Tournament Value

[Tom McManus]

Tom,
         I have been involved with running leagues and tournaments almost as long as you have and I don't have anything against people making money doing it. I personally believe that holding tournament and fleecing the people who come to it IS WRONG. The pdga having standardized payouts is great it just seems to me that using funny money and dual pricing in order to make your payouts look better seems rather dishonest . I don't think that you attacking me in this forum isn't very professional for a club vice president either. I personally have never made a dime off of running an event .

Scott,

It wasn't meant as a personal attack, it was an attack of the post and that way of thinking.  Is there a TD that you are specifically referring to in your posts?  If there is, you may want to speak with them directly. No need to mention them here. As far as funny money goes, I am all for it. If I am lucky enough to place in an event and I am awarded a prize, I would like to choose my winnings as opposed to be given a disc, shirt, or water bottle I may not want or may not use.

Also regarding funny money, I think that seeing what everyone walked away with versus what everyone paid is a good way to judge if there is value in an event. I am not smart enough to figure dollar for dollar entry fee versus the amount of funny money being handed out. I am not sure I understand what you mean by dual pricing. I think that there are retail vaules for discs and then people may offer a cash discount for discs.

Prizes are not the only things that we take away from events. Hopefully there is the spirit of competition and camaraderie of spending time with like minded people who enjoy doing the same thing that you do, which is play disc golf.

Club vice-president or not, it wasn't professional and I do apologize. It's just that I know how hard all TDs work and I don't like seeing them get attacked for trying to support disc golf.

[Dan Michler]

I think what Klatt is talking about with his 'dual pricing' comment is how alot of TD's will sell you a disc for 14 or 15 bucks cash or 18 bucks funny money.

15 cash for Star plastic is a good deal when you aren't paying shipping or anything.  Maybe 18 funny for a Star disc is a dollar or 2 on the high side but not totally ridiculous, but I agree with McManus that the TD is certainly allowed to make a couple dollars on the tournament and atleast cover their time and expenses devoted to the event.  I think all of the local TD's here are upfront about all of the costs and I have seen no effort to 'fleece' local disc golfers with these prices.

If you can afford to run the Klatt Open Series next year out of your own pocket then by all means do it and I will be there preregistering for your event.

[Fox Metro Discer]

As a TD and league organizer myself, I will say even if you are trying to recoup some of the costs that are incurred in running a tourney, in my experience, I am still not breaking even on the expenses I put out to run a disc golf tournament. There are many miniscule costs that add up over time. From ink, printer paper, making up hole sponsor signs, gas to drive around to get sponsors, phone calls, (for the Ice Bowl making food, plates, silverware, napkins, drinks, port-o-let, firewood), not to mention the countless hours communicating, writing, typing, coordinating, and brainstorming, I think it is only fair to get some $ back from those that are enjoying the fruits from your mostly thankless labor. If I did not want to donate my time and energy, I would not run a tournament. However, the supplies to run a tourney cost $. If I am going to continue to run them, I need to be able to fund the costs to run the tournament, plain and simple. My time is free for this as it is a passion and I enjoy giving my time for this activity.

[CEValkyrie]

I agree with the philosophy that TD's should get rewarded for their hard work. Without TD's the competitve aspect of disc golf would not be here. Good TD's have been able to find that happy medium treating players fairly with payouts and walking away with some money for themselves or their club.

Running a tournament is basic economics.  For a TD the markup on discs hopefully covers expenses. TD's have a set price they use for funny money. This is a set forumula which helps a TD calculate payouts without losing money and to cover the expenses below. This is no different than going to a store and buying something. When a player pays cash for a disc this is a bonus for a TD. It has nothing to do with the tournament process. I'd suggest if you are paying cash for a disc at any event that you haggle with the TD.

Expenses Include
Course Fees
PDGA Sanctioning & Insurance
PDGA Per Player Fee
Printing Costs
Trophy Costs
Others.

[stpitner]

I think what Klatt is talking about with his 'dual pricing' comment is how alot of TD's will sell you a disc for 14 or 15 bucks cash or 18 bucks funny money.

15 cash for Star plastic is a good deal when you aren't paying shipping or anything.  Maybe 18 funny for a Star disc is a dollar or 2 on the high side but not totally ridiculous, but I agree with McManus that the TD is certainly allowed to make a couple dollars on the tournament and atleast cover their time and expenses devoted to the event.  I think all of the local TD's here are upfront about all of the costs and I have seen no effort to 'fleece' local disc golfers with these prices.

If you can afford to run the Klatt Open Series next year out of your own pocket then by all means do it and I will be there preregistering for your event.

The reason star is $18 is because it costs me $9 to have the disc.  If you pay me $18 funny money, I get $9 cash and you get a star disc.  That's the simple math.  Then you can start to consider that I have to report a $9 sale and pay state sales tax (7.25%), and then if I had that listed in eBay, that's $0.06 a month per disc that I have listed in the store that I pay, and there was also a shipping fee on top of my wholesale disc cost to have the disc shipped from innova to me (averages 20 cents a disc).  So I'm still losing money.

I'm a "dual pricer" where I'll ask for $14 if you want to pay cash for Star.  As Brett said, the cash for a disc has nothing to do with tournament expenses - and in a way I'm building in haggling for you so that you don't even have to   The cash sales are what can save my rear sometimes - and for some TD's where they have to bring in an outside vendor it's even tougher for the vendor to have a successful day.  Those cash sales become even more critical.

All in all, it's a really tough task to be a TD, a vendor, or a mix of either.  Props to the other TD's for their efforts to run their respective tournaments.

[Bruce Brakel]

I was drafting a nice, thorough response to the original post last night around nine and then we had a medical emergency here.  Two bags of saline solution and six hours later I got back to the computer, and i think Kelsey navigated away from the draft post.  Diana has had a bad case of Australian flu and she got dehydrated and collapsed.  But she's fine now. 

We use funny money because the players like that.  The alternative is for us to pick your prizes for you, which kind of sucks when you play well and get a stack of useless stuff.  With a funny money system you can also save up for something that costs more than you've won, like a basket or a big bag, and you can also save it for when we have the weird stuff you want, like DX Spiders.  Funny money is a simpler barter system than bartering the actual plastic. 

Funny money is worth less than 1 for $1 because plastic is worth less than 1 for $1.  Innova sells star plastic for about $9 and Champion for about $8 but they require that we price it no less than $15 and $14, or something like that.  If we were to go with Innova minimum pricing, funny money would be worth about 57 cents on the dollar and it would be hard to keep track of.  Also, at 57 cents on a dollar, Innova would be priced to the bottom but Discraft would be priced too low.  50 cents to the dollar just works better for both those reasons.  The funny to real exchange rate is just a product of the system that we cannot change that much. 

Meanwhile, I've been helping out at tournaments since 1992 and I 've seen a lot of TDs come and go.  The volunteers burn out after a few years.  The greedy ones find better things to do when their players find better tournaments to play.  The TDs who stick around are the ones who find a balance between the two extremes.  If you want your helper people to keep coming back, you have to make it worth their while.  That's just dealing with things the way they are rather than approaching the world from the way things ought to be. 

I wrote this last night before Tom posted, but Tom's post makes it better:  The Red Cross has gotten away from requiring all their little helper people to be volunteers.  Diana used to do exactly as much Red Cross volunteer work as she had to do to keep her certifications current.  Now she can charge her pupils to take the class, pay the Red Cross their cut, and keep the rest.  Now she teaches as many Red Cross training classes as she can.  It took the Red Cross years to figure out how the world really works.  You can appeal to the goodness of peoples' hearts or to good old fashion profit motive.  The latter is a bigger target and is going to get a lot more done for whatever you are trying to accomplish. 

Our balance between greed and volunteer burn out seems to be working.  Our tournaments have continued to draw well.  If you throw Discraft our amateur payouts are huge.  If you don't throw Discraft, that's your choice, but I cannot do a thing about Innova's prices.  I have to deal with things the way they are.  there's nothing I can do about the way they ought to be. 

[discglfr]

I have said my piece on this topic but I will interject one other key component to this whole scenario.

Sometime in the last 30 years many disc golfers developed a very unusual (and inappropriate) mentality to the economics of this sport.  That is ... far too many people know the wholesale price of discs and therefore feel entitled to paying less than retail for said discs.

I would bet the farm that there would be far less arguing and complaining about tournaments if everyone across the country showed up to their club, league, and tournaments planning to pay normal retail markup on disc golf equipment they receive.  Getting a discount is great for the players but it should not be expected by them.  This is the same consistent outcome you get each time you walk into a Target, Sears, or Dick's Sporting Goods.  Right?  Why do so many people scoff, scorn, and scold at the concept of normal retail pricing in our sport?   

Maceman said it best over 10 years ago while he was up here (from Texas) and vending his merch at the Mad City Open.  Someone asked him for a discount on a disc and he said, "Do you go into Walmart and ask them for a discount?  I didn't think so.  Why are you doing it to me then?  I have far more overhead than they do and you want me to give you a discount just because you're standing in front of me?" 

Similarly, when is the last time you went into ANY retail store in the country and knew exactly what their wholesale costs were?  Well, you really don't because you can't account for the cost of the building, the insurance, the cost to turn on the lights, their shrink, their wages, and a thousand other costs of doing business.  You don't get to stand there with a $8 ticketed item and demand they give it to you at a reduced price do you?  Well, you pay $8 for it OR you simply go to the next store and you probably pay anywhere between $7.50 and $8.50.

Long and short ... selling discs far below retail pricing is NOT helping our sport at any level.  Also, those who do try to sell discs at or near retail are not 'bad guys'.  They are businessmen. 

PS - I started disc golfing around 1994.  The current day (DX / D) was really the only plastic on the market and you know what I paid for it in funny money?  $8.  Yes, I said it, $8.  Name one other recreational product on the planet that hasn't gone up a dime in retail cost in the last 14 years.   It's all pretty simple if you ask me, support the vendors and businesses that support disc golf.

[Chainmeister]

The last handful of  posts have all been from guys who have run tournaments. I'm just a customer and have played in tournamentts run by all of the above except Pitner only because he is new.  I figure to do so soon. 

This thread is relevant because our "hippie sport" exiists in the real  world.  Sure, it would be great if everybody pitched in like we were in a commune, kibutz or utopian planet on an espisode of Star Trek.  When a club throws a tournament this can sometimes work.  The reality is somebody has to hold the ball, er, ah disc.  The TD takes the financial risk and is the one who leaves the park last after cleaning and packing up.  If we lived in a world where we rotated TD's and our numberr came up and we took our turn, maybe we would all be volunteers.  Its like a church or synagogue group ruiinning a soup kitchen.  That isn't what happens. There are a handful of guys out there (look at the posts above and you will find them) who do it.  Thanks guys. Whatever scratch they make off a tournament is still way less than their talent and energy would garner them somewhere else.  They do it becaus e they love the game, want to promote it, or maybe because they want to be the guy handing out the awards.  I was the Rides chair of my bike club for a number of  years because I wanted the kinds of  rides I like scheduled..  Brett, Bruce, Terry, Aaron,Scott, Cummings, Lewis etc get to play in the kinds  of tournaments they like.Good for them. 

We still have  plenty of volunteers because it stil takes  a village (as Mrs.Clinton would say) to put on a tournament. There are lots of elves at every tournament. Thanks elves.  I have occasionally volunteered, we all should.  Here, its great if everybody takes a turn helping with whatever tasks need to be done. 

I go to tournaments that are fun to play.  I don't like to get ripped off but I will pay the price after  balancing the course, the people coming, the divisions offered, the way merch is run, any other qualities that will distinguish the event.  Value is very subjective.  It means differen things to just about everybody.  If you put on a lousy show people won't play. If you put on a good one you will have plenty of players.  I am too busy, lazy, cheap, self-involved,whatever to run my own tournament so I am glad you guys are out there. Thanks.

[chaos]

Gentlemen,
                  this wasn't directed at any tournament director .It was a question about the use of funny money and why it isn't dollar for dolar with cash . I had been away from disc golf for several years and upon my return it seemed to be smoke and mirrors to hide something from the player. I do appreciate more that most people the effort involved in running an event haveing done this myself. I do have 100's of fond memories from all of the events that I have played but there does seem to be  a great differential in payouts depending on who is running the event . This is not something new . I do still believe that that T.D.'s ,at least the ones who run events for clubs, should be unpaid . I have never agreed with the PDGA allowing at fee to paid to the TD . If there are expenses then list all of them , show this in the breakdown for payouts , in real dollars . If you are essentially paying out discs at wholesale cost then why use the funny money when it all breaksdown to be same ?? Just seems to be wierd to me .I apologize if I have offended anyone.

[Bruce Brakel]

It is not our system.  It is the PDGA's system.  They require that ams be paid in merch and that we report the tournament value to them at retail value.  It would be pretty hard to report the retail value if we ran the tournament on non-standardized sub-retail pricing.  We would have no idea what we paid out, or it would take until Monday to get payouts done.  By having a fixed value for a funny buck it makes it easier for us to report retail value to the PDGA, reimburse vendors who take our funny money and reimburse me for the funny money we pay out.  But our main motivation for having funny money is that the players like funny money.  Once we decided to have funny money, then we realized that we needed an exchange rate that was pegged to the wholsale/retail ratio, and that ratio needed to be a number that was easy to work with.  The whole thing began with: players like it so why not?  And the details are just how we've untied the y-knots. 

I think objectively Jon, Brett, and I do less smoke and mirrors with the tournament process than anyone around.  We were posting payouts when most TDs were ignoring their obligation to post payouts.  I take a lot of heat for explaining the process to people who don't understand it.  Most TDs hate me for that, except the few who run decent value tournaments. 

And you're right that you see a lot of variance from one tournament director to another.  It's really up to you whether you want to play the tournaments with weak values.  And it is up to you what items are of what value.  To me if a tournament is well run, with a leaderboard I can look at, and scorecards with hole distances, and course routing information, and things happening when they are supposed to happen, and a TD who knows and applies the rules correctly, and a prompt awards thing after the last card comes in, and a bunch of other details that make a tournament well run, all of that is worth $10 or $15 right there.  Like Barish, I'll play tournaments that have crappy payouts if they are close to home and reasonably well run and on courses I like to play. 

[chaos]

Bruce,
            Once again my comments were not directed at any specific TD I personally think the IOS events offer some of the best payouts I have seen in all my years of competing . I just wanted more info on how/ why this system was implemented . I have gone to many events that had poor payouts and did return to other events run by these people for many of the same reasons you have.

[Jon Brakel]

Scott, the payout is the same as when you were going to tournaments 10 years ago. Just instead of someone awarding you a few discs you probably didn't want, you get funny money.

funny money = discs

Funny money is a physical analog for a disc to a TD. He will trade you funny money for a disc because it is of equal value to him/her. He is NOT, however, going to give you money back when you trade him funny money for a disc. Why would he? However, money is money. If the TD decides that he wants to move more of his inventory and he has a sale then you get $1 back on the purchase of a disc when you spend CA$H. It's two different transactions that have nothing to do with each other. The funny money transaction is strictly a barter situation. The cash transaction is a U.S. treasury backed financial exchange. The rules are different. No TD that I know of made the rules. The PDGA and the U.S. Treasury department made the rules. We just live by them.

[stpitner]

Hehe, Bruce's system works because he has a couple of the following qualities:

1) Likes to crunch random numbers.
2) Enjoys math.
3) Must have been conked on the head a couple times with a hammer and made him a little goofy.
4) Got a little too close to the fumes from dying so many discs.

I know that I qualify on a couple of those, so maybe that's why it made sense to me

--scott - I sent you a pretty long PM trying to explain a few more things, and that was before I saw these 3 most recent posts.  The PM is still very relevant, and hopefully it's helpful in explaining a lot of things.

--to all - a TD and/or vendor greatly appreciates your cash purchases.  It's as simple as that.  I'd love to make disc golf and baseball cards my full time business, but I can't mainly because you just don't make enough.  Cash sales certainly help the cause though!

Thanks!

[Bruce Brakel]

Replying to Jon, if Scott/Chaos has been away from tournaments for a while, the payouts aren't the same.  The average tournament value might be the same, but the payouts have been changed quite a bit.  In the 1990s paying the top 1/3 in amateur divisions was common.  Now most TDs use the PDGA charts and those pay the top 45%.  In the 1990s player packs were uncommon.  Now they are required at B-tiers and fairly common at C-tiers.  In the 1990s loading it up on the top few places was fairly common whereas now most TDs use the linear PDGA payout charts. 

To prove Pitner right that I like to goof around with random numbers, this is the difference between a typical 1997 tournament value and the same tournament value in 2008, 24 players in the division, same total value:

--2008 -- 1997
1.  $61--$180
2.  $57--$125
3.  $53--$95
4.  $49--$70
5.  $46--$50
6.  $42--$35
7.  $39--$25
8.  $35--$20
9.  $32--0
10. $28--0
11. $28--0
12. $10--0
13. $10--0
14. $10--0
15. $10--0
16. $10--0
17. $10--0
18. $10--0
19. $10--0
20. $10--0
21. $10--0
22. $10--0
23. $10--0
24. $10--0
T. $600--$600

In 2007 13th through 24th place are getting $10 because that is the player pack.  And, in the 2007 column I've $10 to each paid spot to reflect their player packs.  Player packs cut into the payouts by a third and shallow linear charts cut into the top by another third. 

Some of you who have not played for ten years are like, "No way!"  Think about this:  1999 Dave Feldberg went on tour and supported himself AS AN AMATEUR!  The stuff he won at tournaments they sold or used as prizes when they ran Winnie Crew Doubles.  The 1997 payout above was based on $25 per player but A-tiers back then were more like $50 per advanced player, so those numbers would double. 

So if Chaos has been away, amateur payouts have changed radically.  It might look like the value sucks, but the average value is the same.  The big difference is now we basically pay to last place in the amateur divisions.  The bottom 2/3rds of the amateur field gets almost 40% of the value whereas before they used to get a flyer for the next tournament.  I've given up arguing that either system is "better."  The current system seems to attract more players. 

Just one more note, something that Jon will especially appreciate:  I typed, "Player packs cut into the payouts by a third and shallow linear charts cut into the top by another third," before I did the payouts.  I slammed the math in my head and then it came out to within a $1!     The way we used to do payouts back then is we'd give last a little less than his entry fee and then add 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 etc to each place, to get a payout curve.  Then we'd add it up and adjust it up or down to equal what we meant to pay out.  It was a lot faster than working with those PDGA decimal charts and looked a lot the same.  So that's how I did it above and when I got to the top I pretended to say,"There's $25 left over," and pretended to hear Tommy C. saying, "Give it to first." 

[skipache]

i think that it really sucks paying out 45 or 50 percent because on bruces chart the guy who beat 23 other players only got 60 bucks after playing 30 bucks to get in. That isnt really TD's fault but.... i wish we could go back to 33%

[discglfr]

Hey Jason,

Remember, with a flatter payout in ALL divisions it spreads out the wealth and makes more people happy.  The top guys aren't getting as much but a few extra guys are getting something when they used to get nothing. 

What really drove this concept home was listening to Barry Schultz, Feldberg, and a few others a few years back.  Most of those guys would rather see a somewhat flatter payout near the top if the helps increase the overall field size.  You could pay the top 33% for instance but so many less guys get excited about playing when the field is strong.  Now when you start to pay out 45 or 50% then people have a better chance to cash with something.  I'm sure you understand all of this but I thought I'd also point out that many people's views tend to change as they get better.

Natural progression is:

You're not so good at level X and you love flat payouts.
You get good at level X and you want top heavy payouts.
You move into level Y where you probably aren't so good and you love getting something.
You get good at level Y and you want top heavy payouts.
You make it to level Z and are just happy to walk away with something for playing well.
You near the top of level Z and you think you deserve more for your efforts.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I see this cycle with so many players and I hear about it even more because I'm a TD (like yourself).  Giving out more slices of pie rather than making the pie slices bigger seems to be the trend we are on right now.  Personally, I like it for the sport of disc golf. 

Maybe we should just have 1 or 2 divisions and then the payouts would go down much further?  I am not a fan of the 30, 40, or 50 different divisions that exist but that's for another thread another day. 

Happy New Year everyone.  I'm off to dinner then waking up early to re-salt some tee pads for the Random Beaver Round Up IV this weekend.

Ter

i think that it really sucks paying out 45 or 50 percent because on bruces chart the guy who beat 23 other players only got 60 bucks after playing 30 bucks to get in. That isnt really TD's fault but.... i wish we could go back to 33%

[Bruce Brakel]

When the mandatory player packs and 50% payout charts first came out the MDGO ignored the new payout charts and I help run the player pack sidebet.  Basically every advanced player got in on the sidebet and the mandatory player pack was just a theoretical thing.  After a couple of years I got busy with other aspects of the tournament process and we quit running the player pack sidebet. 

Now after six years of mandatory player packs, most of our players have forgotten the old system.  Whatever system you run for a few years will eventually attract players who like that system and the players who don't will go find something else they do like.  I've never thought of this before tonight, but I wonder how that changes the PDGA to be running a format that appeals to a different type of player.  It seems to me that we've gone from promoting a format that would appeal to Type A personalities to a format that would appeal to people who are playing the game more for social and competitive reasons than for pecuniary gain. 

I don't have any conclusions.  It's just a half formed thought. 

[Working Stiff]

I used to run tournaments back in the $100.00+ payout to one guy in Advanced days.  Also at the time the priciest plastic was the Millennium-KC Pro-Elite Pro discs which retailed at $10-$11.   Those guys walked away with so many discs it was crazy.  It was next to impossible to pay those guys out with merch and keep them happy.

I always find the idea that the only people who should be able to make money from disc golf are the players who win various tournaments self-defeating.  The idea is that a TD who makes some money is a pig who is sucking money out of the sport for his own profit while the top player deserves the money.  The reality is that a TD has worked a lot harder than any player to develop the sport and will invest some of that money into future events, which will put some of that cash back into the sport.  If you give that money instead to your Open winner, what are the chances he is going to spring for CTP's at the next event?  Yet an event where an open player from out-of-town drives off with a big chunk of your tournament value has always been seen as good.  An event where the TD makes some profit that he can theoretically keep in town to help put on more tournaments is bad.  

I always thought if the PDGA wanted big-payout tournaments for touring pros that they should find the sponsors and run them.  If you want me as a local guy to provide your tournaments, I'm not going to care about paying that out-of-town pro.  I'm worried about developing a base of local players who will be back next month or next year.  The flatter payouts have helped do that.  

Meanwhile, the search for the magic sponsor who everyone seems to think is waiting out there to shower our tournaments with added cash for Open pros continues.  30+ years and still looking.  That is the piece of the puzzle that the Type A players have always been missing.  They want you to put on an event with a lot of added cash and a fat payout to the Open winner, and they want you to find that sponsor for them.  All they really want to do is show up and play for the imaginary pot of gold.  If this was a fairy tale, we could wave a magic wand and make them happy.  Since this is real-life, they will just have to continue to complain.

[stpitner]

Big-time Sponsorship can happen - just only at the bigger tournaments, AND there needs to be more fans just there to watch.  If you can get that gallery size to increase, then a sponsor is more willing to drop the cash because more people will see the name.

If would be interesting if they made it for A-tiers or higher where it's paid top 1/3rd, everything else is flatter payouts.  That would help differentiate a big time tournament versus a promoting the game locally to garner more interest.

Unfortunately this wouldn't really help out the situation of payouts for smaller tournaments, but it might start bringing more people to play those smaller ones if they start seeing the bigger ones!

[Working Stiff]

Big-time Sponsorship can happen - just only at the bigger tournaments, AND there needs to be more fans just there to watch.  If you can get that gallery size to increase, then a sponsor is more willing to drop the cash because more people will see the name.

If would be interesting if they made it for A-tiers or higher where it's paid top 1/3rd, everything else is flatter payouts.  That would help differentiate a big time tournament versus a promoting the game locally to garner more interest.

Unfortunately this wouldn't really help out the situation of payouts for smaller tournaments, but it might start bringing more people to play those smaller ones if they start seeing the bigger ones!

It seems to me that if the PDGA wants people on the road that the payouts would have to be flatter at the A's & NT's as well.  If so-and-so average pro is going to be able to afford to make the next event he has to make some money. 

Like everybody else, I'd like to think of disc golf events as good sponsorship opportunities.  But the reality is that even a lot of A's and NT have less than 200 players, no significant number of spectators and zero media coverage.  Realistically you can get better exposure by sponsoring an Easter egg hunt in the suburbs.  Unless you are a business that actually caters specifically to disc golfers, there are literally thousands of better options that you can use your sponsorship money for. 

The sport has grown a lot since I started playing, but we are still very small potatoes.  It is not impossible that the sport will continue to grow and we may eventually hit the big time, but it is also likely that we will always be a small cult sport of guys playing for each other's money.  For some reason a lot of disc golfers have very unrealistic expectations about this.  I've been hearing this "we are on the edge of a huge breakthrough" talk for years, but all I really see are baby steps.  I don't think this is necessarily anything to complain about, progress is being made.  It is just going to take a long time before this pot of gold is realistic, if ever.

We have cultivated a deep sense of entitlement in our sport.  I remember the first club I joined was because club members could buy discs at basically cost-$5.00!  Our payouts are very fat compared to other amateur sports.  The way things have generally been approached, the payout has always been placed in front of the experience in order of importance.  Maybe it was because all the BoD guys back in the day were old pros from the days when there were no amateurs in the PDGA and the payout was what was important to them.  It ended up with a system where if you didn't get more that your entry fees worth of merch you felt like you got ripped off.   The experience was valued at $ 0.

At any rate, I hope that is changing.  In my mind a weekend of golfing on a good course in a well organized event is worth something no matter if I go home empty-handed or not.  The experience IS worth something, and if it is the work of Terry or Bruce or whoever that provides me with that experience I think they should go home with some of my money in their pocket.  If they did it well, I'll come back and give them more of my money.  Judging the experience based primarily on the payout devalues the actual experience of playing, which is supposed to be why we play in the first place.