absorbing the Jomez brand would lead to the best outcome for everyone, because Jomez is a significant asset

Apologies if I missed it, but from where do we know that Jomez didn't pay the 250K?

 

[SocraDeez]

We will never know if it was the plan, though. Maybe DGPT really thought $250K was a reasonable price for coverage of hippies and rednecks throwing Frisbees in parks. Jomez obviously thought they could cover it. So it really could be just how it worked out.

Jomez must have had generated enough income in 2020-2021 that they thought this was doable. I have no idea how, but they must have. Otherwise why would they sign the agreement?

Market power is pricing power. DGPT had significant leverage throughout this entire negotiation, which reportedly took 6 months. The initial price set by DGPT to anchor the rest of the price negotiation was likely higher than the final contract amount of $250K/yr. Let's estimate the likelihood that $250K/yr was a reasonable price for coverage of hippies and rednecks throwing Frisbees in parks.

First, we can use public sentiment or reaction relative to the news of this price point as a starting point for our fairness estimate. Somehow I never heard about this deal until the recent news, but based on a few of the comments in this thread, I would slide the public sentiment meter into "more than expected" territory.

Next, let's summarize the art of the deal. Bargaining leverage can be generally categorized as threats or promises: I'll take this away vs. I'll give you this. Threats provide more leverage than promises due to loss aversion. Because Jomez Pro. had already been broadcasting DGPT event lead cards (I'm pretty sure? Been out of the habitual pro-coverage loop for a couple years) prior to the new contract negotiations, I'd categorize the deal leverage as primarily loss-based. Jomez Pro. was also significantly disadvantaged by larger market features such as lack of DGPT alternatives/access to other events and increased service competition from other media/coverage groups.

Finally, we can look at the downstream effects of the deal, which prompted this thread: Jomez Pro. consumed by a creditor.

Opinion: Extraordinarily likely that Jomez Pro. was price gouged and that this was more product of monopoly behavior than poor financial forecasting.

 

[biscoe]

Market power is pricing power. DGPT had significant leverage throughout this entire negotiation, which reportedly took 6 months. The initial price set by DGPT to anchor the rest of the price negotiation was likely higher than the final contract amount of $250K/yr. Let's estimate the likelihood that $250K/yr was a reasonable price for coverage of hippies and rednecks throwing Frisbees in parks.

First, we can use public sentiment or reaction relative to the news of this price point as a starting point for our fairness estimate. Somehow I never heard about this deal until the recent news, but based on a few of the comments in this thread, I would slide the public sentiment meter into "more than expected" territory.

Next, let's summarize the art of the deal. Bargaining leverage can be generally categorized as threats or promises: I'll take this away vs. I'll give you this. Threats provide more leverage than promises due to loss aversion. Because Jomez Pro. had already been broadcasting DGPT event lead cards (I'm pretty sure? Been out of the habitual pro-coverage loop for a couple years) prior to the new contract negotiations, I'd categorize the deal leverage as primarily loss-based. Jomez Pro. was also significantly disadvantaged by larger market features such as lack of DGPT alternatives/access to other events and increased service competition from other media/coverage groups.

Finally, we can look at the downstream effects of the deal, which prompted this thread: Jomez Pro. consumed by a creditor.

Opinion: Extraordinarily likely that Jomez Pro. was price gouged and that this was more product of monopoly behavior than poor financial forecasting.

Jonathan Gomez cited revenue "dropping off a cliff" (or some very similar verbiage) in Ultiworld's interview with he and Jeff Spring. IMO they expanded a ton and the Covid bubble burst beneath them. Jonathan basically said as much.

 

[TheOtherBill]

Jomez's efforts to diversify content from just DGPT events likely added to their woes. The podcasts, putting games, beyond disc golf all required additional expenses that didn't bring in enough extra views to break even on them. I can't blame the effort. I also recall someone floated the idea of Jomez's own events.

 

[SocraDeez]

Jonathan Gomez cited revenue "dropping off a cliff" (or some very similar verbiage) in Ultiworld's interview with he and Jeff Spring. IMO they expanded a ton and the Covid bubble burst beneath them. Jonathan basically said as much.

For sure could be this simple.

We don't even know who approached who to start the whole deal conversation. Jomez Pro. was already broadcasting DGPT Elite events (most? all?) prior though, right? What could have motivated the need/desire to pay more to secure the exclusive rights when they already effectively had those rights by being the top product vendor?

If vendor competition was driving the motivation to secure the exclusive broadcast rights, it's hard to believe that the price produced by the competitive market would be in the $250K/yr neighborhood. If the Jomez revenue was there in '20-21 to make this deal feasible, DGPT knew that too and went after the biggest fish. Smells like monopoly bullying to me.

 

[BuiltTooLong]

Jonathan Gomez cited revenue "dropping off a cliff" (or some very similar verbiage) in Ultiworld's interview with he and Jeff Spring. IMO they expanded a ton and the Covid bubble burst beneath them. Jonathan basically said as much.

Are the views down that much? Patreon down? Youtube change payment structure?

Obviously the "Holy Shot" was a humongous boom to their channel, but it shouldn't take Captain Foresight to realize it was a peak.