The Professional Disc Golf Association has announced their newly formed partnership with the Beach Sports Network, which includes the EVP Beach Volleyball Tour and the UWP-IJSBA Watercross (Jet Ski) Tour. This partnership has been at least two years in the making and will consist of the three sports sharing television broadcasting time, Live Internet broadcasting resources, and event creation and management at various venues throughout the nation.
To satisfy the production requirements for creating four shows to be distributed by as many as 23 Regional Sports Networks, the PDGA has called on DiscGolfPlanet.tv to manage the 30 minute highlight broadcasts. The specific events that will be produced for television are The Memorial Championship, The Beaver State Fling, the 2013 PDGA Professional World Championships, and the 2013 United States Disc Golf Championship. The potential viewing audience is impressive, indeed, as the RSNs are capable of reaching 60-80 million households throughout the nation and internationally.
"We are pleased to again be given this responsibility to present disc golf in the best light," smiled Dr. John G. Duesler, Jr., Principal at DGPtv. "As we enter into our fourth season of Live Internet broadcasting, the expanded coverage to TV is a real natural progression for our sport. The partnership with beach volleyball and watercross is a great fit, as they have been very successful on the TV side, and we've been doing pretty well on the live internet streaming side. The media expertise of each sport complements the other so well. There is very little overlap, so this partnership is going to create a media powerhouse, as we bring all our resources together in the next few years," Duesler concluded.
The final specifics of the partnership are still being worked out, but, in addition to disc golf's four shows, beach volley ball and watercross will produce eight shows each to make a total of 20 shows throughout the entire broadcast season. To preview a preliminary distribution list of the RSNs who will be carrying the Beach Sports Network shows, you can refer to last year's affiliates on the EVP Tour Web site. NOTE: This list is from LAST YEAR, so there maybe some changes for the 2013 season.
For many years now, disc golfers around the world have been asking when our sport was finally going to make it to TV. Certainly Joe Wander has been doing an incredible job at distributing his Disc Golf Live shows across national public access channels. And now, getting disc golf onto Regional Sports Networks is the next step in a progression that will take disc golf to greater heights and a growing number of participants. We at DGPtv are honored to be part of this next step in our growth and will continue to strive towards fulfilling our mission, "Broadcasting the Best in Disc Golf!"