Dynamic Discs has been acquired by House of Discs, a company that already controls Latitude 64, Kastaplast, Westside Discs, and many other disc golf brands. They are backed by two European VC firms: Vendis Capital and Equip Capital. Here, we analyze the trends toward consolidation in disc golf and what the influx of outside capital means for the future of the sport.
Our previous videos on House of Discs and Consolidation in Disc Golf –
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Dynamic Discs – https://www.youtube.com/@dynamicdiscs
Latitude 64 – https://www.youtube.com/@Latitude64
Westside Discs – https://www.youtube.com/@WestsideGolfDiscs
Michael Pruett – https://www.youtube.com/@pruett89
J – https://www.youtube.com/@JDiscGolfValley
Discmania Golf Discs – https://www.youtube.com/@DiscmaniaGolfDiscs
Bleacher Report – https://www.youtube.com/@BleacherReport
ESPN – https://www.youtube.com/@espn
Disc Golf Pro Tour – https://www.youtube.com/@DiscGolfProTour
PDGA – https://www.youtube.com/@PDGAmedia
29 Comments
They did a bunch of research and realized that disc golf is growing rapidly with or without them — meaning we don’t need them. They’re coming in to get a return? In other words, they’re coming in to extract resources from the disc golf community. They’re investing to get more back than they give.
Isn’t consolidation a kind of monopolization? (Or at least it brings us closer to it)
What impact might this have on player sponsorships/pay as competition between brands is minimized?
Even if it offers a cash injection to the sport in the short term, in the long term it seems that it will systemically take power and money away from the people actually driving the growth of this sport, which are the players, TDs and crews, the workers testing molds and physically making discs, course designers, post-production content producers etc.
The 2020-2021 production problem happened to everyone. Literally, everyone. 🙄
SK8 Boarding in the early 90's…World Industries, Element, etc. All where under a bigger umbrella. It happens to good things. Then your in the Olympics…Evolution of the Sport.🥏🛹🏆 Still 💚 WESTSIDE 🤘🏻
Monopolizing disc golf, awesome!!
I get all my disc golf news from you these days. Thanks.
If you want to know more about Team Trilogy and the things behind the name Trilogy please feel free to contact me
How nice. Its always great when big money and consolidation happens. I feel badly for those that missed the glory of disc golf, pre 2000's. DIsc golf doesnt HAVE to have big money, it used to be a relatively self sustaining and low budget activity.
Disc golf valley just put ads in game. I deleted it immediately. They seem a lil greedy.
Compared to Innova or Discraft, Trilogy discs command a $3-4 premium per disc over those brands on comparable plastic due to the overseas shipping. I don't see how an investment equity group taking even more control is going to help with bringing pricing down. Currently, a Raptor Eye Rive is damn near $30. If anything, expensive discs will get more expensive. Even if Dynamic opens its own USA manufacturing facility, an investment equity group is not going to lower prices.
Trilogy, or whatever it is now, is over in the U.S. – Lone Star is the new premium plastic Wrangler, Texas made and ready to ride hard. Euro interlopers can't even ride and throw, let alone lasso bareback !
Not a fan. "Trilogy" will need to have their profit, so will the capital investors.
Money coming "outside the sport", is all good. But this just adds another layer of people wanting to get profit.
Soon enough all the cources will have a fee, top players will be earning more, discs selling for more and the sport coming all the more unattainable for the masses.
Corporate money will corrupt the industry. The grass roots behind this sport has been great. Lawyers destroy everything. 2/3 of Democrats in Congress are lawyers. I rest my case.
love the advertising at waco!!!
I'm all for outside advertisers. I'd love to see coke, pepsi, car makers, and others advertise disc golf. Not so sure I like them in the disc making. Discs have already massively jumped in price the last 3 years. Partly do to player signings. Id say outsiders would want to go to even higher profit margins and raise the prices even more.
Here is how it is bad. 1) because they have large investments of outside money they could systematically depress the market ( flood it with inexpensive products that other manufacturers can't keep up with, Like amazon or walmart) which will then force smaller companies that have to make money then not be able to keep up and fold, then House of Disc will raise prices, monopolize and we get less options and we pay more. 2) It will force other mergers to try to fight market share creep and to keep up with aggressive capitalism that is bound to come from this: At some Point Innova and Discraft are going to have to look at each other say: "We have to merge… not cause we want to but becasue we have to keep up." 3) Competition breads innovation. Less competition, less innovation… That's simple. I could go on, but I am just depressing myself.
Growing the sport means a lot of different things: an increase in collective awareness, greater inclusion, better competition, greater cost of participation, more spectators, faster building of courses, increasing difficulty, more streamlined manufacturing. We’ll find out together how the consolidation phase will affect disc quality. The bots in these clips do appear to give each disc a fair amount of love and care. Will flashing become more or less common? I already have a lot of work to do when I get a new disc. When discs need to have flashing sanded down it leaves behind kind of a velvet texture which doesn’t have as much grip as the smooth surface on the rest of the disc. Even now, I get brand new discs in the mail that have collapsed flight plates that I have to restore with hot water. Customers get demanding when supplies are low, but even the most impatient people will eventually prefer to have quality discs in their hands over flawed discs they got a month sooner.
What speed of growth is best for the consumer? manufacturer? competitor? I’m not sure disc golf needs growth stimulated by big advertising dollars and mergers to be relevant and exciting.
I’d much rather buy from smaller batch companies. Innova and the like make mass produced junk. That being said I’ll probably never buy from dynamic knowing they’re owned by a private equity firm.
Can't wait for Disc Companies to be like the differences and quality of McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, blah blah.
Wrong! Latitude 64 was first and produced for dd. Later they merged. Today dd, kastaplast and Westside are all merged with latitude 64. Latitude designs and produces all discs besides Kastaplast. The whole thing was now bought.
It would take a lawyer to convince us that VC firms with zero interest in disc golf other than profits is good for the sport.
disc golf valley is now garbage with the ads they put in. just goes to show you how greedy companies are
I think it’s bad. Sounds good on paper but to the consumer it’s troubling. Poor quality bad runs and generic discs. Really comes down to groups of owners squeezing out other companies trying to get in. I’ll definitely stay away from house of discs
Great video, but I really disagree on that we need outside investors. We don't need to grow the sport, just for the sake of growing the sport. What's important is having a welcoming community were people can meet and feel included. If that can be done with an investor, sure, do it. But be careful.
How do we invest?
Quality has already taken a hit in kastaplast. Looks like we should expect more quality reductions. Too bad.
This is what I was warning people about after I started playing 6 years ago. "Grow the sport!" "Grow the sport!" It's a marketing tool to make people rich. They don't care about you as individuals, they only see you as numbers that spend money. They are using YOU to fill their pockets!
Heck, 4 years ago you could walk along with the lead card at the Jonesboro Open for NOTHING. A few weeks from now it's going to cost you almost $100!
Personally, I wish it would have stayed small. More of a grass roots, everyone feels like they are part of a community type feel. It won't be anything like that in another 5 years. And you will probably be paying $50 a disc because the rich need to keep getting richer.
What does House of Discs mean for Discmania? I'm wondering if that's their next acquisition considering production from Innova basically switched to Lat 64. Unless you believe they just "helped".
When the owner(s) of companies are simply investment firms instead of people who actually do what they're selling, your basically talking about "flippers". They just have enough money that what they flip are companies instead of cars or houses or whatever. They make initial investments, expect a big return and care about absolutely nothing beyond the bank balance. Flippers have ruined every industry they've touched.
As someone who works with the law daily, these legal updates for disc golf are the only ones I look forward to each day. Great content!