PDGA Membership?

[bbwrenn]

Not sure if this is exactly what you're thinking of smyith, but there is an obscure PDGA format where no player (member or not) pays the $10 non-member fee...it's called a Competition Endowment Program Charity Event.

Endowment program is a great way to raise a little money and potentially attract a few non-PDGA members to a slightly more "casual" C-tier type tournament, but still a PDGA where you can compete and learn to utilize the proper rules too.

A great recurring one coming up in a few weeks in Raleigh too, Jan. 18th... Raleigh Winter Jam. Great TD, tournament runs smooth as butter, good payout, good chunk of change given to local charity. Fun course too, old school but still a great challenge and worthy of a PDGA.

Always freeze my duff off though.

 

[siknastyinstalr]

I do not mind paying the cost for the membership if you are gonna play enough touraments to cover your costs. 5 for ams and 8 for pros. They keep all your stats in one place so you can look at them and tracks your rating. However I do wish that the PDGA would update the ratings a little faster than once a month. Or for the 2014 year it will be middle of March before they get updated again.

 

[The Roc]

They need to lower the price. Most disc golfers arent rollin in money. You know by decreasing the price they would actually make more because more people would join. Nuff said!

 

[scarpfish]

They need to lower the price. Most disc golfers arent rollin in money. You know by decreasing the price they would actually make more because more people would join. Nuff said!

You need to read post #7 again. There's not much incentive for the PDGA to make themselves do double the work for the same amount of money.

If a tournament golfer ever figured up all the ancillary costs of attending tournaments, like gas money, food, buying new equipment or other gear, lodging or camping expenses, they would really begin to realize that the $50-75 they fork over for PDGA membership isn't all that expensive. If you can't afford that $50-75, you probably can't afford dealing with all those other expenditures either.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Post #7 breaks things down quite clearly. For the uber lazy:

My guess is whatever uptick in membership a decrease in fees might bring in is going to be more than offset by lost revenue.

Stats show 23,317 current members. Granted, there's probably some early 2014 renewals on that list.

7716 pros x $75 = $578,700
15601 ams x $50 = $780,050
Total membership revenue $1,358,750

So if we backed off on those membership fees say just $5 per am and $10 per pro we would get

7716 pros x $65 = $501,540 (-$77,160)
15601 ams x $45 = $702,045 (-$78,005)
Total membership revenue $1,203,585 (-$155,165)

You would need 1188 more pros, and 1734 more ams to become members just to break even on the existing numbers. Could that possibly happen? Sure. But there are fulfillment costs for each membership, so why would the PDGA want to make that much more work for themselves to get the same amount of money? They would have to see much more of an increase in membership than those numbers to make a decrease in price worthwhile.

You're also forgetting that there are thousands of people like myself who choose to "join" the PDGA on a pay as you go basis, by simply paying the $10 add on fee at each event we play. That's still revenue in the PDGA's coffers without the member fulfillment costs.