It wasn’t long after I started playing disc golf that I started throwing only Innova discs. I’m not sure exactly why I made that decision, but it probably had to do with Paul McBeth. He was sponsored by Innova and was also winning World Championships. I was a big fan of his, and probably wanted to throw the same brand as him.

My bag has definitely changed since then. Now I try to support the home team and throw mostly Infinite molds. However, I definitely have a mixed bag. I currently have six or seven different brands in my bag. Many of the Innova molds that I started with were replaced with similar Infinite molds. I do still have my original Dart that I started putting with years ago, but most of the others changed.

Which Disc Golf Brand Is Our Favorite?

We asked a few questions in the State of Disc Golf survey concerning the brands that we consider our favorite, and whether or not that brand changed in the past year. Let’s take a look at the results and see which brands are the most popular.

We’ve seen in past surveys that most of us throw a mixed bag. Which means we have more than one brand in our bag. In fact, we might not even have a favorite brand. So, the survey gave us the choice to indicate our favorite brand, or which single brand that we had the most of in our bag.

Innova is the favorite brand of one in every four of us. That’s quite bit more than second place Discraft. Discmania is sandwiched between two trilogy brands near the top of the list. And MVP rounds out the top five. A total of 56 different brands were chosen by at least one person as their favorite in the survey.

There were quite a few people who gave answers such as, “I don’t have a favorite” or “I like several brands equally”. Sometimes it can be hard to pick just one. That is a good commentary about having so many brands that make quality discs.

Did Our Favorite Brand Change?

The follow-up question that we asked in the survey was whether or not people’s favorite brand changed last year. People can have a lot of different reasons for changing favorites. So we also asked the people who indicated that their favorite brand did change last year, why it changed. Here are the results.

Surprisingly, nearly a third of us decided to switch favorite brands! That is a lot higher than I would have guessed. Switching favorite brands means learning new discs and breaking them in. Let’s take a look at why people were switching favorites.

New Plastic and Flight Numbers

Keeping in mind that people could select multiple reasons for changing favorite brands, nearly three-fourths of the people who changed, said they did so in part because of the flight and feel of new plastic. As we learned in a previous survey blog, the plastic type and the flight of a disc are two of the most important factors we consider when looking at discs. So it should come as no surprise that those two factors would be the reason people might want to change favorites.

The second most popular reason people changed favorites is because of the company itself. There were 40% of people who changed because they liked what the company was doing for disc golf, while 5.1% changed because they didn’t like some things the company was doing. Both groups were voting with their money.

Just over 15% of the people who changed favorites indicated that they did so because someone introduced them to some molds/plastics. I’ve seen a lot of people add a mold to their bag because of the recommendations of a friend or card-mate, but never switched brand favorites entirely. I had to see what brand their friends recommended. Here is a chart that shows the new favorite brand for people who received a recommendation.

MVP apparently draws the most people into its lair with their overmold technology.  Nearly a fourth of the people who changed favorites because of a recommendation did so by changing to MVP. I think MVP can thank Simon Lizotte for that one. His huge sponsorship appears to have paid off.

The next closest wasn’t really close. Discraft was a distant 9.9%. Lone Star was in third place, ahead of many larger brands.

Switching because a pro that you follow changed sponsors accounted for a decent number of us who indicated that is why we changed. I suppose that is why I chose my favorite when I started. Plus McBeth’s leaving Innova might have influenced my brand selection.

From One Brand To Another

The final question about favorite brands that we asked was meant to see which brands we changed from, if we had a change last year. We wanted to see which brands decreased in the number of people who chose them as their favorite, and which brands increased. Here is the data:

It looks like Innova took the biggest hit from their former fans. There were 35% of those of us our favorite brand was Innova in 2022. But this year, only 24.4% of us picked Innova. Discraft and Dynamic Discs also dropped some numbers.

MVP, on the other hand, more than doubled the number of people who indicated that the brand was their favorite at the end of 2022, vs the beginning. Latitude 64 and Axiom also picked up some loyalists.

People will always be switching brands and trying new plastic. With all of the selections out there, why not try something new? Whether or not we make a new brand our favorite remains to be seen. Maybe we love the brand that is our current favorite, but then our favorite pro signs a new contract…

Tune in next week for more results from the State of Disc Golf Survey.

Although the sport of disc golf has been growing steadily for over a decade, none of the growth compares to the explosion in popularity that occurred during the pandemic. Disc golf was the perfect activity for social distancing, and many people discovered the sport during that time.

In addition to the increase in the number of participants of disc golf, we have also seen a growth in the number of new brands hitting the market. There have been new brands rolling out with regularity over the past decade, but the explosion in popularity of disc golf also saw a rapid increase in new disc golf brands. A quick check of the PDGA approved discs list (HERE) and we see that already this year there have been numerous new manufacturers getting molds approved. Even in the past month we see a couple new brands. It will likely take some time before people know about some of the new brands and the molds they are producing.

Which Brands Do We Know?

In the State of Disc Golf survey, we asked if how well everyone knew some of the newer brands on the market. We asked you to rank how well you knew each of 14 new brands. You could rank your knowledge from “Not aware of them” to “I regularly follow this brand”. Let’s take a look at which brands you know best and least.

Who Are They?

Let’s begin by discussing how you ranked each brand that you were unfamiliar with. Part of the challenge in starting a new brand is getting the word out about your molds and plastics. That can cost a lot of money that newer companies might not have. You can’t rely on a pro getting an ace on video using your disc, like Cole Redalen did with Wild Discs’ Sea Otter. Here is a graph showing how many of you didn’t know these brands.

Five brands have a similar percentage of individuals who are not aware of them. Momentum Disc Golf (Now Momentum Discs), Wing It Disc Golf, Goliath Discs, Premier Discs, and Pie Pan Discs are all within a couple of percentage points from each other. All of these brands are just a couple of years old, and only have a few molds. As they grow and add more molds to their lineup, maybe they’ll get more recognition. Word of mouth about a great disc can give a young company a big boost. Hopefully this blog will get people to check out these brands.

Sounds Familiar

Next, let’s look at the brands that people had at least heard about.

Birdie Disc Golf Supply and Doomsday Discs are two of the ‘most heard about’ brands on the list. Both of these brands have been featured in Infinite Discs’ blog series about smaller brands that we carry. Birdie is a Delaware company, and Doomsday is a very, very unusual company that is headquartered in Wyoming (I think) but uses a variety of manufacturers and distributors (Including Infinite Discs) around the world.

Check out the Birdie Disc Golf Supply blog HERE.

Check out the Doomsday Discs blog HERE

Joining Momentum at the bottom of the list is local (to Infinite Discs) manufacturer, Wing It Disc Golf. Check out the Wing It blog HERE. Only a small percentage of us have heard of these two brands. It will be interesting to see how they grow and become more well-known.

Know A Bit About Them

Moving on to the third level of knowledge about brands, we’ll look at how many of them we know some things about. Maybe we’ve been to their website or checked out discs that they make. Here is the chart:

At the top of the list we have two brands that have garnered some attention lately. Clash Discs has announced some big name pros that they are sponsoring. The move ensured that their name would be known among anyone who follows pros to any degree. They also advertise on live events, getting their molds in front of a big audience. Check out our blog featuring Clash Discs HERE

Trash Panda Discs had a decent-sized following long before they released their first disc. Jesse, the founder of Trash Panda, had a stated goal of manufacturing and producing discs that are made from recycled plastic and are fully recyclable. He achieved that goal and is now working to expand his lineup. I interviewed Jesse before Trash Panda was even a year old. Check out that interview HERE

Finish Line Discs is just a year old, but many of us know about the brand because it was started by one of the top touring pros, Drew Gibson. That certainly helps get exposure for a new company with just a few molds.

Let’s Chat About Them

Knowing about a company, and holding a conversation about the company, are two different things. To hold a conversation about a brand takes more than just seeing a commercial, watching a pro who throws the disc, or seeing one of their discs in someone’s bag. If we know a brand well enough to converse about it, that means that we’ve at least spent time checking out the company or listening to a buddy who throws their plastic. Here are the numbers:

Once again, Clash and Trash Panda are at the top of the list. UPlay made an appearance in the top five companies. That is the brand started by Infinite’s Zoe Andyke. UPlay has one disc, the Zeal. Their focus is on growing the sport of disc golf by introducing it to kids of all ages.

I Know Them Well

The final category which indicates the level of understanding is which brand we follow. These are the brands whose molds we are familiar with, and maybe we even throw some of their discs. Let’s look at the results.

Once again, Trash Panda has the highest percent. Over ten percent of survey respondents indicate that they regularly follow this brand. Since Trash Panda has a popular Youtube channel and a mission that resonates with a lot of people, it is not surprising that they are in the number one spot. The large gap between Trash Panda and the second place spot IS somewhat surprising. Their 10% number represents hundreds of people who took the survey. Well done, Trash Panda!

If we look at the number of people who either knows about the brand, can converse about the brand, and regularly follows the brand, we can find the brands with the most exposure to the disc golf public. Given the top two  brand in the last couple of graphs, the winner pretty much comes down to two brands. Drumroll, please…

Trash Panda edges out Clash by just a few percentage points! Both of those brands can feel proud about the attention they’ve been able to draw to their brands in an ever-growing competition for attention. Congrats to both brands!

Check out Infinite’s selection of the brands mentioned:

Trash Panda Disc Golf
Clash Discs
Finish Line Discs
Doomsday Discs
UPLAY Disc Golf
Birdie Disc Golf Supply
Hooligan Discs
Terminal Velocity Discs
Alpha Discs
Wing It Disc Golf
Pie Pan Discs
Goliath Discs
Premier Discs
Momentum Discs

Check back next week for more State of Disc Golf Survey results.

Last week we looked at some of the factors that are important to us when we are buying a disc. We looked at some of the more important factors: Brand, Plastic Type, and Flight Numbers. Of those people who said that Brand was Very Important, we looked at which brand that they indicated was their favorite. That blog can be seen  HERE

Color

This week we are going to look at some more factors and see which of them we consider important. We’ll start with color.

If we think about color we might be tempted to conclude that the people who value the factor of color are doing it for aesthetics. Maybe they look for their favorite color, or they might have a single-color bag, with all of their molds pretty much the same color. (I’ve seen bags with all orange, all pink, all green, all blue, and all yellow discs). However, there are pragmatic reasons for selecting disc colors.

The first reason, one which I subscribe to, is that certain colors are easier to see. When your disc lands in tall grass or dark bushes, a bright pink disc is one of the easier colors to spot. Black, on the other hand, looks amazing but is difficult to spot in certain situations. If you happen to be color blind, other colors might be better than pink, but the bottom line is that some people want to be able to find a disc that is most visible to them.

The second reason someone might chose a certain color is that there is a belief among some disc golfers that the color of a disc affects its flight. This isn’t an inherent property that colors hold, but rather how some colors cool faster or slower than other colors. I haven’t seen empirical evidence to conclude that color makes a difference, but I know people who swear by it.

Whatever the reason, over two-thirds of us felt that color was at least Semi Important, and one in five chose the option Very Important. That mean quite a few of us might be competing for certain colors.

Weight

Next up is another factor that is (not surprising) very popular among disc golfers. One factor that can be a deal breaker. It can make a disc unusable by a beginner, and difficult to control as a more experienced golfer. That factor is a discs weight.

For beginners, weight is important because it can be the difference between having a disc that can be thrown easily for good distance, and a disc that is yet another overstable disc. Since discs must be thrown at certain speeds for them to fly like they should, beginners might be unable to throw heavier discs at the required speed, and they their actual flight would appear to be overstable.

For more skilled players, they do have the ability to throw discs at high speeds, but if they have discs that are too light, they will overpower the disc and it will become very understable and difficult to control. Therefore, it becomes important for powerful throwers to have the heaviest discs they can find.

Looking at the chart we see that 90% of us find weight at least Semi Important. And over 40% of us find it Very Important. Those numbers are because of how important that factor is to the flight of a disc.

The final three factors we will look at are not at all related to the utility of the disc. As such, I would expect them to have a smaller number of people who felt they were important. Let’s start with the importance of the stamp or artwork on a disc.

Stamp/Art Work

There are discs out there that are works of art. I love when a manufacturer puts some thought and effort into their designs. Some of those creative designs I have and throw. Others, I bought just to collect as wall hangers. I definitely consider the stamp when buying a disc. Let’s see how the group answered the question.

While only about 15% of us find the stamp Very Important, over half of us find it at least Semi Important. I suspect most of us would prefer a cool stamp, all other things being equal, so we have at least a little bit of interest in the discs aesthetics. Mix in some collectors looking for certain stamps and I think that is why the overall numbers are fairly high.

Collectability

The second factor unrelated to the flight of the disc is its collectability. This wouldn’t be too important for anyone but collectors. And even they aren’t too worried about the collectability of their throwers.  Let check out the graph.

There are still nearly one in five of us that find the collectability of a disc as least semi important. I don’t know how much that number will change over time. I figured that with the growth of the sport we would see a growth in the number of collectors. Hopefully that growth continues so we have a thriving collector market. In this survey we asked if you’ve bought a disc to collect and not throw. Here is what you indicated:

The survey indicates that well over half of us bought a disc just to collect and not throw. It would be interesting to learn why the disc was being collected. We may need to ask that question in future surveys.

Resale Value

The final factor we’ll look at is Resale Value. I would expect that people who indicated that this factor is important or semi-important is a small subset of collectors, or people who just want to flip the disc for a profit. Let’s look at the numbers.

There is still ten percent of us that find resell value important to some degree. But, not surprisingly, an overwhelming number of us don’t care much. Most of us buy a disc to throw, and likely will never sell it.

Tune in next week for more survey results.