i realize as a player that if i am not a pdga member, i pay a $5 fee to play. at least in lower tiers. just recently i was told that you have to be a pdga member to play in an A-tier (so the $5 trick doesn't work). first, i'm looking for confirmation on that information, even though i'm a current member, i'm just curious.

second, and here's the big mystery to me. what kind of costs are tournement directors looking at, specifically relating to the pdga. i've heard there's some kind of insurance, but i was wondering, what other fees are involved.

the main reason i ask, is that i live in the land of southern nationals; there is a severe lack of local pdga tourneys. i hear that southern nationals tourneys are easier and cheaper to run. in particular, i'm wondering about the claim of cheaper, what are the behind the scenes costs?

Plastic, Cards, Pencils, Scoreboards, Tourney Fees, Insurance if needed, Food and Drinks, Gas, Extra's, Hotel costs sometimes, CTP's if any, Ring of Fire if held, Trophys, Misc TD supplies, Park Fees, Pavillion Rental, ect, ect.

You can run a tourney and break dead even all day long, but once you get a bite for TD'ing...you want to do all the different things you have seen in tournies you played in and enjoyed. It can mount up quickly and after a good amount of tournies, many TD's ( some who do it for a living ) need to make a few $$'s to cover their costs of puting on a great show.

second, and here's the big mystery to me. what kind of costs are tournement directors looking at, specifically relating to the pdga. i've heard there's some kind of insurance, but i was wondering, what other fees are involved.



Check out this document that is publicly available and outlines all the PDGA-related fees: http://www.pdga.com/documents/td/05SanctionAgreement.pdf

I concur with the previous poster that it costs real money to add all the amenities that take a tournament from good to great. If the TD does not secure sponsorship dollars (corporate, club, or his own pocket), it comes out of the prize money. That is a hard trade-off to defend.

Truth be told, it is not that expensive and complicated to TD a PDGA tournament.

The required PDGA fees are the sanctioning fee and the per-player fee, plus what I think is the big point of contention in SN land: the $5 per non-member fee. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the $5 fee is the biggie, right?)

Insurance is not a PDGA requirement, it's a benefit of being PDGA sancitoned. Many parks require additional insurance before they will give you a permit for a tourney. If you are PDGA sanctioned you can get insurance for $50 for the weekend. So if you need it for your park, it is a real and tangible benefit of sanctioning.

The PDGA sanctioning fee is $50/$75/$100 for C/B/A tier. The per-player fee is $2/$3/$4 for C/B/A tier for each and every player who plays. In addition, any non-members must pay $5 each for a temporary membership to play tyhe event and you must send that to the PDGA.

I don't know how SN does it, but I think they just have a $2 per player fee. If that's true, the difference between running an SN event and a PDGA c-tier would be $50 for the event, and $5 a head for the non-PDGA member players.

The primary cost difference between an SN and a PDGA is the sanctioning fee. Both charge a per player fee. The difference between running a PDGA C-tier and a SN is the $50 sanctioning fee.

It gets expensive when you double sanction an event like doing an SN/PDGA or a CAN-AM/PDGA.

My main motivation for running PDGA sanctioned tournaments is to get the insurance for the park director and ratings for my players. If southern parks and rec supervisors ever start demanding insurance, you will probably see more PDGA events in SN country. I think when the National Disc Golf Center is fully operational and hosting Worlds, you will see more PDGA events down there because players will want to get points for an invitation.

Where the cost of an event can go up is on the required "payback" to the am players in the form of the players package. Higher tiers require a more valuable players package. Lower tier requirements are less, but still there. If you can't obtain sponsorship to off set these required costs, they have to come out of the tournament pocket.

Player packs do not impose a higher cost. They are just a drain on the payout. The players at our tournaments seem to like having a player pack, though, so it is not a drain on attendance. If they did not want player packs we'd run more C-tiers.

My biggest "expense" as a TD is the 20 hours of work that each event requires and that is with 3 TDs working the event before during and after. However, the reward is another tournament that I can play in as well as 100+ other players.

I estimated that for the Great Lakes Open last month, the Ann Arbor Club put in a total of somewhere between 700-800 hours of volunteer time.

Don't forget the most expensive expense that all of us disc golfers have. TD's have an even greater expense in this category.

Regular deposits to the Disc Golf Bank of Wife (or husband in some households). If you don't keep that account with a positive balance you can kiss your DG and TD days goodbye. That happend to a guy here who ran 3 tourneys a year. The wife pulled the noose tight on that one.