Red-Hot Memorial Action -or- Who Will Barry Punch Next?

[Pat]

Is this more of Duesler's marketing genius at work?

oxymoron?

[black udder]

Unfortunately, the first one hasn't done anything to inspire people to pay. It was voluntary and I know lots of folks said, "Hey, it's for disc golf!" But when they're asking up front and all you have to base your expectations on is the last event... well... uh... how much are we supposed to contribute to the PDGA and other people's disc golf? PDGA fees, volunteer time on local courses, etc. And now pay for live footage that was spotty at best the last time?

I think they need to show they can do it well before they start charging. Another volunteer effort would have been better. You could say that it's necessary to fund it, but then again, if nobody pays or watches because of the fee, then you're sunk anyway.

[Chuck Kennedy]

Volunteers don't have the equipment and internet capabilites to pull this off even if everyone else not owning and operating the equipment was a volunteer. If not enough people are ready to pay even $10 to build this effort, there's little chance of increased purses from sponsorship and any coverage on cable or networks any time soon.

[Timko]

Chuck, do you know if they've figured out how they're going to cover the the event? Is it going to be the whole course, or a selection of the holes?

[Chuck Kennedy]

Don't know anything about the coverage. At the USDGC, the number of holes covered was limited by the amount of cable required. Not sure if they've upgraded so that wireless coverage is possible.

[black udder]

Volunteers don't have the equipment and internet capabilites to pull this off even if everyone else not owning and operating the equipment was a volunteer. If not enough people are ready to pay even $10 to build this effort, there's little chance of increased purses from sponsorship and any coverage on cable or networks any time soon.

What I meant by volunteer effort was the "please make a donation" like the USDGC. I'm sure it cost a bunch of money to do that, but in all honesty, you have to deliver a reasonable product and for $10, what I saw wasn't worth it. I'd rather buy a dvd and see the lead card play than drop $10 or more and see a handful of hopefuls trek through a couple holes and listen to a few guys chatting.

I applaud the effort, but it's just not ready for prime time yet. And, for me, if it takes another 10-20 years, I'm willing to wait. I don't need this sport to be at the level of the others. I'm quite happy where it is now.

[JR]

I'm not sure I fully understand this. The email said they need 2000 people signed up by some date, and it costs 20 bucks? That's $40,000. Is that really how much it costs to get some cameras set up to watch 2 holes of action? Won't these costs be covered by advertising revenue? Help me to understand this.

HELL NO!!! wit that kind f money me and the usual suspects from Tali Open '09 and European Open would cover the European Tour and USDGC plus maybe a few other events in the States. Seriously. Give us the money and we'll do it. Even if nobody does it watch out for us in 2010 and support your jaw. That's a promise.

[mark12b]

I'm not sure I fully understand this. The email said they need 2000 people signed up by some date, and it costs 20 bucks? That's $40,000. Is that really how much it costs to get some cameras set up to watch 2 holes of action? Won't these costs be covered by advertising revenue? Help me to understand this.

setting aside the issue of how much of the $40k is cost, how much is fair compensation, and how much is greedy ol' profit... why would you expect advertisers to spend that much for such a tiny audience?

My thought on this was...make it free so you can use it as a good marketing tool to attract sponsors. Also...if you are wanting to reach out to people outside the dg world, then charging $9.99 isn't going to do that.

hm, i'd say that (a) trying to produce something like this with zero budget would not result in a good marketing piece, and (b) the fact that they're charging for it indicates that this particular effort isn't intended to reach out to a larger audience.

[nohr]

Give me a dvd copy of the coverage for $10 or $20 and you have a deal. I like many people would like to watch the whole thing but there is no way I can commit 3 workdays to watching it live.

[SkaBob]

There's no reason to offer live coverage of a sporting event until it's gotten enough interest to demand it.

Better to offer evening coverage of the day's best rounds for that via streaming video, and a useful discount (ie- $10 off) of the DVD.

[BLURR]

If not enough people are ready to pay even $10 to build this effort, there's little chance of increased purses from sponsorship and any coverage on cable or networks any time soon.

I know you don't speak for the pdga...but this statement sounds like the pdga doesn't want to pony up the dough in order to create a good marketing tool. If the pdga would put their money where their mouth is, the sport could be so much better off. I think they need to take the initiative to openly broadcast an event over the internet for free ala USDGC(And not require you to register a user account). You will reach a wider market of people with it, than if you are charging people $10 to watch it on and off.

[what'shisname]

I'm not sure I fully understand this. The email said they need 2000 people signed up by some date, and it costs 20 bucks? That's $40,000. Is that really how much it costs to get some cameras set up to watch 2 holes of action? Won't these costs be covered by advertising revenue? Help me to understand this.

HELL NO!!! wit that kind f money me and the usual suspects from Tali Open '09 and European Open would cover the European Tour and USDGC plus maybe a few other events in the States. Seriously. Give us the money and we'll do it. Even if nobody does it watch out for us in 2010 and support your jaw. That's a promise.

I would much rather pay to see footage from these guys than anything else I've seen so far. Their stuff is far and away the best coverage of disc golf out there at the moment. Watching the couple holes at USDGC live was cool and all, but like others.... I can't realistically set aside 3 work days to do it.

[SkaBob]

The more I ponder this, the more I think LIVE coverage is the biggest part of the problem, here. It doesn't work well for the schedules of people who would be willing to pay to watch, it requires a costly internet uplink on-site in places that it's really not convenient or cost-effective to have one, and it requires that the production be done in a shabby way, since any editing and fancying up of the video would have to be done live, by people with less budget for equipment and less experience than the people who cover live sporting events on television.

I think really, this is a case of whoever's in charge of this video trying to be bigger than they really are.

Nobody in the disc golf community would mind seeing the video from this coming out days, even a week or more after the event, if it looked good.

Nobody that isn't interested in disc golf videos is going to have any respect for what can be done on a shoestring budget for live coverage.

There won't be nice on-screen graphics, there won't be commentary (no less good commentary - and this is something that all disc golf video productions need to work on), the video quality will be crap because it'll be scaled down to optimize it for the number of connections they're trying to get over the paltry internet connection you can drag out to the sticks where there's no fiber hookup, there won't be commercials (no less well produced ones), there won't be bits helping people who aren't disc golfers to understand what they're watching (which would be a great way to use the time between cards/shots on screen), it'll look like public access cable TV with Jim-Bob and Leroy talking about some guys walking around in the woods throwing frisbees and using the $20 on-screen graphics stuff that came with their camcorders.

Meanwhile they could save what'll probably be thousands of dollars not running some godawful internet connection (anyone that's dealt with this sort of internet hookup knows how ungodly slow the speeds are, espcially the upstream required to serve the data live), and not have to deal with scaling the video down to postage stamp low-res to handle more than 10 people watching it at a time. They're not likely to see more than the same kind of upstream you see from a cablemodem with the kind of money they're going to want to throw at this, and you seriously can not serve live, streaming video to more than 5-10 people at any respectable resolution on those connections. At best, they'll run a single link to a multiplexer off-site for people to stream from, but that's still an un-necessary cost when they'd be able to do a better, less amateurish job if they just put videos up for download in the evening or at the weekend or something.

Myself, I won't be paying for it as-is, but if they did it like I suggest and produce a DVD and use my $10 to discount my purchase of the DVD, they'd see great success from my money, as well as many other people.

I think they'll be pretty pissed when they see how many people demand their money back (if they even get anyone to pay) once those people realize what they're actually paying for.

Nothing kills the success of something quicker than doing it horribly wrong the first time.

[Chuck Kennedy]

I know you don't speak for the pdga...but this statement sounds like the pdga doesn't want to pony up the dough in order to create a good marketing tool. If the pdga would put their money where their mouth is, the sport could be so much better off. I think they need to take the initiative to openly broadcast an event over the internet for free ala USDGC(And not require you to register a user account). You will reach a wider market of people with it, than if you are charging people $10 to watch it on and off.

The PDGA has already underwritten much of the expenses for the USDGC coverage and is continuing to do so with this effort for the Memorial and potentially more events if enough people respond. The USDGC effort was still a money loser, even more so if some of the people involved would have been paid market value for their efforts. So, this Memorial effort continues to be a "money where your mouth is" media test. If it fails, it just indicates the lack of interest in viewing disc golf events for even a below market price from the potentially core viewing audience.

BTW, I doubt that any of the DVDs out there including the Clash series have ever broken even for the producers if all costs and true value of services provided were included. I know the USDGC DVDs haven't recovered costs. Marshall Street and Prime video content production and editing has all been done free and would have cost $15K-$20K each if a video firm was hired to do them.

So it's still a joke to consider even the proposed non-realtime DVD efforts sold for $10-$15 as economically viable alternatives to these live coverage attempts. But I do agree that it's weird to attempt live coverage on weekdays versus weekends when more people might be able to watch. But then that's when disc golfers would rather be playing than watching, especially since not much daylight would still be available after work until mid-March. On the other hand, many people may have higher speed connections where they work, not that the bosses want people to be doing things like watching live video feeds.

[veganray]

Marshall Street and Prime video content production and editing has all been done free and would have cost $15K-$20K each if a video firm was hired to do them.

BS. I am intimately aware of bids put into the org for World's DVDs enumerating MUCH less than that for production & editing. The org continues to choose to stick with the good ol' status quo & cost itself (i.e., the members) a fortune.

There may be some ridiculously overpriced video firms out there that would charge that much, but a diligent consumer needs not pay anywhere near $20,000!