DGPT Sold to Todd Rainwater - Page 7 - Disc Golf Course Review
I personally think it is a reasonable play, the Pro Tours association with Steve has hurt their brand among the new generation of disc golf fans. To me this signals a pretty big shift in the definition of the disc golf consumer and who the pro tour is really being marketed to. First it was the players, then the amateurs, and now they are ready to grow into the mass consumer market?
Steve did a great job of growing his brand to the pros and ams, we will see how the new team and ownership does at continuing to grow the pro tour to the masses.
To me there is no such thing as "the new generation of disc golf fans." It's just the new generation of disc golfers.
The needle has moved in that you can get disc golfers to watch other people play disc golf, that wasn't the case in the not to distant past. Some people from here drove the 5-ish hours up to Peoria to spectate at World's, and that a pretty huge shift from my generation since I wouldn't drive across town to watch somebody else play disc golf. So a lot of progress has been made with the new generation of disc golfers as spectators, and that was a huge hurdle to overcome.
For the future I have no idea if we have to move past that. Can the number of people playing disc golf get large enough that the views from that group are enough to sustain something like DGPT? Or does it have to bleed over into a larger group of non-players? I mean, disc golf has such an easy entry as a player it opens the question to me of why would somebody who likes it enough to watch it NOT play it?
At any rate, the audience evidently needs to expand in some way and Steve was having some problems making that happen. He got it off the ground, though. He will get credit for that.
Niced 462 Times in 267 Posts
Yeah, the guy that actually pushed to make live coverage happen and expand it to the points the people DOING the live coverage were wary could even happen hurt the brand with the people who are watching it ...
I didn't even know you could "own" the tour. I thought someone helped organize and run it but I guess I never knew you could just buy the whole tour. Interesting. What "assets" are included in the tour?
It's more or less an Intellectual Property. The brand has name recognition, history, and the weight of results produced in the past. From what I understood from Spring's interview, most of the actual physical assets weren't transferred.
I don't know, but I THINK most of the assets were transferred over in the sale. Vehicle, trailer, cameras, streaming equipment, merchandise, course sponsor assets, etc. I think all that went along. I think that Jeff meant that after the season he and Todd would look at a re-branding of the DGPT as they see fit.
Niced 308 Times in 127 Posts
My understanding, and don’t make me explain why/how, is that Rainwater was already a major investor. He is the face of a few of the old investors that reinvested into the tour under the mandate that Dodge be ousted.
Steve’s (perceived) stubbornness was great for executing proof of concept but the opposite of great as the face/spokesperson of a business. Some of his apologies came across as double-downs and all came with caveats.
I could see where investors would be leery of his stewardship of what ultimately became their commodity, which means it was also no longer his concept alone.
brutalbrutus, Casey 1988, Orioles_Lefty, SD86
What would be sad is if their choice of venues is still tied to cell phone signal. Unless the donor is dropping big money into satellite trucks, hard wire, equipment and bandwidth (or there is some sort of different cell technology available) live coverage will continue to be bleh. IMO the biggest conceptual mistake by DGPT to this point has been the marriage to live coverage above all else.
thank you so much for saying this. even if i had 4 hours in the middle of the day to watch a live broadcast, i would never do so with the dog$hit coverage we've seen so far. live is better for the drama and avoiding spoilers but it's not worth the horrendous signal quality, camera work, commentating, and filler time.
i look forward to the day i can enjoy live DG coverage but i think that day is far from now.
You’ve got to spend money to make money too though so yes and no haha
Generally speaking, you spend other people's money to make yourself money.
Niced 536 Times in 254 Posts
Lol spoken like a true manager!
That is twice now that I am forced to 'Nice' one of your posts for sheer accuracy.
Last edited by SD86; 08-28-2019 at 02:57 PM.
DGPT Sold to Todd Rainwater - Page 7 - Disc Golf Course Review
I personally think it is a reasonable play, the Pro Tours association with Steve has hurt their brand among the new generation of disc golf fans. To me this signals a pretty big shift in the definition of the disc golf consumer and who the pro tour is really being marketed to. First it was the players, then the amateurs, and now they are ready to grow into the mass consumer market?
Steve did a great job of growing his brand to the pros and ams, we will see how the new team and ownership does at continuing to grow the pro tour to the masses.
To me there is no such thing as "the new generation of disc golf fans." It's just the new generation of disc golfers.
The needle has moved in that you can get disc golfers to watch other people play disc golf, that wasn't the case in the not to distant past. Some people from here drove the 5-ish hours up to Peoria to spectate at World's, and that a pretty huge shift from my generation since I wouldn't drive across town to watch somebody else play disc golf. So a lot of progress has been made with the new generation of disc golfers as spectators, and that was a huge hurdle to overcome.
For the future I have no idea if we have to move past that. Can the number of people playing disc golf get large enough that the views from that group are enough to sustain something like DGPT? Or does it have to bleed over into a larger group of non-players? I mean, disc golf has such an easy entry as a player it opens the question to me of why would somebody who likes it enough to watch it NOT play it?
At any rate, the audience evidently needs to expand in some way and Steve was having some problems making that happen. He got it off the ground, though. He will get credit for that.
Niced 462 Times in 267 Posts
Yeah, the guy that actually pushed to make live coverage happen and expand it to the points the people DOING the live coverage were wary could even happen hurt the brand with the people who are watching it ...
I didn't even know you could "own" the tour. I thought someone helped organize and run it but I guess I never knew you could just buy the whole tour. Interesting. What "assets" are included in the tour?
It's more or less an Intellectual Property. The brand has nam
e recognition, history, and the weight of results produced in the past. From what I understood from Spring's interview, most of the actual physical assets weren't transferred.
I don't know, but I THINK most of the assets were transferred over in the sale. Vehicle, trailer, cameras, streaming equipment, merchandise, course sponsor assets, etc. I think all that went along. I think that Jeff meant that after the season he and Todd would look at a re-branding of the DGPT as they see fit.
Niced 308 Times in 127 Posts
My understanding, and don’t make me explain why/how, is that Rainwater was already a major investor. He is the face of a few of the old investors that reinvested into the tour under the mandate that Dodge be ousted.
Steve’s (perceived) stubbornness was great for executing proof of concept but the opposite of great as the face/spokesperson of a business. Some of his apologies came across as double-downs and all came with caveats.
I could see where investors would be leery of his stewardship of what ultimately became their commodity, which means it was also no longer his concept alone.
brutalbrutus, Casey 1988, Orioles_Lefty, SD86
What would be sad is if their choice of venues is still tied to cell phone signal. Unless the donor is dropping big money into satellite trucks, hard wire, equipment and bandwidth (or there is some sort of different cell technology available) live coverage will continue to be bleh. IMO the biggest conceptual mistake by DGPT to this point has been the marriage to live coverage above all else.
thank you so much for saying this. even if i had 4 hours in the middle of the day to watch a live broadcast, i would never do so with the dog$hit coverage we've seen so far. live is better for the drama and avoiding spoilers but it's not worth the horrendous signal quality, camera work, commentating, and filler time.
i look forward to the day i can enjoy live DG coverage but i think that day is far from now.
You’ve got to spend money to make money too though so yes and no haha
Generally speaking, you spend other people's money to make yourself money.
Niced 536 Times in 254 Posts
Lol spoken like a true manager!
That is twice now that I am forced to 'Nice' one of your posts for sheer accuracy.
Last edited by SD86; 08-28-2019 at 02:57 PM.