📈 Signature line bubble

📉 Supply & Demand, $300k Tournament, and Frozen Discs

February 02, 2022

Hello and welcome to the home stretch of the off-season. 9 days until we see most of the All-Stars in Arizona.

Let’s get into this week.

Will the Disc Market be Saturated?

Or maybe it’s already there… Here’s the known pros who have or will have a signature line of discs:

Paul McBeth - Paige Pierce - Ricky Wysocki - Catrina Allen - James Conrad - Kevin Jones - Cale Leiviska - Drew Gibson - Eagle McMahon/Simon Lizotte (❓)

McBeth started the trend of having a signature line owned by the player and manufactured by their sponsor. Each disc is designed specifically by & for the player based on their wants, needs, or what sells.

Probably half of the listed players can drive sales to warrant having a signature line. In 2021, McBeth believes he made a little over $1.5 million including all sponsors and royalties.

But he’s literally at the top of the top. He wins. He’s marketable. And he seems to know what he’s doing when it comes to business.

So how can these pros make the hype LAST? It might be a simple question of supply & demand. For example, Discmania does a great job of having limited stock while building their hype cycles.

Or the number of buyers needs to increase (grow the sport). Foundations aimed at introducing DG to the youth or communities help with that. As well as more non-endemic sponsors and agents to land them (Shaffer, Beacon).

In 4 years, will you buy an Airborn Falcor over a stock Prodigy D2 Pro?

Fresh Plastic

1/ More details came out on Cale Leiviska’s new mold. He is in fact getting his own signature set of 4 discs manufactured by Prodigy.

The first will be an OS distance driver called the Airborn Falcor available this month. The following 3 will be a fairway driver, mid-range, and putter to fill the set.

2/ Along with Catrina Allen and DGA’s announcement, they released a prototype fairway driver that was designed to her liking. The last disc DGA had PDGA approved was the Hypercane back in 2020.

The proto disc is described as having fairway driver distance with mid-range accuracy. And has not been PDGA approved, so comparisons can’t be made yet.

To everyone asking if she’s going to bag the Zone, Allen doesn’t plan on throwing any Discraft. If she needs to fill a slot in her bag, then she’ll work with DGA to create a new mold.

Seems like Allen is going to get a lot out of this partnership, cause DGA really does have that basket money.

Winner Takes All

This week on Running It, Dylan Cease (pitcher for Chicago White Sox) ran an idea of his by Nate Sexton. When (not if) he lands a huge contract in the MLB, he wants to buy some beautiful land near a major city and build an epic course.

At his eventual course, Cease wants to host the top 30 pros with a ~$300k winner-take-all tournament. All the expenses would be paid with rules involved to prevent pot splitting discussions.

With no financial risks to the players involved, this could be a really big event for DG. It would almost have a skins match vibe with players going for it all.

It might affect Sexton’s active cash streak. Although, no one would hold this one against him.

Random Triples

  1. If you’re prepping for a winter round, don’t leave your discs outside overnight. Plastic becomes more brittle when exposed to extreme temps for extended periods. Just put them out an hour before your round to make sure the snow doesn’t stick.

  2. Want to help out a fellow Gyronaut? Madison Walker reached out to the gyro community for specific lightweight MVP molds. Take a look at her spreadsheet and reach out if you have what she needs.

  3. Another Adam Hammes highlight. He bags a throw-in eagle and the win this weekend at the 2022 Maricopa open (B-Tier).

Meme of the Week

Thanks for reading today. Get out and beat your friends this weekend!

- Charlie

What'd you think of this week's edition?