Disc sales volume

[Halcón]

I agree Innova and Discraft are both larger at this point but for you to say DD is a small company is rather foolish and nearsighted.

Look at this list of "small companies." Take #100 for example, and think of how it compares to Innova.

http://www.forbes.com/best-small-co...arch:_filter:All industries_filter:All states

Every company in disc golf is small.

 

[mark996]

I think DD has that small business feel that confuses a lot of people. They're up and coming, and getting more and more exposure. I don't think they'll get to where Innova or Discraft are any time soon, especially Innova, but they're climbing. Renting out a facility like Cowboys Stadium is indicative of a company that's doing more than $1 million a year, the numbers I'm finding all say $500,000-$800,000 to rent it out for an event, but nothing set in stone as they don't advertise how much it actually costs on their website. It either means they have quite a bit in sales, or they have some good connections and donors for their events.

Down here there's always someone sporting an all Trilogy bag, at least for a while until they move on to different brands. Our local shop has to discount a lot of DD stuff because it doesn't move for them. Innova runs deep in our area. I'd say DD is probably 2nd though.

 

[JohtoVillage]

If you think DD is losing tens of thousands of dollars on that event you are crazy. I am 100% positive that is not the case. You don't know the financials of the event, and neither do I, but I am confident they do not lose that much money on the event. Rusco claims that GBO is a big money loser for them, but they have never said that about the Stadium event. I would be surprised if they lose that much money on the event.

DD is still a small company, albeit a growing company. That is just a fact. Innova/Discmania have probably 55 to 60% of the market, and Discraft has approximately 15 to 18% of the market. Disc golf was a duopoly for many years, so it will take time for other companies to break into big retail. But we are going to agree to disagree, clearly, because DD is not a big player yet, in my opinion. They are a big player in the tournament scene, but that hits such a small proportion of the population.

 

[JohtoVillage]

Wow...DD is absolutely not spending $500,000 to $800,000 to rent out AT&T Stadium. That's an absurd number.

And yes, DD is definitely up and coming. Everyone has to get out of their little geographic bubbles and look at the big picture: 90 to 95% of disc golfers do not know who Paul McBeth is, they don't know what disc they are throwing, and they think that MC Sports or Dick's are the only places to buy discs. They definitely don't know anything about a tournament at their local course. They are the ones that show up and ask if they can play a round still, and are confused when we tell them no because the course is closed.

Once again, saying that a certain brand is #2 in my area means nothing. The big picture says that just a few companies dominate big retail, and so that's where the sales are right now. In our area, Innova is #1 followed by Discraft. Prodigy and Vibram have a presence and DD has a little bit of a presence. But that's so small in the big picture.

 

[mark996]

Look at this list of "small companies." Take #100 for example, and think of how it compares to Innova.

http://www.forbes.com/best-small-co...arch:_filter:All industries_filter:All states

Every company in disc golf is small.

Agreed, but when talking stocks and publicly traded companies you have to take that link with a grain of salt. Unless an Innova rep comes in with factual information, we can only guess what their total profits are.

 

[JohtoVillage]

I would not be surprised if Innova's sales are $20 to $25 million. Maybe more.

 

[Halcón]

90 to 95% of disc golfers do not know who Paul McBeth is, they don't know what disc they are throwing, and they think that MC Sports or Dick's are the only places to buy discs. They definitely don't know anything about a tournament at their local course. They are the ones that show up and ask if they can play a round still, and are confused when we tell them no because the course is closed.

You keep using this number and are very sure of it. 95% of players don't know what disc they are throwing? Would you concede that you're overestimating just a little?

 

[mark996]

Wow...DD is absolutely not spending $500,000 to $800,000 to rent out AT&T Stadium. That's an absurd number.

I didn't think so, considering a suite alone can be $30,000 for a game, they charge rental for each different section, including parking spots for your event. I believe they also use the stands and concourse for baskets and tees, so you're also renting those sections on top of the others.

Kanye West rented out MetLife for $200,000, at least that's what the article said. Now I know that $500,000 isn't THAT far off from cost to rent AT&T Stadium.

 

[JohtoVillage]

The 90 to 95% number is for players who don't play tournaments. The "don't know what disc you are throwing" was tongue in cheek, but the 90 to 95% number about those players not playing tournaments is accurate. If you look at the PDGA having 30,000 active members, and then another 30,000 players who may play tournaments but are not PDGA members or just play unsanctioned events, that's about 60,000 tournament players, give or take. That 60,000 figure is maybe 5% of the market, which would mean the total amount of people who play disc golf are over 1,000,000 in the US. Considering that's not even .3% of the population, I think the math adds up.

I will say this: clearly DD has done a good job on the tournament scene and probably has a market share of 15% or so when it comes to the tournament scene and players. But as you can see, that's such a small portion of the total market.

I will also reiterate that DD is not spending $500,000 to rent out AT&T Stadium. There is absolutely no chance that figure is that high. The numbers do not add up for that.

 

[discRabbit]

Until now, I was unaware that DD was actually producing their own discs and I'm not "unacquainted" with the disc golf scene.

 

[Halcón]

Until now, I was unaware that DD was actually producing their own discs and I'm not "unacquainted" with the disc golf scene.

Well, technically Latitude 64 is producing the discs for them.

 

[rhatton1]

I would not be surprised if Innova's sales are $20 to $25 million. Maybe more.

this totally makes sense, as does all else you're saying - to those doubting there is a good chance that johtovillage has a fair bit of knowledge in this regard, to do what he's done you have to of done a fair bit of general research into the sport in the country as a whole rather than just localised areas.

When you have an estimated casual player number in the 10's of millions each year (source - from 2 years ago http://sportsplanningguide.com/disc-golf-soars-in-popularity/ growth since then has been huge) and only around 60000 players involved in PDGA sanctioned events this year, the in the know golfers might even be lower than 5%

If DD are paying anywhere near that amount for the stadium usage I'd eat one of my Jokeris... What Kanye West pays to sell out to a hundred thousand people(bit of profiteering from the organisers to begin with and then costs including security/first aid/ all the other expensive bits etc etc. rather than the actual location hire which is relatively cheap comparatively) and what a local company pays for a few hundred people to play around will be very different things.

Whilst Innova might be able to open the cheque book to a six figure sum for the World disc Golf tour with the media exposure that will have (lets face it it's going to be live tele in Finland again for some of the events) , no manufacturer is going to be sinking that sort of money into marketing of a not particularly well publicised outside of the local area event - they will recoup their costs from the entrance fees and disc sales around the event. I would be willing to bet the figure to rent would be no more than $20,000 for a days usage (and i doubt it is anywhere near this high) . To rent comparative sized Premier league grounds (soccer grounds in the UK) for the day for events is around £10 - 15000 and we are stupid expensive in this country.

A huge amount of discs purchased will not be for individuals it will be for clubs/private courses/schools/coaches for hire, this is a market innova and Discraft have pretty well sown up from their longevity in the sport - I would expect the numbers of these sort of discs to come close to matching the amount bought for individual usage and will be a figure that looking through other players bags on the course will give you no insight into.

 

[JohtoVillage]

this totally makes sense, as does all else you're saying - to those doubting there is a good chance that johtovillage has a fair bit of knowledge in this regard, to do what he's done you have to of done a fair bit of general research into the sport in the country as a whole rather than just localised areas.

When you have an estimated casual player number in the 10's of millions each year (source - from 2 years ago http://sportsplanningguide.com/disc-...in-popularity/ growth since then has been huge) and only around 60000 players involved in PDGA sanctioned events this year, the in the know golfers might even be lower than 5%

If DD are paying anywhere near that amount for the stadium usage I'd eat one of my Jokeris... What Kanye West pays to sell out to a hundred thousand people(bit of profiteering from the organisers to begin with and then costs including security/first aid/ all the other expensive bits etc etc. rather than the actual location hire which is relatively cheap comparatively) and what a local company pays for a few hundred people to play around will be very different things.

Whilst Innova might be able to open the cheque book to a six figure sum for the World disc Golf tour with the media exposure that will have (lets face it it's going to be live tele in Finland again for some of the events) , no manufacturer is going to be sinking that sort of money into marketing of a not particularly well publicised outside of the local area event - they will recoup their costs from the entrance fees and disc sales around the event. I would be willing to bet the figure to rent would be no more than $20,000 for a days usage (and i doubt it is anywhere near this high) . To rent comparative sized Premier league grounds (soccer grounds in the UK) for the day for events is around £10 - 15000 and we are stupid expensive in this country.

A huge amount of discs purchased will not be for individuals it will be for clubs/private courses/schools/coaches for hire, this is a market innova and Discraft have pretty well sown up from their longevity in the sport - I would expect the numbers of these sort of discs to come close to matching the amount bought for individual usage and will be a figure that looking through other players bags on the course will give you no insight into.

Thanks for the reply. As I have been saying, DD is not a bad company and I am not trying to bash them by any means. I just think it takes time to build up market share. They have done a good job building up market share in the tournament scene, but as we have pointed out its a small part of the overall share of the pie. For every tournament player, there are many more players who do not play tournaments.

 

[Phil Esra]

I used to race in "autocross" events at Candlestick and the Oakland Coliseum in the SF bay area--our cost to rent the parking lot and some bathrooms was about $1000 (a decade ago). For $500k I want an army of ushers and my name flashing on the jumbotron. And real turf, none of that fake BS that gives you rug burns.

 

[jaos]

Innova Champion Europe, which is essentially Discmania, had sales of 3,6 million euros last year. This isn't just discs, though: they get some revenue also from selling courses mostly to municipalities. I also don't know if this number includes revenue from outside Finland (though I suppose it does).

But assuming two thirds of sales came from discs and assuming a wholesale disc price of six euros, they sold 400 000 discs last year.

 

[turbosteve]

Innova Champion Europe, which is essentially Discmania, had sales of 3,6 million euros last year. This isn't just discs, though: they get some revenue also from selling courses mostly to municipalities. I also don't know if this number includes revenue from outside Finland (though I suppose it does).

But assuming two thirds of sales came from discs and assuming a wholesale disc price of six euros, they sold 400 000 discs last year.

Does this include Discmania sales and does it include sales outside of Finland? If it does then is this market estimate accurate?
https://allthingsdiscgolf.com/want-disc-golf-to-grow-follow-finlands-lead/

 

[pappabearlee]

This is a really interesting thread.
I don't think anyone will be able to get solid sales numbers, but the estimates being thrown around are likely close enough for conversation.

I think another good point was made here, the majority of disc golf players do not now, or will ever play competitive disc golf.

 

[rhatton1]

Does this include Discmania sales and does it include sales outside of Finland? If it does then is this market estimate accurate?
https://allthingsdiscgolf.com/want-disc-golf-to-grow-follow-finlands-lead/

I would imagine it is Discmania sales in Europe only - the info is put together by another of Jussi's companies Spin18. I'm sure there is a bit of exaggeration in the figures as I imagine the stats have been put together for media purposes, for getting a foot in the door with sports retailers and for helping get new courses in the ground, I would certainly overegg it if I was him

Because Sweden is only 2 million Euros I don't think this can include Latitudes sales in the states (including their manufacturing income for DD)so you would imagine then it wouldn't include Discmanias state side sales either but still it looks pretty reasonable to me extrapolating up from my guesstimate of the UK market which is tiny in comparison to the Northern European countries, but not insubstantial in itself. In the UK last year a few hundred thousand pounds were spent on Disc golf - on new courses and disc sales and tournaments and and and. Swedish market is far larger than ours at the moment and the Finnish far far larger.

I think those figures look pretty good for spending within Europe without including North American sales when you bear in mind that a course installation can cost anywhere from a couple of thousand euros to €100,000 or more - our most expensive in the UK last year was £70,000 on one 18 hole course (yet they didn't pay for a designers input....) . We probably have a few more pay to play courses as well comparatively here which bumps up the spending figures, my guess for the 4 main pay to play in the UK for this year combined would be somewhere from 150 - 200k income in green fees before disc sales, two of those courses are brand new, the third in only its third year, growth at these courses is going to be large in the next couple of years. There are another 10 or so pay to plays on a smaller scale after this.

 

[klmdg]

As for having 50 employees, I knew that figure as well. They have a lot of part time employees that probably make minimum wage

50 part time employees @ $7HR, 20HR/WEEK = $364,000 a year.

Add in the various costs of employment (payroll taxes, workplace insurance, etc.) at a low end 20%, and you are at $436,800 per year.

You still think DD just broke revenues of 1 million?

 

[1978]

Innova's biggest seller, by far, is the 3 disc beginner sets. dwarf all other models... what ever discs they currently have in the 3 disc set is their highest moving disc.