(upbeat music) - Hello, everyone, and welcome to Disc Golf Daily, a DGPT history. This week, we are joined by Mike Downs. Mike Downs is the Deputy Executive Director of the PDGA, and we'll get into that title here in a little bit. We'll also get into a little bit of his history with the PDGA. First off, Mike, thanks for joining. - Absolutely, thanks for having me. - Yeah, so really what I'd like to start off with, is especially since this is a new podcast, is hearing a little bit from each attendee about sort of how they got into Disc Golf. - Sure, I got into the sport in the mid-1990s. I think I'm actually celebrating my 30th year playing Disc Golf this year. I was freshman at sophomore in high school, maybe 15 years old, and was invited to my first round of Disc Golf with a couple of buddies, and much like anybody else you talk to, as soon as I grabbed a disc and watched it fly, the way it was intended to be flown, I was hooked immediately. So, my first disc was a loner. A buddy of mine gave me a 1993 Purple Ice Bowl Cobra. I remember it very, very well. Unfortunately, I don't still have that disc, but I went out and got myself a putter in a mid-range almost immediately, and was playing Disc Golf just about daily for the next four or five years, actually. At that time, like I said, I was a high school athlete, I was playing soccer, baseball, basketball, that kind of stuff, and I grew up playing golf with my dad and my grandfather, and I immediately latched on to how Disc Golf was very similar to the sport of golf, and that we were throwing our disc from this place to that place, to try to get it to that place. So, it all translated very well for me. So, it was an easy sport to latch on to, and the people that were involved with it, my friends that introduced it to me, were easy reasons to keep going. - That is so great to hear. Ironically, my first disc that I ever had was a Cobra as well. So, it seems like, and I promptly lost it. It's at the bottom of the Illinois Bayou somewhere. (laughing) But yeah, so you've been playing Disc Golf for quite some time, but you obviously haven't been at the PDGA that entire time. How did you end up starting to work with the PDGA? - At that time, when I was playing Disc Golf, when I was introduced to Disc Golf, I lived in Delaware, just outside of Philadelphia. So, I was playing courses, brand new in Creek State Park, White Clay, Sedgley Woods, a lot of Philly folks might remember that name. Steady had had a lot to do with that place. I chose to go to school out at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, and finished my schooling there, and moved on, I was the tour guide at the Grand Canyon. For a while, as you maybe know, I mean, getting a job in the recreation industry as soon as you finish school is kind of a far-fetched idea. So, I took a job as a activity director, or basically an event director at a resort down in Sedona, Arizona. At that time, the PDGA was hiring for an events manager. Events manager was a new concept, or a new position within the PDGA. In fact, they had an events manager for about six months until he decided to move on, which is what they're hiring for. That was at the end of 2012. And again, one of my best friends, one of my coworkers, and someone who I went to school with, Jason Allen was the IDGC superintendent at the time. So, he let me know that PDGA, IDGC, was looking for an events manager through in my resume, tossed my name in the hat, and as a matter of chance, and good fortune, Brian Graham gave me a phone call and gave me an interview, and I was lucky enough to get that position at the end of 2012. So, I started working as the events manager for the PDGA in 2013. At the beginning of the season, the very first event that I went to was the memorial that year, which was the first event on the national tour in 2013, and really got a chance to get my feet wet. Literally, we had a monsoon happen at that event. So, it was kind of interesting that my very first event as the events manager for the PDGA, we definitely had to deal with a less than normal situation, which is typical in top tier disc golf events. You always run into something that you're not used to or accustomed to when you're trained in event management. So, trial by fire, but I'm still here, you know, 11 plus years later. And so, I absolutely love what I do for the PDGA. I loved being involved with the events. My favorite part about that particular position as events manager was meeting the local organizing committees that were responsible for putting on these events. They really are the lifeblood of our sport, and they're the communities that make our support, our sport, just operate really at the most basic levels. And so, being able to work with and connect with those folks is a very, very special aspect of this position and one that I'll cherish. - Yeah, so, man, I'm just thinking, I'm getting sidetracked to the idea of like Vista and a monsoon, and I guess fountain as well, for that matter. Back in the day, I guess what was the events manager position like? I mean, to your point, it was new in the PDGA, and I guess you're gonna have to pardon my ignorance a little bit. I was introduced to the sport in '06, but I didn't start really with tournaments until '09. And so, in 2012, the national tour had existed by that point and was sort of rolling on its own. What was that like? - Yeah, actually, the national tour was developed in 2003. So, it's been around for quite a while, or it had been around for quite a while. At that time, I mean, really, it was just a collection of events that made sense geographically and the flow of what at the time, we thought a touring disc offer, the easiest path for them to make their way from event to event around the country. As these events started to pick up steam, we realized we can't solely rely on the local organizing committee to do all the things that we expect them to do and to expect the event to succeed in terms of its reach to the general public, the competitive experience realized by the competitors, what the volunteers realized while they were there, how it impacted the community. There's a lot of things that go into one of these events and the community in which it resides. So, the PDGA decided to devote resources to supporting the national tour, hence the development of the events manager position. So, we got a trailer, it's funny, a little six by 10 trailer seemed like such a big deal to us at the time, and now a disc off road tour rides with three or four of them to each event, and they're twice that size. So, but yeah, that trailer had some tents, some pop feather banners, things like that, things to help promote the PDGA and brand the PDGA while in these communities in which we're running our top level events, our national tour events. So, it was a very new and developing concept, but my job as events manager was to travel to all of the national tour and to the PDGA major events and then help facilitate them, help the local organizing committee manage the execution of the event, provide resources, provide feedback input on how the event was going to be run, and then of course serve as a competition marshal or rules marshal while the competition was actually happening. So, those were my jobs when it started. The events manager position, of course nowadays the events manager position is an entire operations and logistics team that move multiple trailers around the country servicing multiple disc off road tour and PDGA major events. And it's a team of three folks when back in the day it was just me. So we're happy to say that we are supporting in greater effort these top level events. However, we always want to be there in every way that we can. - Yeah, so as you got into that events manager role, which admittedly is a whole lot of work and especially when you think about the number of majors and national tour events that were going on. Was there anything else at the risk of making it seem like you were just a glutton for punishment? Was there anything else besides like that being on the ground stuff that you were asked to do or that you were doing as far as like the broader events or was it really just sort of focused on that professional side and major side of things? - I still had other responsibilities within your organization absolutely. I was managing the Marco Polo grant program as well as the innovation grant program, both of those in one way shape or form are still in existence today. I was also managing our state coordinators which really just meant I was facilitating and networking with our state coordinators and just trying to make sure that they had an opportunity to work with each other and learn from each other. Gosh, what else? I mean, when I came on with PDJ in 2013 I was the seventh employee to be hired and today we have over 40. So yeah, my job jar was a little bit more broad whereas these days it's definitely a much more narrowed and specific focus. But that was just because of the needs of the organization and the membership at the time. So yeah, nowadays we're lucky enough to be in a more secure position financially and with our resources so that we can provide more resources for our membership and a larger staff so that we can put greater focus on all these things that have importance to us. - Awesome. So the purpose of this podcast really is sort of focus on the start of the disco pro tour and I thought it was really important and especially given your unique background to get some additional information, you know, about who you are as a person, where you came from. And given your time at the PDGA, I'm not sure how much you may have interacted with Steve Dodge. I guess he was running a national tour event at the time or had been, but Steve, you know, has this idea to start a professional tour, I guess, in some ways a for-profit professional tour and just really wanted to hear as that sort of coming about, you know, it's a little bit of a competition against the national tour, but he, I guess, when he initially envisioned it was hoping to sort of merge the two ideas together. And so I'm curious to hear sort of your perspective as the events manager, but also as the PDGA of sort of what that looked like from the PDGA side. - Sure. I'm very familiar with Steve Dodge. Please tell him us at high and give him a hug for me. Number one, Maple Hill, it's had so many different names over the years. At the time, I believe it was the Maple Hill Open and that event very rightfully so, was firmly situated on the national tour. I should go back a little bit and tell you that in 2003, the national tour was over 20 events. And again, it didn't take PDGA management, it just took a connection with the local organizing committees to create this flow, geographically speaking. In order for us to put the proper focus on it and apply the proper support to those events, we had to narrow the national tour itself. And so at that time, 2014, 2015 in that area, the national tour was about eight events, seven or eight events. And Maple Hill had been a staple on that event for so long. So I've gotten to work with Steve many, many times in the past, my first year, 2013. I helped run the Maple Hill Open that year. I should say I helped support the Maple Hill Open. I didn't help run it. So I got to know Steve very, very well. And the property over there at Maple Hill, the whole family, I mean, just a wonderful group of people, go ahead just a tiny little bit. I know that we're supposed to be focusing on 2015, but I believe 2016 was the very first ever, and possibly only to this day, co-branded event in that it was a DGPT event. It was the first DGPT event, but it was also an event that was situated on the national tour in that people were earning points for the national tour, for the tour series bonus and all that kind of good stuff. So it was a very exciting time. And as a PDGA employee and the person that was responsible for helping, you know, facilitate the national tour, I know, so competition is a very interesting word. And that's obviously what a lot of us are focused on is sanctioned disc golf competition. But in this regard, I saw this competition as a very healthy and beneficial way for disc golfers, for professional disc golfers to actually make a sustainable living playing disc golf. All of a sudden it wasn't just one tour with a few events that were handing out a couple thousand dollars to the winner at the end of each event. Now there were two tours that players could choose from, and actually when we were doing scheduling, we were smart enough to kind of stay off of each other's toes so that competitors or players would have an opportunity to compete on both tours. And it would also not stifle the growth of one versus the other. So for me personally, it was a very exciting time for the sport of disc golf, for professional disc golf in general. We should flip really quickly to the media part of things here, the media discussion because my peer, my co-worker at the time, Matt Greg, while a lot of people know him as Marty, Marty was the media manager for the PDGA. And it was his job to work with companies like Joe Med, Central Coast who were really up and comers at the time, 2014, 2015, they were just kind of getting started. And we're doing post-production stuff on their own. They would fly out to events, they would film this stuff, and they would put it out on their own. So Marty started working with some of these companies and hiring them to come out and film our events. Obviously Steve and the Disc Golf Pro Tour had bigger visions in mind when it came to promotion of professional disc golf and how it was to be marketed across the national landscape. And so that was very exciting to us as well. It was really cool for Marty to be able to kind of intertwine with them and kind of understand the bigger picture vision that Disc Golf Pro Tour had about putting Disc Golf on the grand stage. So it was really interesting from the competitive aspect, but also from a marketing and from a media aspect. What DGPT had going on and what Steve Dodge had going in his mind was extremely exciting. And I wouldn't say that the PDJ was ever fearful of it. I would say that we were more excited by it and excited for the possibilities and the potential of it. We've never again, never wanted to stifle growth, especially when someone is doing something great in a space that we are not already excelling. And the Disc Golf Pro Tour was committed to putting more resources, more time and more effort into making each of their events consistent across the tour. And that was one thing that we were not able to provide with the larger staff and with somewhat of a disconnected schedule in terms of the events that we managed throughout the year. Again, consistency has always been a goal of mine from event to event. And so it was great for me to be able to work with people like Steve Dodge and eventually Jeff Spring to bring consistency to professional level of the sport. So I only think that good things came from the introduction and the development of the Disc Golf Pro Tour. And eventually, kind of the dissipation of the national tour because the PDJ recognized what was developing and recognized the potential for its greatness. And we're not wants to stifle that growth. So we wanted to help enable and support the Disc Golf Pro Tour in every way that we could to make them successful. Yeah, so and this might be something that because as an employee, you might not have had as much insight into it. And if so, that's fine. So last week, we talked with Bob Decker, who was on the PDGA board at the time. And Steve had in 2014, sort of, proposed the idea of one tour, right, instead of the two different ones, instead of the national tour and the pro tour existing separately. And basically, through a series of events, it was decided by the board to not go in that direction. And so I'm curious if you had any sort of insight into those discussions or how that maybe played out on that end, or if it was really just a board thing. I think one of the things that a lot of people who just are casual Disc Golf observers may not understand the full breakdown of the differentiation between the board that oversees the PDGA, the executive director, and then the rest of the PDGA employees. So that might be helpful to explain too. Sure, yeah, and I mean, that's a solid question. Again, at the time, our staff was very small. So the conversations that happened at the board level were exclusive to the board and were not carried over to the staff, unless there were action items that came out of those discussions. That said, the staff did hear word of the concept at the very least. And again, as someone that worked closely with Steve Dodge, he and I had talks about it. I mean, we had discussions about what it would look like if there was one professional tour for the MPO and FPO division. So I mean, I kind of knew what was coming, but that said, I wasn't privy to the conversations within the board. So I'm sure that Bob had some opinions that I'm just not aware of, but at the time, as I said, the staff, when we learned of this, we saw it as an opportunity and not a threat, which is very important to kind of make known here. I just, it was something like, again, like I said, competition drives goodness out of those competitors, right? And so we wanted to up our game to make sure that it was as best as it could be for those national tour level events. And of course, the Disc Golf Pro Tour wanted to jump off on a good foot and make sure that they made a big splash in the Disc Golf world when they started. So for us personally, I mean, there was a feeling of excitement, anticipation, not really knowing what was coming. I would guess that the board had a sentiment of excitement as well, but also a little bit of speculation, right? Like, what is this? What's it gonna be? Is it gonna be sustainable? Is it something that we can put our stock into that will last into the future? Or do we need to kind of hang onto the NT as a just in case until we realize, you know, this is something that we expect it to be? So, you know, there was a bit of dialogue between the board and the staff at that point, but really it was just to make us aware that these conversations were happening so that when I got on site to Maple Hill and to some of these other events that I understood, that dynamic and the, you know, the discussion that was taking place behind the scenes and how that might affect our path towards the future. Eventually, gone ahead into 2016, that was the year we first tried that co-branded event, it went really well. Really exciting finish, I remember Bradley Williams, I think was the winner of that year, was a really, really super cool finish. That was coincidentally the very first year I met Jeff Spring. I remember Jeff and a buddy of his were up there promoting the Brewster Ridge Open and promoting Smuggler's notch. And they sucked me into their booth and we got to talk in and really, really got along with Jeff and I said, man, I've got to make my trip up to this place. It sounds amazing. Later that year, I did a site visit during the Green Mountain Championships and then two years later, we obviously had the pro worlds at Smuggler's notch. So, really, really cool sequence of events that led to not only the kind of the birth or the development of the Disc Golf Pro Tour, but relationships between the PDGA and Jeff Spring, eventually the CEO, relationships between myself and Steve Dodge, the PDGA and the Disc Golf Pro Tour. So, there was a lot going on and it was very, very exciting. And one last thing I do want to note about that time, the fandom was really starting to pick up and this is pre-pandemic, right? So, Disc Golf wasn't as on the map as it is now. We didn't have as many CBS sports shows as we do now and things like that. It wasn't as known to the general public, but I, as the events manager, noticed that like, man, we went from 40 people watching that now we've got 400 crazy people running around Maple Hill. This is awesome, right? So, the atmosphere at these events was just through the roof. And so, that's kind of when I think all of us looked around and we were like, yeah, there's something special going on here. So, really thankful to the vision of Steve and to the dedication of Jeff for seeing that vision through. - Yeah, that's as unique that the story about Jeff and his booth at the Maple Hill Tournament is the second time that we've made that into the podcast so far. So, I guess he was really good at what he was doing. And it's funny because even the, it's actually something that Smuggler's not so continues to do to this day. They still actually set up that booth at Maple Hill to promote the resort. And it's really interesting to me to see, you know, some of these things, you know, I've been in existence for eight years, you know, or more. So, yeah, so I think it, you know, it makes sense that the board is sort of looking at this a little bit differently than the PDGA staff is looking at it. As you went into sort of 2015, one of the things that you talked about was like the standardization of things and how you want things to be consistent. You were excited that the Pro Tour was hopefully going to bring that too. And at the risk of sort of diving a little bit into 2016, maybe more than I want to, I am curious to hear just while I'm thinking about it, like what were some of the things maybe that the Pro Tour was bringing that you took notes on or even as that first sort of crossover event, things that you sort of, you know, pushed on to Steve and said, hey, like, doing things this way might help the tour a whole lot. - That's a good question. I mean, there was a lot going on, a lot of different ideas, right? Steve, Steve, and he will definitely correct me where I'm wrong. I'm not gonna say if I'm wrong, but where I'm wrong, he will probably correct me. But Steve had a vision of kind of equally bringing competition and media to the forefront. So not just putting a highlight on the competition itself, but like, you know, turning these players, these athletes into relatable people, putting personalities behind them. That was a big step because, you know, at that point, we were just trying to get disc golf into the face of more people. But who are these athletes? Who are the people playing disc golf, right? So, you know, it really took a special touch and someone like Steve to wanna highlight that. So that was something that we looked to do as well. So a lot of the things that Steve had in mind in terms of media and marketing, the pro tour and the sport itself were things that we latch onto as the national tour. At that time, and gosh, you know, it even continues to this day, a lot of times our mantra, our motto, as the competition team or the operations and logistics team is competition comes first. So, I mean, that's why we were all there to begin with, right? So, you know, kind of the sacredness and the consistency of those competitions from one to the next was something that the national tour and we prodded ourselves on. And one thing that we really wanted Steve to recognize because yes, he was, is outstanding at running that event on his home turf because he's familiar with it. He knows the people that he's working with and all that kind of stuff. But when you go to a place like Smuggler's Nach or, you know, Idlewild or, you know, any of these other places, you're working with a different group of people, different organizers, different community leaders, different city people. You know, so there's a different dynamic everywhere you go and it's not as easy to apply that or find that consistency from event to event. So these are kind of things that we shared back and forth. You know, Steve and his desire to really push the media side of things forward and us with our desire to always make sure that the structure and the integrity of the competition was first and foremost. So I think, you know, kind of the blend of those two is really evident in what you see today in the Disc Golf Pro Tour because obviously the development of the Disc Golf Network and Disc Golf Media has skyrocketed as has the professionalism and the structure in which these events take place. - Yeah, and I really think to heart him back to sort of one of the things you talked about at the beginning about what you loved about your job is like getting connect with these different local organizing committees. It's something that when I worked at the Pro Tour, I cherished as well. I mean, I have a few other friends in the industry that we joke all the time. We know that if we're anywhere in the world, you know, I have to say world now, it's not just the United States, but if we're anywhere in the world, it's pretty easy to find a Disc Golfer who's going to help you if you need something. But more importantly, those connections to know just different people who are running quality tournaments across the country. It's not just, sometimes people hone in on like an elite few people. There's, you know, people all across the country who are running these events that are quality enough to be a major or a Pro Tour event. And it's great to see how each of them do it, but at the same time provide a little bit of structure so that there's some consistency across the board too. And I think that you're, you know, one of the guys who definitely helped pioneer that. - Well, thanks and I take pride in that. I mean, honestly, when I started with the PDJ, one of my goals, I was a player at the time. I was playing a lot of events, you know, in the MPO field and I've played the Memorial year after year and, you know, a number of other larger competitions and not to slight my current employer, but at the time, you know, there were a lot of gaps. There were a lot of things that weren't going well in some of these big events. They were different from event to event, you know, the things that broke down. So one of my goals when I came on with the PDJ was to bring more consistency to the table and to make sure that, you know, when a player went from event to event on the national tour, that their experience at those events was very similar from one to the next to the next. So I take a lot of pride in what you just said, being one of those pioneers because ultimately, my goal was to get the pro side of the sport to where it is today. And whether that was through my own means, you know, the means of, you know, a third party like the Disc Golf Pro Tour or combined effort all the way across the board, I consider it and I hope the PDGA and the Disc Golf Pro Tour considers it to be a success of where it is now because, you know, I mean, it's awesome. When you watch one of these big events now, I mean, the Swedish Open, it just took place, the number of spectators, the energy that is in the air when you're watching an event like that. And I'm doing so from thousands of miles away from home on my computer and you still feel it, it's palpable. That is exciting to me. And so, you know, you talk about what I love about my job, it'd be hard press to find things that I don't like about my job because I get to work in the sport of Disc Golf. I do want to go back really quick, Seth, and I'm sorry to go on tangents here, but you mentioned that that was the second time that someone had brought up Jeff and his booth and how good of a job he must have been doing, how good Steve Dodge was at getting people latched onto his vision of the Disc Golf Pro Tour. One thing that is very, very consistent between those two people, Jeff Spring and Steve Dodge. And I like to think myself too, we're people people, we're people persons, you know what I mean? We really like and enjoy interacting with people in different communities and from different walks of life and getting to understand why they love Disc Golf and why they want to compete in some of their events and some other events around the country. You know, the attitude that these people bring to the table is infectious. And it's evident in the pro side of the sport today. - I love that and to be honest, I think that that's probably a great place for us to just wrap up because I don't know if we could have said it much better. And so I really appreciate you taking the time to give us some insight into sort of how the pro side of the game grew. I think that it's a part of the history of the sport that we don't hear a lot of anymore. People who've been around, no bits and pieces of it, but they maybe don't know the whole story. And so I really appreciate the time that you took today to share that with us. And I look forward to continuing to tell the story and hopefully even having you back on again in the future as we talk about sort of the growth of the tour and how things began to shift in the professional side of the game. So thanks again. - I would love to, I'm honored to and it's absolutely a pleasure, Seth. Thanks for having me. (upbeat music) - Thank you so much for watching. Please like, subscribe, comment and share. It really does help us grow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
