he's really going to open the door for what I like to call alternative sports getting big deals. You can make money doing anything if you're good enough and he definitely fits the bill
The thesis of the article seems to be that this isn’t enough. It’s the marketing and social media aspect that makes the money possible.
McBeth might not be the disc golf GOAT, but he’s close and he’s in the right place at the right time and is learning to market himself. His lifetime on the course earnings (again, from the article) are less than 5% of one year of his current endorsement deals.
But then again, maybe disc golf is coming of age in a different era, where social media will just be ingrained moving forward, and it will continue to be just as important, if not more, than your performance on the course.
I think of it not as one type of thing overtaking the other, so much as it is something like an unbundling of the traditional sportsfan experience. The individual athletes will have one set of content, the leagues will have another, and you can participate in either with fewer commitments. Sponsors get a smaller but more focused niche market to tap into.
Maybe, but traditional golf also has the image, historically, of being a sport for the wealthy. I think this becomes sort of self-perpetuating, since it automatically attracts new wealthy people to the sport.
I think the spending power within the group of people that practices the game also affects the size of the total purse.