The 2020 Boost: Catalyst or Bubble?

[ChrisWoj]

In terms of the sports growth.... Was the 2020 boost a bubble that'll simply disintegrate into pre-2020 growth rates? Or is it a catalyst leading to unforeseen growth rates?

 

[ChrisWoj]

I'm an optimist.

 

[ThrowBot]

I think that growth rate will normalize back to pre-2020 levels, BUT the accelerated growth that did happen will stick. There's not a backslide coming. (At least not any more than normal attrition levels.)

So no long-term boost in growth rate. But still yes, 2020 was a catalyst, because several years' worth of player base growth happened in a single season.

 

[Why are trees]

My guess is the truth ends up somewhere in the middle. I think it is unlikely growth rates approach 2020 levels in the next decade, but I don't think they will fall back to pre-pandemic levels. The sport has gained a whole legion of new, young players who will continue to grow the sport and has also reached a higher level of commercial viability. More money is being spent on producing and marketing disc golf than was the case in March of 2020, and that isn't going away. We will see more and more disc golf on ESPN and Youtube in the coming years.

The coronavirus was the primary catalyst behind the sport's growth in 2020, and as it fades from our consciousness, fewer people will start playing, and some will stop. Still, the boost the pandemic gave to the sport won't disappear because it changed the game's structure and made it easier for disc golf to grow organically.

 

[nothinbuttree]

I'm an optimist.

I am too, which is why I voted bubble. For nothing more than selfish personal reasons, I like the sport where it is now. Already noticing courses with more traffic and getting harder to find plastic. Can't handle much more growth.

 

[GripEnemy]

In what regard? Are we going to see more chuckers moving forward? Yes.

Are we going to see the PDGA explode with sponsors and money (more so than we would have naturally without a global pandemic) because I doubt it.



What growth are you referring to/hoping for?

I like the pro scene growing, I hate that I have to wait on a hole at least once a round every time I play now:| I miss bringing it up to a stranger and having them ask WTF am I talking about...

 

[Hampstead]

2020 growth was a perfect storm of time and place. I don't see the pace of growth maintaining, but plenty of new players will continue playing. Hopefully city and state parks are paying attention.

 

[Moose33]

There will be some acceleration continuing I think, a mix of parks and private owners learning they can profit from our mania and more course availability and exposure.

2020 will go down in the history books as one of the craziest years in history, and we probably won't sell that many new PDGA memberships again. I think we might hold above the 2019 pace though.

 

[ballgolfconvert]

Quite a few poeple won't stick and most of the people who might have started playing over the next 5 years have already started due to the pandemic. Just like many parts of the economy, growth was sucked forward and is more likely to deflate rather than increase over the next few years. I wouldn't be shocked with a 5-10% decrease in PDGA paid members next year and I think they should be very happy, even at the lower range and below.

 

[wolfhaley]

People will have to start getting jobs again, even the disc scalpers. Then again, if you can flip F2 Orcs for $50 a pop on Facebook...

 

[biscoe]

both

 

[autocrosscrx]

I am too, which is why I voted bubble. For nothing more than selfish personal reasons, I like the sport where it is now. Already noticing courses with more traffic and getting harder to find plastic. Can't handle much more growth.

Yeah. I can't get on the courses I want when I want, I can't easily get the discs I want, and I can't get in tournaments without basically taking time off work.

I think it is already slowing down a bit, but I'm hoping bubble.

I know the counter-argument is build new courses, blah blah blah blah. However, at least where I live, we probably need to be putting up housing instead of disc golf courses. I know several people that have either sold their house or took a new job and are living in hotels because there is nothing buy or rent available.

 

[swhite]

My experience has been different than most, it appears.

The local public courses in my area of central Massachusetts were stripped of all baskets soon after we began hearing of the spread of covid-19 in March 2019. I was told this was to dissuade folks from showing up and catching the bug from card mates. Signs were posted that the courses were closed. It worked, at least in dissuading most anyone from playing. The baskets were only reinstalled a couple of months ago, and disc golf traffic has not yet returned to pre-covid times. On Saturday, I saw 6 other people on the course during the round. The number of Canada geese on my most visited course, which I continued to play at regularly despite the missing baskets, has outnumbered disc golfers for almost a year and a half.

Hiking traffic in the area was not discouraged, and was noticeably greater during the height of the shutdown, but has slowed again.

 

[VictorB]

Can it be both a catalyst and a bubble?

I think the growth we have seen has been a catalyst for disc manufacturers increasing capacity and building up infrastructure, and in person attendance helping to boost tournament purses.

I don't think the pace of growth is anywhere near sustainable and there will likely be a negative impact to participation in the sport when things actually get back to normal. There will be some that hang around and play a lot, but likely many more that will play much less frequently or just dismiss it for other activity.

There is also hidden negatives to this boom in the sport. Myself, along with others, are not participating in leagues or tournaments as frequently (and not at all in my case), attempting to buy discs (thanks to lack of retail access and spiking secondary market) There are definitely people filling those slots but there is a cost to massive expansion before being ready to handle the influx.

 

[dehaas]

Don't really know if there's a more useful metric aside from the % increase in pdga membership (which isn't overly useful in itself) to help quantify things.

I do think a lot of the new Covid era players will stick around for a while. I don't think you'll see the increase of new players increasing going forward though. Yes you'll still see new people finding the game, but not in numbers larger than what we've just saw.

The am tournament dynamic is interesting though. With events filling so quick, and inventory being slim, are TD's able to get custom stamped stuff for players packs? What about having enough inventory to cover payouts?

 

[nothinbuttree]

I think too that the new influx will regulate itself. If a newer player (not totally hooked yet) faces the same discs shortages and wait times that us old-timers do, they may be less willing to put up with it, and simply move on. Yes, the sport can be addicting, but part of that has been the ease (low time investment) and low cost (low money investment) of playing. Both those investments are increasing. Unless and until capacity (disc and course) increases, any big boom will simply temper itself.

 

[BillFleming]

It's a bubble. We may see numbers decrease....but I don't think we will see the growth continue at this rate.

The reason is answered by 'What caused the growth'? It was the pandemic. Sports were canceled and most group activities were banned. Basketball courts.....closed off. Tennis courts....closed off. Playgrounds....closed off. About the only thing that stayed open where groups could participate was disc golf. So people took that up so they could be outdoors getting exercise and hanging around other people - usually without masks. While we are still in the pandemic, everything has opened up again....I think we will keep a few of the new players, but a bunch will go back to doing what they did before the pandemic.

 

[notapro]

I'm guessing catalyst. I mean, c'mon, it's the greatest sport/game ever made, it was only a matter of time.

 

[R-Ogre]

I think it's both. I think there will be a dropoff but the new baseline will be higher than if we had just had 2 years of normal growth. My hope is that the manufacturers don't get burned by their equipment investments when the dropoff does come.

 

[desmondeby]

I think that the sport will keep growing.