Feb 19 2004, 07:01 PM
Copied below is the first posting made to the message board on 1-28-2004. Following this first posting is another posting that further explains the origins of the USDGC
I've just read the Harold Duvall interview article (page 27) about the USDGC that was in the most recent Disc Golf World News (#68). Mark Ellis(interviewer), Harold Duvall and Rick Rothstein(publisher) ALL know who came up with the concept of the United States Disc Golf Open! (which morphed into the name of USDGC because the United States Golf Association, USGA, put up legal roadblocks to the name, US Disc Golf Open). It was NOT Harold and NOT Dave and NOT Jonathon that originated this concept as the article misstated.
I brought the idea of a United States Championship to the PDGA Board in 1993, five years before it was "invented" by the Innova boys. I had been working with the Minneapolis Aquatennial Association in 1993 and 1994 to be a part of an annual summer celebration in Minneapolis that attracts thousands of people to the various entertainment venues. There was a change in upper management in early 1994 and the Aquatennial Association informed me that they were not going to honor their committment to have the event.
The one course and one division idea was mine. The qualifying events in the same year was my idea. I spent about $20,000 of my own money and about 2 years of my time in trying to bring this idea to fruition. I've still got all my documents relating back to that time and find it a little bit disingenuous that no recognition was given to me in the article.
SPECTATORS, SPONSORS AND THE MEDIA are still the MISSING ELEMENTS for success at PDGA tournaments. The one course, one division idea was driven by the need to have one course to focus on (not multiple courses at multiple locations) and that one division focus was to be on the best players because of the entertainment value of having the best players in the world compete (not multiple divisions where the level of play in other divisions is not of entertainment value to spectators).
Unfortunately, in 1997, Harold did not take my advice about NOT LOCATING a major event in a SMALL TOWN in South Carolina or a small town anywhere. The USDGC, in its current location, has proven to be a site that does not attract spectators and that 's been a death-knell to have any kind of credible sponsorship that's not disc related. The USDGC has apparently "proven" to potential sponsors that it is NOT a place to put your sponsor dollars because nobody is going to see the message. A sponsor always asks how many people were there last year. And what are you going to tell the sponsor? Well, hardly anyone showed up, but, we'd like you to give us some sponsor money? Spectators beget sponsors that beget media coverage. No spectators, then no sponsors, then no media.
The challenge for the PDGA(Innova) is to SHOW that we can do more than be good at accomodating players and staff at the USDGC. Absolutely the USDGC is the best run tournament with the best players in the world. But, tournaments have been conducted since the 1970s and we should have that part of players and staff down pretty good by now. Put the USDGC in a major metropolitan area that has a strong and long disc golf history. Locate the one course where there is public access (major roads or freeways adjacent), public parking and public amenities. Design the one course with spectators in mind (natural amphitheatres, ample room between holes to allow for pedestrian traffic). The USDGC will continue to be a small time tournament in a small town in its current state. And it's the National Championship of the United States and that's all the better we can do in terms of spectators, sponsors and media? Better keep your day jobs, players.
This is the start of the second posting
I want to give some additional facts about the origin of the United States national championship tournament that was originally sanctioned by the PDGA in 1993. I proposed The United States Disc Golf Open to the Board of Directors of the PDGA in August, 1992. Over a period of 8 months there was back-and-forth, give-and-take and lobbying done to hammer out and convince the Board of the merits of a new type of event that was revolutionary. A sanction was finally awarded to me in the spring of 1993 to use the name and this different type of tournament format in conducting the first ever PDGA championships in Disc Golf for the United States.
I had to overcome an institutional change of attitude in order to earn the sanction. Multiple courses and multiple divisions were the norm of the day. The only major tournament for professionals at that time was the Pro Worlds. All other tournaments were either regional or local in nature. The significant change proposed to the competitive format was to do a knock-off of traditional golf and do our own version of the US Open. Hence, the one division, one course tournament with a list of exempt and same-year qualified players with a cut after 36 holes to halve the field.
To accept and mitigate the downsizing of the playing experience I had to convince the Board that the other fundamental elements for tournament success would be greatly enhanced: real spectators, sponsors outside the sport and media attention. By bringing all these groups together, as we had never done before, the sport would benefit immensely.
I also had to convince the Board that I had the ability to put together an event of this magnitude. I had considerable Frisbee tournament directing experience going back to the 1970s and early 1980s. I was the director of the Sky of 10,000 Frisbees Tournament. The Sky of 10,000 Frisbees was part of the Minneapolis Aquatennial Association�s summer fun festival in Minneapolis and over a period of 5 years I was able to develop this event together with the Minnesota Frisbee Association and it drew thousands of spectators. Check out the photos from 1979 (http://www.svdgc.org/history/sky10000-1979.htm) and 1980 (http://www.svdgc.org/history/sky10000-1980.htm).
I had the Minneapolis Aquatennial Association�s approval to conduct the United States Disc Golf Open in 1993. However, because of the extended and protracted PDGA sanctioning process I was forced to postpone the 1993 version with the Aquatennial because I couldn�t deliver the official sanction from the PDGA. I began advertising and merchandising for the 1994 event in June of 1993 immediately after receiving the sanction from the Board. Check out the flyer and logo (http://www.svdgc.org/history/usopenflyer.jpg) and merchandise
(http://www.svdgc.org/history/USOpenMerch.htm).
Fast forward to the first part of 1994 and by then two qualifying tournaments for the 1994 US Disc Golf Open had been conducted. Then, under new management, the Aquatennial Association informed me that they would not honor their commitment to complete the tournament in 1994. Wow! It was the PDGA that caused the initial delay for one year when the Aquatennial was ready and then the Aquatennial came in with the news that put the sanction on the shelf. Not a good day.
Now I�ll take you to 1998 when I was the Commissioner of the PDGA. The Board received two proposals in late summer of 1998 and they both wanted to have the permission from the PDGA to call their respective tournament the official championship for the United States. Well, it didn�t take the Board 8 months to discuss the merits of this event. It was more like 8 minutes (well, a few minutes longer than that) to look at the bids and dust off the dormant sanction and award one tournament the exclusive rights for the United States championships. The PDGA allowed Innova to use the PDGA name in promoting the event as the ONLY legitimate and credible championship of the United States, i.e. the sanction.
My personal position at that Board meeting was to not award any bid because I felt that the location of both sites was poor in terms of attracting spectators. I had no desire to see yet another tournament that only catered to the players to the exclusion of those critical groups that were needed to market the PDGA. The desire of the membership of the PDGA, revealed through the survey in 1997, was to have greater sponsorship and media attention. Spectators by the thousands are what the sponsors are looking for to expose their message. Spectators by the thousands attract the media. I felt that the ability to say to a sponsor and the media that you had the US Championships gave you the greatest marketing tool available that the PDGA had to offer. Tell the sponsor and media that your tournament is regional or local in nature and you know the response as we�ve seen years of that already. I�ve always had the faith that, if presented properly, disc golf could and would attract thousands of spectators. This isn�t tidily-winks were talking about here.
Looking at the fundamentals of marketing you always deal with the 4 Ps: Product, Pricing, Promotion and Place of distribution. You can�t market effectively if you�re missing one of the 4Ps. Take, as an example, a snow shovel. You have absolutely the best snow shovel product in the market with its high tension steel construction and diamonds embedded at the bottom of the shovel so that you can scrape through anything. You promote your superior snow shovel on TV, radio and in the newspaper. It�s the lowest price snow shovel in the market. Three of the Ps are in place: great product, great promotion, great price. However, your Place of distribution for the snow shovel is in Florida and your marketing plan has failed. And you don�t sell bikinis in Nome, Alaska.
Harold wrote that they have �tried to copy (traditional) golf in every way possible, and we�ll continue to do so.� In golf, golf-related equipment manufacturers are NOT EXCLUDED as sponsors of the US Open, as is the case with the USDGC and their treatment of the other disc makers and vendors of the sport. In golf, the local club that has the PRIVILEGE of hosting the US Open has NO EXCLUSIVE claim to the intellectual property rights of the nation�s championship, as is the case with the USDGC and their posture towards the PDGA.
It was dis(c)ingenuous to not acknowledge the history of my efforts of time, money and action to change the mind set of the disc golf community starting in 1992. My efforts were driven by the benefit(s) that the sport would receive. I assigned all rights, title and interest to the name US Disc Golf Open to the PDGA in 1994. No one person, partnership or corporation should own the nation�s championship tournament in any sport and that�s the case in all sports EXCEPT disc golf. What�s good for the sport of disc golf is good for all the players and vendors. What�s �good� for a vendor in disc golf is not necessarily the best for the sport.
So, DGWN, a correction and clarification about the origins of the USDGC is in order as the membership has been given an incomplete and misleading history through the article published in the most recent edition. So, Innova, an acknowledgement on your part is in order in recognizing that the intellectual property rights of the PDGA's United States national championship for disc golf belong solely to the PDGA. Do the right thing.
Jim Challas
PDGA # 160
PDGA Commissioner 1998-2001
I've just read the Harold Duvall interview article (page 27) about the USDGC that was in the most recent Disc Golf World News (#68). Mark Ellis(interviewer), Harold Duvall and Rick Rothstein(publisher) ALL know who came up with the concept of the United States Disc Golf Open! (which morphed into the name of USDGC because the United States Golf Association, USGA, put up legal roadblocks to the name, US Disc Golf Open). It was NOT Harold and NOT Dave and NOT Jonathon that originated this concept as the article misstated.
I brought the idea of a United States Championship to the PDGA Board in 1993, five years before it was "invented" by the Innova boys. I had been working with the Minneapolis Aquatennial Association in 1993 and 1994 to be a part of an annual summer celebration in Minneapolis that attracts thousands of people to the various entertainment venues. There was a change in upper management in early 1994 and the Aquatennial Association informed me that they were not going to honor their committment to have the event.
The one course and one division idea was mine. The qualifying events in the same year was my idea. I spent about $20,000 of my own money and about 2 years of my time in trying to bring this idea to fruition. I've still got all my documents relating back to that time and find it a little bit disingenuous that no recognition was given to me in the article.
SPECTATORS, SPONSORS AND THE MEDIA are still the MISSING ELEMENTS for success at PDGA tournaments. The one course, one division idea was driven by the need to have one course to focus on (not multiple courses at multiple locations) and that one division focus was to be on the best players because of the entertainment value of having the best players in the world compete (not multiple divisions where the level of play in other divisions is not of entertainment value to spectators).
Unfortunately, in 1997, Harold did not take my advice about NOT LOCATING a major event in a SMALL TOWN in South Carolina or a small town anywhere. The USDGC, in its current location, has proven to be a site that does not attract spectators and that 's been a death-knell to have any kind of credible sponsorship that's not disc related. The USDGC has apparently "proven" to potential sponsors that it is NOT a place to put your sponsor dollars because nobody is going to see the message. A sponsor always asks how many people were there last year. And what are you going to tell the sponsor? Well, hardly anyone showed up, but, we'd like you to give us some sponsor money? Spectators beget sponsors that beget media coverage. No spectators, then no sponsors, then no media.
The challenge for the PDGA(Innova) is to SHOW that we can do more than be good at accomodating players and staff at the USDGC. Absolutely the USDGC is the best run tournament with the best players in the world. But, tournaments have been conducted since the 1970s and we should have that part of players and staff down pretty good by now. Put the USDGC in a major metropolitan area that has a strong and long disc golf history. Locate the one course where there is public access (major roads or freeways adjacent), public parking and public amenities. Design the one course with spectators in mind (natural amphitheatres, ample room between holes to allow for pedestrian traffic). The USDGC will continue to be a small time tournament in a small town in its current state. And it's the National Championship of the United States and that's all the better we can do in terms of spectators, sponsors and media? Better keep your day jobs, players.
This is the start of the second posting
I want to give some additional facts about the origin of the United States national championship tournament that was originally sanctioned by the PDGA in 1993. I proposed The United States Disc Golf Open to the Board of Directors of the PDGA in August, 1992. Over a period of 8 months there was back-and-forth, give-and-take and lobbying done to hammer out and convince the Board of the merits of a new type of event that was revolutionary. A sanction was finally awarded to me in the spring of 1993 to use the name and this different type of tournament format in conducting the first ever PDGA championships in Disc Golf for the United States.
I had to overcome an institutional change of attitude in order to earn the sanction. Multiple courses and multiple divisions were the norm of the day. The only major tournament for professionals at that time was the Pro Worlds. All other tournaments were either regional or local in nature. The significant change proposed to the competitive format was to do a knock-off of traditional golf and do our own version of the US Open. Hence, the one division, one course tournament with a list of exempt and same-year qualified players with a cut after 36 holes to halve the field.
To accept and mitigate the downsizing of the playing experience I had to convince the Board that the other fundamental elements for tournament success would be greatly enhanced: real spectators, sponsors outside the sport and media attention. By bringing all these groups together, as we had never done before, the sport would benefit immensely.
I also had to convince the Board that I had the ability to put together an event of this magnitude. I had considerable Frisbee tournament directing experience going back to the 1970s and early 1980s. I was the director of the Sky of 10,000 Frisbees Tournament. The Sky of 10,000 Frisbees was part of the Minneapolis Aquatennial Association�s summer fun festival in Minneapolis and over a period of 5 years I was able to develop this event together with the Minnesota Frisbee Association and it drew thousands of spectators. Check out the photos from 1979 (http://www.svdgc.org/history/sky10000-1979.htm) and 1980 (http://www.svdgc.org/history/sky10000-1980.htm).
I had the Minneapolis Aquatennial Association�s approval to conduct the United States Disc Golf Open in 1993. However, because of the extended and protracted PDGA sanctioning process I was forced to postpone the 1993 version with the Aquatennial because I couldn�t deliver the official sanction from the PDGA. I began advertising and merchandising for the 1994 event in June of 1993 immediately after receiving the sanction from the Board. Check out the flyer and logo (http://www.svdgc.org/history/usopenflyer.jpg) and merchandise
(http://www.svdgc.org/history/USOpenMerch.htm).
Fast forward to the first part of 1994 and by then two qualifying tournaments for the 1994 US Disc Golf Open had been conducted. Then, under new management, the Aquatennial Association informed me that they would not honor their commitment to complete the tournament in 1994. Wow! It was the PDGA that caused the initial delay for one year when the Aquatennial was ready and then the Aquatennial came in with the news that put the sanction on the shelf. Not a good day.
Now I�ll take you to 1998 when I was the Commissioner of the PDGA. The Board received two proposals in late summer of 1998 and they both wanted to have the permission from the PDGA to call their respective tournament the official championship for the United States. Well, it didn�t take the Board 8 months to discuss the merits of this event. It was more like 8 minutes (well, a few minutes longer than that) to look at the bids and dust off the dormant sanction and award one tournament the exclusive rights for the United States championships. The PDGA allowed Innova to use the PDGA name in promoting the event as the ONLY legitimate and credible championship of the United States, i.e. the sanction.
My personal position at that Board meeting was to not award any bid because I felt that the location of both sites was poor in terms of attracting spectators. I had no desire to see yet another tournament that only catered to the players to the exclusion of those critical groups that were needed to market the PDGA. The desire of the membership of the PDGA, revealed through the survey in 1997, was to have greater sponsorship and media attention. Spectators by the thousands are what the sponsors are looking for to expose their message. Spectators by the thousands attract the media. I felt that the ability to say to a sponsor and the media that you had the US Championships gave you the greatest marketing tool available that the PDGA had to offer. Tell the sponsor and media that your tournament is regional or local in nature and you know the response as we�ve seen years of that already. I�ve always had the faith that, if presented properly, disc golf could and would attract thousands of spectators. This isn�t tidily-winks were talking about here.
Looking at the fundamentals of marketing you always deal with the 4 Ps: Product, Pricing, Promotion and Place of distribution. You can�t market effectively if you�re missing one of the 4Ps. Take, as an example, a snow shovel. You have absolutely the best snow shovel product in the market with its high tension steel construction and diamonds embedded at the bottom of the shovel so that you can scrape through anything. You promote your superior snow shovel on TV, radio and in the newspaper. It�s the lowest price snow shovel in the market. Three of the Ps are in place: great product, great promotion, great price. However, your Place of distribution for the snow shovel is in Florida and your marketing plan has failed. And you don�t sell bikinis in Nome, Alaska.
Harold wrote that they have �tried to copy (traditional) golf in every way possible, and we�ll continue to do so.� In golf, golf-related equipment manufacturers are NOT EXCLUDED as sponsors of the US Open, as is the case with the USDGC and their treatment of the other disc makers and vendors of the sport. In golf, the local club that has the PRIVILEGE of hosting the US Open has NO EXCLUSIVE claim to the intellectual property rights of the nation�s championship, as is the case with the USDGC and their posture towards the PDGA.
It was dis(c)ingenuous to not acknowledge the history of my efforts of time, money and action to change the mind set of the disc golf community starting in 1992. My efforts were driven by the benefit(s) that the sport would receive. I assigned all rights, title and interest to the name US Disc Golf Open to the PDGA in 1994. No one person, partnership or corporation should own the nation�s championship tournament in any sport and that�s the case in all sports EXCEPT disc golf. What�s good for the sport of disc golf is good for all the players and vendors. What�s �good� for a vendor in disc golf is not necessarily the best for the sport.
So, DGWN, a correction and clarification about the origins of the USDGC is in order as the membership has been given an incomplete and misleading history through the article published in the most recent edition. So, Innova, an acknowledgement on your part is in order in recognizing that the intellectual property rights of the PDGA's United States national championship for disc golf belong solely to the PDGA. Do the right thing.
Jim Challas
PDGA # 160
PDGA Commissioner 1998-2001