Disc Golf World Tour

[DanJon]

Also let's assume that Innova's investment pays off and next year's tour features big sponsors.

They offer a separate FPO division, once someone else can help foot the bill, and they have live coverage and edited footage along with a great payout.

Will anyone fault them for starting off like this then? Will the Pro women complain and threaten to boycott if Innova and Jussi hand them that opportunity?

Perhaps Innova is thinking long term growth. Maybe they didn't want to put the cart before the horse and throw down tens of thousands more this year to offer a separate division for women.

If they offer it next year will you still find fault?

 

[mark996]

http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/the-testosterone-dilemma-20121122

I think my testosterone levels are too high for this forum. You "guys" need to detoxify from all the pollutants it seems. I can't believe how uncool it is to be male...

I still can't believe how "cool" it is to be a pompous douche nozzle. My T levels are usually high tiered, and my e2 levels are likely lower than yours, therefore, you're more of a woman than I am. It really is ok to support women, and still be a strong macho guy. It's time to make men real men again, get away from that Jersey Shore persona that's ruining what men should be.

 

[mark996]

Also let's assume that Innova's investment pays off and next year's tour features big sponsors.

They offer a separate FPO division, once someone else can help foot the bill, and they have live coverage and edited footage along with a great payout.

Will anyone fault them for starting off like this then? Will the Pro women complain and threaten to boycott if Innova and Jussi hand them that opportunity?

Perhaps Innova is thinking long term growth. Maybe they didn't want to put the cart before the horse and throw down tens of thousands more this year to offer a separate division for women.

If they offer it next year will you still find fault?

I really don't think anyone can fault them, even if they keep the same structure and never change a thing. His event, his structure, his thought process, etc. Just because someone personally doesn't like they way things are being done doesn't make it wrong.

 

[hook_nuts]

I still can't believe how "cool" it is to be a pompous douche nozzle. My T levels are usually high tiered, and my e2 levels are likely lower than yours, therefore, you're more of a woman than I am. It really is ok to support women, and still be a strong macho guy. It's time to make men real men again, get away from that Jersey Shore persona that's ruining what men should be.

What women are you supporting? Women don't care about disc golf. If you want to be mad, be mad at them for not giving a ****, but for me I could care less if they care less. I'm not going to force women to be opressed. They are free to enjoy whatever they want. But somehow it's the males fault.... ffs.

 

[mark996]

What women are you supporting? Women don't care about disc golf. If you want to be mad, be mad at them for not giving a ****, but for me I could care less if they care less. I'm not going to force women to be opressed. They are free to enjoy whatever they want. But somehow it's the males fault.... ffs.

Conversation Topic: FPO women upset, at least 3, that publicly said something, about the DGWT not including an FPO division.
Sub Topic: Men better at women in everything, therefore women are dumb and need to make sandwiches full time. (In case you don't get it, I paraphrased that last one).

I'd say the women in this thread, and the FPO women care about disc golf, especially the touring females, wouldn't you? Am I trying to make little random Susie play firsbee? Nope, don't care, not my concern. There just seems to be this logic that FPO can't compete with MPO, therefore we should ignore any FPO players and anything that may be good for them. First part is true, but to their own, the best FPO players in the world against FPO cards, are still the best FPO players in the world. I don't think it's any males fault, if anyone at all should even be at fault. Again, you can't say it's Jussi's fault, it's his tour, he does whatever he wants with his tour.

MJ1 can't compete with MPO's, do we just toss them to the side as well so that all MPO's are in the spot light 24/7?

 

[hook_nuts]

It really is ok to support women, and still be a strong macho guy. It's time to make men real men again, get away from that Jersey Shore persona that's ruining what men should be.

Hmm not blaming men lmao. I'm OK with supporting females and I'm OK with males/females being different. You say watching top women compete is compelling to you, but guess what? It's not compelling to other women. Keep forcing it though.

 

[mark996]

I think you've got me confused with someone else. I'm not trying to force anything, just playing the role of social justice warrior. I thought we were brothers.

 

[joecoin]

In the very sport..Tennis. Battle of the Sexes, however it was back in...79 I think?

...

In 1973, Riggs saw an opportunity to both make money and to draw attention to the sport of tennis. He came out of retirement to challenge one of the world's greatest female players to a match, claiming that the female game was inferior and that a top female player could not beat him, even at the age of 55. He challenged Margaret Court, 30 years old and the top female player in the world. In their May 13, 1973, Mother's Day match in Ramona, California, Riggs used his drop shots and lobs to keep an unprepared Court off balance. His easy 6–2, 6–1 victory landed Riggs on the cover of both Sports Illustrated and Time magazine. The match was called the "Mother's Day Massacre".

Riggs had originally challenged Billie Jean King, but she had declined. Following Court's loss to Riggs, King accepted his challenge, and on September 20, 1973, the two met in the Houston Astrodome, in a match billed as The Battle of the Sexes. King beat Riggs, 6–4, 6–3, 6–3 for the $100,000 winner-take-all prize. Unlike a similar match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova in 1992, in which the rules were altered to favor the female player, this match was played using the normal rules of tennis.

According to an extensive article by the ESPN program Outside the Lines, Riggs took advantage of the overwhelming odds against King and threw the match to get his debts to the mob erased. This would confirm the suspicions held by many of Riggs' peers, including Don Budge. On the other hand, the article says Riggs' close friend and estate executor Lornie Kuhle vehemently denied Riggs was ever in debt to the mob or received a payoff from them.

 

[lyleoross]

Live disc golf; if one were to watch live ball golf, one would see that live broadcasts of disc golf are possible, entertaining, informative, and plainly impractical at this time. They are clearly expensive, require the building of filming towers, and hugely expensive cameras with high zoom capacity. I enjoy the live disc golf broadcasts, and do not think they are at all bad. We get things that the ball golf guys don't, banter, pee breaks etc. But can understand why it is a poor investment at this time.

Women. I'm not sure why we insist on equivalency between men and women. I'm a geneticist, and, well, we're different. We do have some overlapping tendencies, and there are certainly some women who would absolutely fall into the "male" interests in life category, and some men who would fall into the "female" interests in life category. But thinking that you need to structure any sport to appeal to one or the other is a foolish use of time and money. Those women who enjoy the same things in disc golf that men do, will enjoy these broadcasts, and those who don't should command attention when they bring the resources to the sport that demand that the sport cater to their desires.

That said, the sport, or any endeavor for that matter, should be gender neutral. The same opportunities, within the notion of cost effectiveness, should be there. That is, if the local event doesn't have a male grandmasters division, because only two guys sign up, then it shouldn't be required to provide a FPO bracket for the two female pro players who show up. Ya has to play somewhere else, all four of you.

Personally, I enjoy watching many female sports, and we see what adequate marketing and a recognition of that can bring. Someone mentioned women's soccer. The USWNT went from relatively unknown to a juggernaut, almost overnight, in terms of audience and marketing value. Ignoring that on the part of a male dominated business world is wrong, and foolish. However, the notion that the women's team could compete against our lowly men's team is equally foolish. Yes, testosterone matters. It's also a curse, but that is a different story.

As an aside, as a species, when you combine women and men, you get a stronger outcome, that folks is science, based on studies in organizational behavior. Neither is as good when separated. That doesn't mean we are equal, we're different, and better for having the other.

 

[DiscLoser1]

Live coverage is for more than the "obsessives". How do you expect the sport to grow if you market to those that already play? Innova's not going to dump a bunch of money into this to just give the people already buying their discs something to watch. That was explained in the press release...

Those live streams are reaching ONLY those that already play, whether you choose to believe it or not.

Excluding women does a lot more harm than you think. Regardless of what you think the videos represent, the growth of the sport (yes, the sport and not just the game) still lies in the youth. Not having a female division gives no girls someone to look up to, to emulate. If I were a parent of girls going to share the sport I love with my daughters (as several of my friends are), I'd be ashamed to have to explain why the "big" push for top end growth decided that women didn't matter.

Does more harm, based on what? We are still introducing this game by a one-on-basis and through word of mouth. It's essentially one more event, besides the USDGC and European Open, that you have to be "ashamed" about. The other Euro events will have very little coverage.

While i understand that things are different in Finnish culture than here in the states, Jussi made a huge mistake ignoring women. It doesn't really matter though, because ten minutes of throws and three hours of Avery and Jamie yammering on isn't going to make anyone want to get off the couch and onto the course.

I completely agree.

Just a reminder, these are all opinions.

 

[DiscLoser1]

LOL. Right away, boss.

Calm down.

Who said anything about Smashboxx.

You've been trashing DGWT coverage, and since Smashboxx is the only others currently doing live coverage, you didn't have to mention them specifically...

I didn't plan a BBQ around a disc golf broadcast. It wasn't the Super Bowl. I had a BBQ, it was on in one of the rooms, some people watched. Is that OK with you or nah?

Calm down. You don't need my approval or disapproval. Your 'evidence' that the livestreams are compelling and good because your non-DG friends didn't mock them or critique them is pretty flimsy though.

What stats am I making up?

The 30% female viewership of DG, extrapolated from MMA. Logical fallacy.

So what.

Ummmm...most of your posts are direct criticism of Jussi, so that's what. Calm down.

You state that 400k kids are playing organized hoops then you type the words "live coverage is not for attracting new players" literally while March Madness is on everyone's TV in the country. LOL.

Which came first, participation in organized basketball at grade school and high school level, or March Madness? Basketball is entrenched in physical education classes, amateur leagues, and playgrounds across the country. To imply that the media saturation of the NBA or March Madness came first is wrong. The media, the gamblers, and Michael Jordan blew up an already established sport into the thing we see today. Any talk of grassroots building of Disc Golf through live streaming is a joke, grassroots will come when we have DG programs in place in schools and youth leagues run by reputable people. Live or video presence can help this process, but without people playing, watching a Livestream is literally the least you can do to grow the sport.

Reminder: these are just opinions, just like everyone else on these boards. Calm down.

 

[DiscLoser1]

Indeed I did. I wish it were shocking or surprising.

This all day. Sad, pathetic, disturbing, but shocking or surprising, not at all.

Anyone shocked by this has not been paying attention to anything, ever.

 

[corin_brown]

Reminder: these are just opinions, just like everyone else on these boards. Calm down.

"Calm down. Take it easy, man. You're getting too excited. Didn't you know that the only one allowed to respond to others' personally directed opinions, assertions or critiques around here, is me?" LOLx1000. Gimme a break.

If you're the only one allowed to express a critique of someone else's post, how on earth can poor Sarah Hokom hope to ever see her name spelled correctly on the DGCR forums? LOL.

As for your critique of my post, I never said 30% of the MMA audience was women. I never said or extrapolated that 30% of the disc golf audience was women. I've read that 8% of disc golfers are women and I've read that 4% of the disc golf audience are women. Those numbers sound plausible. I also said that the audience size at The Memorial for Round 2 was 60% the size of the audience of Round 1. What many people seem to think is that the only people who watch FPO are other women. I know that's impossible because how could the views of Round 2 reach 60% of the views of Round 1 if only people from 4% of the disc golf public were watching?

I agree on the need for concentrating on the grass roots when focusing on growing the sport. I've posted several times this past year about my ideas for growing the sport that have nothing to do with live broadcasts. But this thread is focused on DGWT and Jussi's stated strategy for growing the sport. His strategy is provocative. Maybe provoaction was his original intent all along. If so, respect to Jussi and bravo.

 

[DirtyMeathook]

Corwin_Brown, maybe you could offer to help out Jussi with his PR. You seem to have a real knack for it.

 

[onemilemore]

Talked to some of the DGWT players and asked them if it lived up to the hype. Check out what they had to say: http://ultiworld.com/2016/03/23/disc-golf-world-tour-live-hype/

We also have another article up on the site about the viewership stats and no streaming for Konopiste. Jussi says the rest of the live streaming is TBD.

Thanks for clicking/reading as we get this new site off the ground. I promise I'll stop bugging you guys with links when we have a bit more of a following built up.

 

[Cgkdisc]

"Paul McBeth is currently the only pro player to afford furniture..."
So everyone else is using their tripod seats and sleeping bags?

 

[onemilemore]

Since it's been such a hot topic in these parts:

Lack of Women's Division in DGWT Draws Criticism

 

[Nova P]

That was a well-sourced and written article. Very nice. :clap:

Something that comes up a lot is the idea that women just need to play with men to see how the men do it, and then all the women have to do is to emulate the men. In a very limited way, that's somewhat true: tagging along with MPO I've seen some lines that had not occurred to me, and if I can get a disc to follow that line as well, then I can do the same thing. That makes sense. And breaking out of the mindset of "driver on the tee-box, fairway driver in the fairway, mid to approach, and putter to putt" is helpful. Getting more distance out of "less" disc is definitely the way to go.

There are, however, other times when emulating the men is just setting sail for fail, because the physiological differences are such that I (or most women) simply cannot produce the same amount of raw physical power or fast-twitch snap. I'm reminded of a recent video in which Eric McCabe does a video walk-through of Jones East in Emporia. He would often make helpful suggestions like "well you know, this is about four hundred feet and wide open, so I grab a midrange and just park it down there--"

Yeah. About that.

(Nothing personal Eric, I know women weren't your primary audience for that video. I'm just using it as an example of the disparity in strength, therefore disparity in distance. You're still awesome. :thmbup

If the best route on a hole is a massive 450' hyzerbomb over a small old-growth redwood forest, then no amount of watching the men is going to cause my arm, or many other arms, to become able to fling the disc that high or that far. Knowledge is power in a metaphorical sense, but rarely in a literal one. (Which is not to say I don't bomb the shorter trees. Bombing is love.)


(tl;dr: playing with the men is helpful in certain limited ways, but is not a cure-all and should not be the end goal. There's physical differences which will not be overcome except for a very, very few outliers.)

 

[corin_brown]

Since it's been such a hot topic in these parts:

Lack of Women's Division in DGWT Draws Criticism

Excellent, long & comprehensive piece. Lots of great quotes & reporting. E.g., I didn't know about the registration roll-out until I read this piece. Seemed kind of shady.

Interesting that Catrina Allen chose not to comment on any of this. Looks like the DGWT Press Officer dropped the ball on that one.

I finally figured out why DGWT has only one division: $. The Memorial prize purse was $70k. LaMi prize purse was $20k. First place in MPO at The Memorial was $4k. First place at LaMi was $2500. Think about how much lower that LaMi MPO first place prize would have to be if Jussi had to pay out an FPO field and a Masters field too? The reason why Jussi wants only one division is because he has to spend his budget on things other than prize money and he doesn't want the prize money to be any lower, compared to other tours, than it already is.

All that's fine, of course. I just wonder how "feasible and sustainable" that strategy will sound when the corporate sponsors he's courting ask him if any women play disc golf or if anyone likes to watch women play disc golf.

In the piece, Jussi commented about the lack of sustainability of an FPO in DGWT at this moment. I think the sustainability of the entire DGWT in general is an open question.

 

[onemilemore]

Interesting that Catrina Allen chose not to comment on any of this. Looks like the DGWT Press Officer dropped the ball on that one.

Actually I will say that their press guy was excellent and got me all the access I needed. I spoke with Catrina and reached out to her a couple times after the event, and she did not respond, which is her right. Just didn't want any negativity on the DGWT PR guy, who was great.