Steve Dodge: A man for change!

[jsun3thousand]

...yeah we're in a recession...

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jhern is a commie! a traitor to our nation!

[keltik]

he is from the left coast...

[vtbuzzz]

I think a way to grow our sport would be let the Europeans grow it in their country first. Where disc golf isn't some "hippie" sport full of stoners. They may be able to pull it into the mainstream a little more easier than we are able to do so on this side of the pond.

[JR]

Percentage wise Europe has great growth but it isn't so impressive by head count because there are too few players now so it will take years before we get enough players to pull that off. Finland is the second largest country in the world player count wise with around 30000+ somewhat regularly playing people and 20000 more that have tried the sport or play a few times a year. Sweden is at 30000 tops and Germany has 3000 with southern Europe combined probably less than Germany. Holland might have a thousand players but i am not sure. The UK probably has decent numbers of players but short of Sweden that probably is the third largest country player wise in the world. I think the rest of the world has fewer players combined than the US. At 20-50% growth rate in some countries annually it will still take a lot of time to grow the rest of the world to be a financially sensible group to market to and to expect more revenue from the invested marketing dollar.

[Chuck Kennedy]

Here are the number of PDGA members in each country who have ever had a rating (whether current or not today) and their current average rating:

Rtg Country Mem
881 USA 34584
898 Finland 746
883 Canada 594
923 Sweden 507
880 Japan 224
868 Norway 209
896 Germany 178
883 Denmark 159
877 Untd King 152
858 France 145
861 Switzerland 96
867 Australia 77
860 Netherlands 59
881 Belgium 49
900 Taiwan 44
887 Austria 38
910 New Zealand 27
851 Estonia 27
838 Lithuania 20
828 Russia 17
871 Czech Rep. 16
806 Italy 10
851 Iceland 10
843 South Korea 9
900 Hungary 9
827 Latvia 5
867 Israel 4
860 Croatia 4
919 Thailand 3
861 Singapore 2
832 Mexico 2
965 Poland 1
653 Mongolia 1
930 Ireland 1
892 Hong Kong 1
984 China 1
914 Cayman Isl 1
972 Brazil 1

[neuromancer]

i like steve, vibram discs are the shizzle man, the shizzle, but this discussion is not about steve dodge.

suppose i drive 400 miles round trip to a tournament. 20 mpg. that's 20 gallons of gas x $3.50 we're at $70.
$90 to play pro, $160.
2 nights motel, another $120, we're up to $280. not even talking food and drink, lost discs, flat tire, let alone a vehicle breakdown.
why would any but the top players want to travel to a tournament? unless it's to party? and we've seen what a good reputation that has given the sport.

what chance is there even if you get into the money you will even break even?
what percentage of players can throw 450 feet? consistently? i can't.
if you want to grow the sport make it so people can compete, give them a chance to at least break even.
stop dreaming and start thinking, do you think when Tiger woods is playing a tournament he is having "fun"? hell no. he's working.
the standard wisdom is that when you make courses harder, longer, etc. you are making them more "competitive", nothing could be further from the truth; when you restrict the field to long throwers by having 700' pins you are restricting the field to a small handful of players who can throw that far, you are limiting the field of competition. therefore you have less competition.of course the big guns love it, it's all about distance, not necessarily control of a flying disc.

there are tons of reasons why disc will always be limited, course length, not necessarily course difficulty being the main one.
put the blame where it belongs, at the door of the PDGA, they didn't restrict wing length, they haven't restricted course length, and now the cat is out of the bag.

nah, there won't be any savior, not since wham-o pulled out of the sport 30 years ago. if we want to grow disc golf we will have to do it ourselves, and that means making the sport attractive to the mainstream and not a minority of players.

[JHern]

Here are the number of PDGA members in each country who have ever had a rating (whether current or not today) and their current average rating:...

Interesting...

jhern is a commie! a traitor to our nation!

Why? Because I want the free market to function better, and be more vigorous and competitive? Because I don't think it's a good idea when we let those who are ahead in the game change the rules to benefit themselves? That makes me a rational human being, not a commie.

he is from the left coast...

Yeah, the left coast, where jobs come from.

[JR]

The numbers for Finland are interesting because Finnish Frisbee Association licensed players (we need that too for some events) is at around 1200 now. BTW. i'm one of the no rating PDGA members. I'm too busy on the organizer side and too streaky without taking too long time off. Meaning lost pay making competing too expensive for me. For not so enjoyable results because with a 4-5 day rest i still may be too streaky especially in multi round events. I'm sure there are similar stories in part at least explaining why so few have ratings relative to the amount of players. But the fact that there are almost as many licensed FFA members as there are PDGA ratings holders throughout time is troublesome for the PDGA. That is a very large mismatch so why is the PDGA membership not that attractive to so many ostensibly competition players here? I don't know about the other countries.