The Upshot: Sponsorship News, Natalie Ryan Settlement, 30 Second Rule

Charlie Eisenhood and guest host Brian Earhart discuss the latest sponsorship news and discuss how the player market has changed in 2024. They also look at the PDGA’s settlement with Natalie Ryan before diving into a 30 Second Rule touching on European Silver events, Worlds in Finland in 2025, Joe Chargualaf leaving as the PDGA Executive Director, and Ricky’s Bitcoin Bonus.

Support Ultiworld Disc Golf with a subscription: https://ultiworld.com/subscribe-disc-golf/?dg

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
4:30 Sponsorship News
23:00 Ryan/PDGA Settlement
31:15 30 Second Rule

Check out our website: https://discgolf.ultiworld.com
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UltiworldDiscGolf
Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/UltiworldDG
See us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/UltiworldDiscGolf

Welcome to the upshot ulti World disc golfs podcast about the latest in the disc golf world I am the publisher Charlie Eisen Hood with you on this Tuesday January 2nd 2024 happy New Year everybody joining me today is Brian aart back on the Pod Brian what’s up man not

Much just sitting here in Charlotte North Carolina finally starting to get a little ansy for the season I uh I was really enjoying the off season but I feel like now that the new year has come around I feel like I’m ready to talk some disc golf and get back on the road

I know I mean it’s we’re not so far away we’re like What six weeks is from the Allstar Weekend which is going to be held in Florida at the now Olympus course uh that will also play host to the first event of the year the chess.com Invitational is that what it’s

Called I think it’s the Florida chess.com Florida Invitational presented by Discraft okay something like that it’s pretty you got it you got all the powered by presented by stuff um Josh Mansfield you know I’m back I’m I’m I’m back from fraternity Leaf as of today and Josh Mansfield just no-showed he’s

Just like oh I’m on vacation you know I I don’t that’s it’s it’s wrong that’s slacking right there Charlie it’s bad it’s it’s really slacking um did you get any nice holiday gifts oh man you know I I just moved into a house um first home that I’ve

Ever bought here in Charlotte that’s that’s an immense gift yeah it it was a gift that we gave ourselves but uh six minutes away from Hornet’s Nest and in a really nice area of Charlotte which is enjoyable but a lot of the gifts that I received were um like housewarming type

Type gifts and a lot of them quite cheesy um and not not usable but I did get a Slap Chop from my father uh which I didn’t think I would like but boy howdy is it a a kitchen staple now if you need to cut up an onion there’s nothing faster unbelievable it’s

Unbelievable I I felt like I was living a thousand years in the future amazing and you don’t you don’t burn your eyes I I I get just crushed when I cut onions I really should get one of those I I haven’t thought about Slap Chop in like

20 years until you just said that but I used to watch The infomercials unbelievable in infomercials as well yes I I used to enjoy sitting and watching infomercials like when I was a kid just sit and be like wow this is amazing look at this knife look how the knife do the

Cutting uh I got let’s see what did I get I well I bought myself like a thousand mystery boxes which are soon to be unboxed I heard about that yeah how did that go well I haven’t opened them yet so they’re piling up behind me I’m

Waiting on the dis Mania black box now and then I think after that I’m going to open them all up and I’m going to do like a full review and you know the highs and the lows all of it I also got I I know you’re a chess guy I’m a back

Amon guy I got a beautiful back Amon board it’s like my first professional board so I’m excited I got big back gam tournament coming up later this week really yes on the board New York metropolitan open uh yes I will take my board it’s like the second it might be

The biggest tournament in the US or the second biggest so exciting stuff enjoy thank you um I hope you get to meet awesome chess.com people in Florida by the way I cannot wait I have been a chess freak for uh a little bit now and

Uh it’s it’s such a nice way to cut the fat of of thinking about disc golf 247 uh it’s great to just get lost in uh a game of chess where you don’t have to talk about anybody or have anyone talk to you it’s just it’s great all right

Well let’s let’s get to talking about the dis golf news of the past few weeks uh of course I’ve been away since Thanksgiving I was kind of on the show but we did pre-recorded episodes for quite a while there I popped in for the MC Beth interview a couple weeks ago but

Uh lots to discuss and we’re going to begin with what is now you know sort of the first show of the Year tradition which is talking about all of the player movement now we still are waiting on many of the biggest names to announce their destinations um but here is what we do

Have right now the biggest news from the past day or two uh Emerson Keith is joining Inova we already knew that he was leaving lonar dis uh and then Ganon bur and Alden Harris both announced that they are leaving Prodigy neither neither of them has announced yet where they’re

Headed in 2024 but of course Ganon leaving widely expected Alden leaving maybe a little bit more of a surprise but doesn’t feel like uh way off the map in terms of sort of what you what what we’s kind of seen from Prodigy uh over the last couple years um elsewhere Macy

V Diaz is leaving Dynamic Discs Jessica whis and Bradley Williams upgraded to the Star team at Inova which is Lar l ly the same team as it was a year ago plus Emerson Keith um I’ll pause there thoughts on this uh particularly you know maybe Ganon leaving Prodigy he

Had a pretty funny announcement video actually let’s take a quick listen and watch of uh ganon’s announcement video on Instagram happy New Year everyone 20123 was an amazing disc golf season I had five disc golf protour wins met some amazing people and played some awes awesome courses out there I also had a

Ton of fun with my friends on the road after seven Great years I will be officially leaving team Prodigy at this time I need to make the choice of a champion to continue to be the Leading Edge in this sport I’m a dynamic player and I believe I need to reinvent my game

To be the world leader in disc Sports make sure to be on the lookout for an announcement soon I can’t wait for the 2024 season and I hope to see you guys out there first reaction is that he knows what he’s doing he’s actually quite social media Savvy and I love his eye

For satire he has such a dry sense of humor and I will say the same thing about Alden Harris too so I mean if Alden ever wants to stop playing disc golf for a living he probably has a another career lined up for him in whether it’s social media management or

Content creation uh he could be the next Wendy’s Twitter uh that’s that’s what I see uh for Alden but for Ganon he knows exactly what he’s doing he’s he’s just giving everybody what they want and regardless of where he goes I just love the way he he thinks

About the game and thinks about himself he he can be critical of himself but still have a sense of humor about it he doesn’t take things too personally uh yeah Ganon is just in his element right here and I think I know where he’s going I’ve heard some rumors but we’ll just

Have to see I’m sure he’s uh got a surprise up his sleeve well for anybody who may have like missed what he did there in that video uh he referenced like five or six different companies slogans in talking about uh you know his future uh in a complete dead pan so good

Stuff from Ganon and uh you know I think there’s he’s certainly been one of the widely expected free agents that’s going to land somewhere the other player that we haven’t heard anything about one way or the other yet is Eagle McMahon yes and I mean there’s been a lot of talk

About him leaving dis Mania we know that he’s been looking uh you know at his options in the marketplace and we haven’t heard him we haven’t heard an announcement that he’s leaving discmania um maybe there’s been some little signs that perhaps he is leaving with discmania releasing more of their

Eagle discs from the past and just like you know there’s been a lot of smoke and a lot of times where there’s smoke there’s fire when it comes to these sponsorship announcements Brian you know Eagle I think will be the biggest free agent move if it happens uh even above

Ganon just because he’s of the longevity in his sport and the the majors that he’s won and and kind of his profile particularly in Europe true uh I will say that there is a bit of mystery surrounding Eagle right now I mean everyone’s wondering you know where his

Uh healing is going to go in regards to the big injuries that he sustained and the surgeries and all all sorts of things there there’s still some unknowns there so companies are going to have to really take a risk and it’s weird to even say that but he’s pretty

Injury-prone so company’s going to have to take a risk on him and I know that he’s going to come out on the other side better I mean this past season I thought was a great example of him adapting to his his situation uh you know even the

Year prior he threw that Lefty backhand on whole two at the European open because he couldn’t throw forehand just gave us an absolute stunner of a show probably the best disc golf that we’ve watched in years but then this season he threw some forehand but the backhand

Started evolving in this really cool way he was able to start shaping the disc because he was forcing himself to do that rather than just going heer Heiser forehand backhand so I think he’s just going to keep evolving as a player and yeah whoever lands him is going to be in

For a treat I think his best golf is still ahead of him I yeah you know it’s it’s always a question mark with like recovering from a surgery like this but you know Dodgers signed Otani coming off surgery and like I know Tommy JN is different than like laum repair but it

Just feels like even if he only gets back to kind of like the static place that he was going into the surgery he’s still a potential multi- tournament winner Major Champion player not at his best at like 80% of his best and so I I

Don’t know I I I think you might think that eagle would like not get the same kinds of offers and like the bids would be down for his sponsorship services but I don’t think that’s the case because I think that people recognize that like he’s played through this and been

Extremely good I mean he was probably the best player in no in like the last three months of the Season true and I think you can also think about it like this in disc golf if you want to get a decent contract especially if you’re like a mid-level player uh to Middle

Upper class player you have to start a bidding war with the companies and W with a player like Eagle it’s not going to be one company saying hey we’d like to sign you any company would like to sign Eagle so regardless of what a company wants to pay for him they’re

Going to have to probably pay more because all the companies are wanting uh to at least give him some sort of offer so I think he’s one of the few players still that has that bidding war whenever they go up for free agency I feel like

2020 2021 you know that big covid boom era there was a lot of bidding wars happening for a lot of players um but as that dies down I think he’s one of the only remaining people that’s going to have that yeah I want to talk about big

Picture in just a second uh let me run through some more notes and news uh Nicholas anela announced that he is leaving dis Mania that was a bit of a surprise I think um you know dis Mania has talked about we had UC on the show

Six months ago or so and they talked about their priorities were resigning Nicholas and eagle and we haven’t heard well Nicholas is leaving and Eagle maybe is leaving so where’s dis Mania um in in all this uh Chris Clemens announced that he is leaving Dynamic Discs uh so you

Know I said a while ago when he changed his handle from DD clemon a to DG clema I was like nah this is just this is just uh offse in h jinkx but wrong he’s uh he is making the move um no announcement yet for where he is headed although lots

Of speculation about him landing at Discraft um I think his van was spotted in the Discraft parking lot that’s another a classic offseason situation uh low Leon returning with latitude 64 Katrina Allen announced that she is uh remaining with DGA in 2024 uh her contract has never been made like fully

Public whether it was multi-year from the from the outset um and so unclear whether this was a renewal or just that she’s still under contract um so Brian you know we’re still waiting on a lot of news from various free agents including Nicholas and eagle and Ganon um and

Still some other players who are up for renewals that haven’t announced anything one way or the other like Paige Pierce um but I I just kind of like big picture what are you feel like you’re seeing from the spons ship market right now because it’s been a much less crazy year

Than what we saw last season um now there’s still time for things to get wild we didn’t hear about Simon lazat signing with MVP until late in January of 2023 so who knows but uh where do you see the market right now yeah uh I I

Think of the the children’s book If You Give a Mouse of a cookie have you heard of that book Charlie sure if you give a mouse world of books If You Give a Mouse a Cookie it’s going to ask for milk and if you give it milk it’s going to ask for

The next thing and I feel like for a couple years that’s where player contracts went I mean they just got better and better and better and they went deeper and deeper and deeper but I feel like the market eventually as a lot of people have said is going to start

Maturing and companies are going to start looking at Roi a little bit more especially as companies start um consolidating like house discs for example um I think they’re all going to start looking at the Players a little bit more closely like hey you know you’re a great player but you you’re

Getting 15th Place every weekend which is great but you’re not getting us any publicity you’re not giving us any return um I’ve talked to a few midlevel Pros that are still really solid players that are saying it’s kind of a desert out there right now it’s very difficult

To create that bidding war like I had said um to even just drum up interest unless you are one of those hot ticket items that truly sells discs for the the company so um I don’t think this is scary um I think this just reminds me of

Where it was before covid that’s that’s just how it was I mean yes we have million-dollar contracts that are starting to change the perception of of what it means to be a touring professional but really at the heart of it all is still the Grinders that are

Out there on the road doing it because they love doing it and um it really reminds me of the sport of bowling I mean it’s not a perfect comparison but there’s there’s Bowlers who are multi-millionaires making a lot of money and then there’s infinitely more that are just cutting their teeth getting

From tournament to tournament trying to make it happen and they’re all really good just hoping to make that one break that puts them in the spotlight so um I don’t know in disc golf even being in the spotlight for a short period of time doesn’t secure you any sort of deal so

I’m interested to see where this maturation goes yeah I mean I think it’s it’s power law distribution where you have 5% of pro dis golfers making like 80% of the money MH um and I think the because of how much growth there was in disc golf overall over the

Last three years companies were like we’re so flush with cash like let’s just throw the bag at people like oh like we want to grow our team like mid- tier players who finished 24th on the pro tour last year here’s a monster contract relative to what you’ve been getting in

The past and I think the thing is like when when we have a down year or like a flattish year like 2023 was for for disc golf and just like the oversupply issues starting to become an issue and sales are down like down a little bit across the

Board then companies start to look at it and go oh like the players that are selling discs are these like top five players and these middle pack players they’re not selling discs anymore they might have been selling discs a year ago because people just wanted to buy any disc possible so

If you wanted a particular mold and you could only find it as a tour series from you know middle of the- pack player you buy it and it’s look that looks like sales attributable to the player but maybe it wasn’t maybe it was just sales attributable to the vast demand for

Discs relative to the supply so I think what you’re going to see is that that’s just flattens out a lot and and companies recognize that and then like the contract starts to fall out a little bit for those players that doesn’t surprise me at all it’s like a

Very natural part of where we are in the market cycle for disc golf something that I noticed is the newer generation of player is playing and going on tour to get that million dollar contract um I I think just one generation before for like the Kyle kleines and Nicholas

Antillas and those players I look at my generation you know I I only toured for four years but you know like myself Perkins Luke Humphries um Eric Oakley you know there’s a there’s a lot of guys in that class that kind of came around the scene at the same time that we’re

Trying to play and make a living as a professional disc golfer but to make a living we also had to pick up side gigs and do media and make sure we were out there doing clinics and all sorts of other work to to not only get our name

Out there but to just make enough money to get to the next week but that also takes away from you playing to beat Paul MC Beth who was the same agees us so it was kind of a tricky situation and you had to take a big risk if you wanted to

Just throw everything aside and and only compete and only try to make that money uh or or make the money from the big player contract right um so now the difference is you know Ganon Burr is not going to go do commentary he’s not going to go do post- production commentary uh

At you know seven in the morning before he plays that’s just not going to happen um so you have to make some more intentional decisions I feel like the competition’s only getting tougher year after year um and you’re going to have to compete with guys like Kyle Klein and

Nichas who’s training super hard in the off season and Ganon and um Cole Ral and I mean the list goes on and on at this point and there’s even more 16 17 year olds waiting to do the exact same thing with little to no risk um so yeah I

Don’t know that’s kind of where I I see it and it’s going to be tough for for touring players in the next five years yeah I I think that’s right and I I want to point out this chart uh this comes from the fandom survey within the past

12 months have you purchased a touring or Signature Series disc for any of these players now you know I don’t know something like 3,500 or 4,000 people filled the survey out it’s not an exhaustive list of all disc golfers in the universe but I think it’s a pretty

Good snapshot we’ll put it up on the screen here on YouTube and what you can see see 40% of respondents said that they bought a Simon laat disc in the last 12 months okay that is an enormous number and shows you exactly why MVP was willing to pay him a huge deal because

He is one of those top three guys who can really move plastic and that certainly happened uh but then look at the drop off MC Beth at 26% Calvin heinberg at 21% Kristen Tatar at 19% by by far are the most you know pres presumably valuable Foo player

Based on this metric um and then Eagle at 18% and then another big drop down to Nate ston at 133% who just keeps on selling those Firebirds he just keeps on selling them boom boom boom he’s got that for maybe the next 25 years he’ll keep selling the Firebirds um but then

You know you get below 10% pretty quick you know it’s it’s Ricky at 12 Brody at 12 and then James Conrad at at 9% and then you know you got to go look Gan bur only 5% whether that’s attributable to how people perceive Ganon or whether it’s a

Prodigy issue that is an astonishingly low number for a player who is his good as he is I agree uh I I I agree but also he’s still trying to make a name for himself he’s still trying to make a brand for himself I think he’s finally done that

And I think moving companies you know given that doesn’t stay with Prodigy like he said um I think it’s going to be good for him um it’s not like a knock to Prodigy I think a change of scenery is good when you are known as a young you

Know upand Comer at one company now you can Rebrand yourself and reinvent yourself as a superstar with another company um and when I look at him play and when I listen to him you know talk about the game he is already a superstar I mean he’s a genius when it comes to

The game and how he thinks about it um if you haven’t watched my episode of catch that I did with him he literally gives like a 15minute clinic of some of the most cool philosophical uh you know theories on his his idea of throwing and what’s optimal at the pro level I mean

The the kid is just really really smart and gifted and not only is he smart he’s just mind-bogglingly talented at such a young age so um I love that he’s putting weight on I love that he’s putting muscle on I mean he’s doing everything that he needs to do to remain a

Superstar and and continue to mature um I I mean he’s going to be he’s going to be the best player in the world for a while if he continues on this pace it’s it’s pretty incredible yeah well Isaac Robinson hopes to do something about that we’ll

See what happens as now Isaac is the clear and obvious face of Prodigy definitely for 2024 um more to come on all the sponsorship stuff as the uh big contract s fall into place going to move on now to a story that’s now couple weeks old this was dropped Friday before Christmas

In the afternoon like Ultra news dump uh and that is that Natalie Ryan has settled with the PDGA the PDGA dropped its pre-puberty transition rule for players who want to compete in fpo at um you know Elite Series and Majors uh which basically was a rule that effectively barred transgender

Women from playing uh in the division of course this was the subject of the lawsuits that Natalie filed in California and Minnesota um and that is now settled pjj dropped the rule and said that they would not have that rule in place for at least two years through

2024 and 2025 which opens the door for Natalie to play a full touring season it not just at you know in liberal states if you will but across the entire tour uh the pro tour has adopted the slightly stricter stance of the rules that are still in place which there are I mean

You have to there’s testosterone limits um the pro tour is also requiring that any transgender women who want to play an Foo uh go through and have doctor signed that they went through um surgery uh to sort of affirm their gender so uh Natalie Ryan will be touring again in

2024 and 2025 uh there were no other terms of the settlement release but it is possible that there was a uh payment involved in this and this is ultimately the resolution to this uh this issue that that began about this time a year ago and uh you know the pro tour and the

PDGA found out the hard way that they were not in a position legally to fight this battle and you know it cost them way too much money the PDGA insinuated that they that they lost money in 201 23 for the first time in a long time because they

Were fighting this battle and so uh it is now you know this is basically a full concession to Natalie Ryan who uh managed to just out maneuver them in the courts yeah and and before I say anything about this I I I have to say as a member of the media who interviews

Players of all ideologies uh it’s not my job to to have an opinion on whether or not it’s good or bad that transgender players play in the FP division it’s my job to represent anybody who’s allowed to play in that division on that whatever weekend and give them the respect they

Deserve if they get an interview so I’m coming at this from a very objective angle um because of that but it doesn’t this doesn’t surprise me at all I mean when when you first came out with your podcast when this whole thing came down and they um banned transgender players

From the FBO division um it just felt so fast it felt like it was it was rushed and push through and it’s kind of like man this is so much bigger than disc golf uh this is way bigger than disc golf this is like an unprecedented uh issue that the sporting

World is having to take on and uh what do we expect trying to be you know the big dog on campus when really were a very small fish in a very large ocean um so we’ll see what happens I mean it sounds like they’re going to have to

Take a a step back and just sit down and watch what happened in the rest of the sporting world and and move on from there so none of this surprises me that that they reach a settlement that Natalie’s going to be able to play that transgender players in general not just

Natalie are going to be able to play in the foo division none of this surprises me like like this is just such a bigger issue than than uh I feel like some people try to make it and you know on either side of this argument people are

Saying that well it shouldn’t be so complicated well when you’re trying to prove something in the court of law it is is pretty complicated and something like this is um something that I hope they figure out in the future because it’s caused a lot of divisiveness um in

Our community and in the entire world so uh fingers crossed things go smoothly but yeah it’s it’s it’s definitely uh def definitely an interesting time for disc golf that’s for sure yeah I mean at the end of the day the decision from the PDGA a year ago was an enormous

Blunder I mean there’s no way around it it’s not like this wasn’t predictable that they were going to end up in court having to spend a lot of money on lawyers and maybe taking losses and and that’s what happened because you know you you you can’t with without an

Established legal precedent here from other sporting organizations they were running this risk and they really should have known a lot better and I think that you know it suggests to me that they need to have a lawyer on their board of directors and they need to have outside people outside

Of the world of dis golf on their board of directors because this would have been discussed more had those had those people been involved in this and it’s like you know whether or not you feel that it’s the right thing for a transgender women to be able to play in

FBO or not it’s it was very obvious that this was going to cause legal Jeopardy yes for the organizations and uh you know they found out the hard way and it’s an unfortunately expensive mistake but uh ultimately this is where we should have landed one year ago which is that they tighten

Restrictions they say you know we’re not sure where the science is here we’re going to wait and see what happens with the other organizations and you know I think they they failed to recognize the that the courts are not necessarily going to agree with like the majority opinion of PDGA members exactly

Like you know there’s going to be a lot of people who are upset about this um and I’ve you know I I think this the issue feels like it’s calmed down a little bit relative to what we saw six months ago or 12 months ago uh maybe

That’s because this news dropped in the Christmas season um and people were not online looking at it but it doesn’t feel quite as intense uh but you know I think a lot of people are going to be upset but you know ultimately Natalie was playing for

Much of the last two months of the season and it was not really ended up being much of an issue at all of course that’s because she wasn’t at the top of the leaderboard who knows what will happen this year but uh for now it’s kind of just like stand down from the

PDGA um and it makes sense you know I I think unless you’re really just uh extreme on this issue and you’re like no the PGA should spend all of the money that they possibly can to fight this issue like I I don’t I don’t think that’s how most people are going to look

At this they’re going to say you know even if you think it’s not right for Natalie to be able to play you got to say like okay like there’s nothing they can do right now like the courts it’s too expensive for them to to waste money

On this exactly I I have no more words on that I think that’s exactly how I feel as well all right we’re going to take a quick break when we come back 302 rule for the first time in 2024 stay with us it’s the Upshot At pound the quality of our gear runs deeper than the stitching that’s why we make everything right here in the US employing highly skilled well-paid professionals from bombproof Cordura fabric to YKK zippers and recycled Plastics we Source the highest quality us materials to make the most comfortable durable pack in discall our

Lifetime warranty stays with the pack not the purchaser so regardless of how you find us we will be here to make sure your pack stays on the course and out of the landfill pound’s Integrity is held together with more than just Thread welcome back to the upshot it’s time for 30 second rule you get 30 seconds to talk about each topic and if you go over the limit it doesn’t matter here we go uh first up the golf pro tour announced uh the rest of the European schedule the European silver events

Hopefully you checked out the European Roundtable with Josh uh over the holidays awesome episode to hear about all the exciting stuff going on in Europe um the Belgian open May 3rd through 5th the Norway open late May early June hola open in early June in Finland the Ali open in Sweden late June

The Yara open and tuni in early August in Sweden and then the Baltic Disc Golf Championship August 9th through 11th in Estonia uh that is the silver points uh events so those that only earns you points in Europe those events do not earn you points towards the main disc

Golf pro tour uh so they also announced all of the points uh on the Elite Series the best three out of your five European events uh count towards your total points uh the major European open worth double this year and then the silvers are worth 50% and you get the best four

Out of six so there will be its own little mini European Tour Championship at the Baltic uh dis Golf Championship and so should be cool there’s going to be a separate dis golf pro tour European standings all that um any thoughts on this uh Brian I absolutely love it and I

Know you’re not going to get all the American players to go over there and play these events but but just the fact that we are giving tournament organizers an opportunity to step up their game over in Europe and showcase what they have to offer is is only going to be a

Good thing I mean just like all those years ago and think about ledstone however you want but this the tournament ledstone really upped the game for professional disc golf in a lot of ways and I hope that tournaments over in Europe do the exact same thing and and

Push it to an even higher level so um yeah the more high level events we can have over there the better I I can’t wait next up on 32nd rule uh Joe charloff the executive director of the PDGA has decided to step aside uh he has

Been in charge over at the PDGA for seven years uh at the time when he took over the organization had 11 employees and now they have more than 40 mhm the number if total active pdj members has gone from 41,000 to over 135,000 uh revenues gone from 3.6

Million to 10.3 million in 2023 uh they made it through the pandemic I mean to say they made it through the pandemic isn’t even the right way to look at it I mean they I remember they furloughed staff for like a month and then dis golf went Kaboom and

I just remember watching the the bank account numbers in the board director statements going up and up and up um and so you know they’ve done so much hiring Brian Graham is back they brought in Doug beus they’ve established you know more of a media and marketing side uh

It’s been pretty amazing run for charola and so we’re going to find out what happens uh what who’s next the PDGA said that the first priority for the executive director position will be given to internal candidates as it is the PDGA board of directors desire to promote from

Within so who who who do you think it’s going to be there’s a lot of really nice people at that organization and I’ve grown to know quite a few of them over the years pretty well um I think Mike DS is is a pretty Prime candidate I don’t know if

He wants the job or not but he’s just someone that I’ve known for a long time who’s just so passionate about the game and he’s very well respected by a lot of at least the pro players that I know um and just has been in the game of disc

Gol for a very long time and is scaled with the growth of the sport very well so he’s my pick if they’re going to hire within he’s who I think is going to get it but who knows gonna be interesting uh Doug buus yep was the head of DD I mean I know

They just put him in the director of Ops role but things change he could be somebody that you see there I think Brian Graham who is a former executive director could certainly step back up into that role and I think there’s been speculation about whether Nate heinold would take over as Ed

I don’t think so but we’ll see that’s that’s that’s a huge conflict of interest I don’t know if that’s gonna that’s gonna be a thing I think you’d have to like step away from the ledgestone stuff right you can’t like TD everything and be the executive director

Which why I don’t think he’d want it I think that’s that’s all it comes down to is there’s probably a few really Prime candidates for this job but it just depends on if they want to take on that responsibility yeah well we’ll see what happens um it’s certainly it’s a pivot

Time for the PDGA is you know like if you had to BET right now would you say there’ll be more PDGA members in 20120 at the end of 2024 or fewer I don’t think we have ever lost members that’s true so I at least in a

Long time maybe way back but I don’t think it’s ever happened yeah I because because of this like flatlining that’s happened since Co I think we’re getting you know maybe a little sad and pessimistic but discol is growing so much all over the place so no I I think

We’re going to continue to grow and we’re going to be growing at a surprising rate compared to the expectations we might have now worlds is going to be in Finland in 2025 so after losing out on the bid for 2024 UC marisma and the uh the Finish

Team over there has won the bid for 2025 it’ll be the first time the World Championships will be held outside of North America um and only the second time ever outside of the US it was in Canada once um I don’t know 15 20 years ago so Finland and uh we’ll we’ll we’ll

Get the bid and I think this is amazing I mean I’ve been rooting for this for a long time Brian I’m curious how you feel about the fact that you know like a lot of times we’ve seen the European open have like a thinner lineup and this is world so you

Want to have the best there are we going to have the best there in 2025 oh yeah absolutely unless something with flight prices just goes through the roof uh we’re going to have the best players that can win a title go over there I mean they have enough time they have an

Entire year and a half to plan for this if you want to win a world title and you know that it’s it’s something that’s in the cards for you you’re going to be over there so maybe we see less Americans you know over there than before but that’s fine let’s let the

European players have a shot as well and like I said about the other tournaments on the European tour please show us what you’ve got please show us a tournament of of worldclass quality and uh raise the bar for the rest of the tournament directors so I I

Can’t wait and tare is probably my favorite disc golf course that I have ever played if you’ve not watched any coverage please watch that coverage from years past it is unbelievable how he’s mixed artificial out of bounds with distance with shot shaping with risk reward it’s just it’s

So good it’s so good on so many levels and I just can’t wait to see the best players play it very exciting it might be the last time we see the beast at least in its current configuration because they’re making changes to that property um so uh the Beast and teree

Will play host and uh it’s going to be super exciting then they they’re going to have the uh Estonian disc golf Festival as the European major um right around the same time so it’ll make it a nice stretch uh over there in Europe in the summertime and it’s just a great

Place spend uh the summer I’ll tell you that much all right final stop here a little more light-hearted uh there’s a Ricky Bitcoin bonus tracker over on Twitter I don’t know if you’ve seen this uh Brian but it basically every periodically I don’t know like every week or so it

Tweets out the value of Ricky’s Bitcoin bonus and Ricky took the Bitcoin bonus like right near the top of the market for Bitcoin and then it plummeted and people were giving Ricky a lot of grief I mean there were some jokes made on this podcast about Ricky’s Bitcoin bonus

And uh then uh look look Ricky’s Bitcoin bonus today Ricky’s bit bonus on January 4th 20122 was $250,000 paid in Bitcoin today that bonus is worth $282,900 an increase of $32,988 and Ricky quote tweeted that and said where are my trolls clowning on crypto now so uh what do you think Bri

Uh I think it’s funny that he has to tweet that he’s he’s Victorious because he’s holding on to it you really truly never know I feel like cryptocurrency the little I know about it uh it really uh depends on where the world is the state of the world so uh if the world

Crumbles maybe it’ll go even higher and uh he’ll be a rich rich man but who cares it’s it’s his choice do whatever you want with your money I mean it might be a huge payoff people have gotten Super Rich from it before whatever he he has enough money he clearly does so this

Is just something he can hold on to for a long time and and see what happens a hoddle baby yeah yeah I will just point out that if he had put his money into an S&P Index Fund he would have more money than he did from his Bitcoin but you know

What Bitcoin has made an amazing recovery and maybe it will continue to go up uh we we will see so shout out to Ricky though for uh clapping back it took a while but he got it in there um that is going to do it for today’s show

Thank you so much for tuning in Brian great to have you here uh looking forward to seeing you uh out on the road in a couple of months here oh yeah can’t wait my friend we’re going to be doing a couple tournaments together as well I

Can’t wait should be a lot of fun Brian aart Charlie Eisen Hood signing off for this edition of the upshot we’ll see you back on Thursday right here on the Show