The Stream Engine: Disc Golf Media By The Numbers (Pt. 2)

This article was written by Steve Vrooman and Alex Williamson with help from other UDisc staff on visuals and charts.



Filming at 2019 Las Vegas Challenge. Credit: Alyssa Van Lanen

In Part 1 of this series, we gave you the big picture of disc golf media by analyzing stats related to our survey of video view rates from over 20 disc golf-related YouTube channels. In broad strokes, we found that 1) viewership of disc golf videos has grown enormously in a short amount of time and 2) tournament coverage was the biggest contributor to that growth.

For the specific (and pretty stunning) stats in those areas, take a look at last week's article here.



Today, we're zooming in, and our focus is the top 50 disc golf videos of 2018 by YouTube views. We've done much more than just create a list, though.

For anyone interested in the ongoing debate about whether disc golf fans' loyalties lay more with video producers or specific tours (we looked at the Disc Golf Pro Tour and PDGA National Tour, specifically), our table shows the top 50 videos' relationships in those areas. It also makes the remarkable prevalence of McBeth and Big Sexy commentary in last year's favorite videos clearly visible.



The table is at the bottom of this article, but before we get there, let's expand a little on what it can tell us about the topics above.

Producer or Tour?

When you take a look at the chart, you'll see that JomezPro content dominates it—a remarkable 44 of the 50 videos are theirs. For those who read the last article, this will come as no surprise, given Jomez's dominance in view counts last year.

There is no such hands-down favorite among tours. Rounds from Disc Golf Pro Tour (DGPT) and PDGA National Tour (NT) events are featured in 34 of the 50 top videos, with rounds from each tour appearing 17 times. Rounds of PDGA Majors like the World Championships, United States Disc Golf Championship, and Konopiště all made it, too.

However, though it may seem like this data shows that being filmed by JomezPro is much more important than what tour an event is on, we don't think that takes quite everything into account.

The only tours that consistently drew large numbers of top-level pros in the U.S. last year were the DGPT and NT, and because Jomez had access to film those events, they had the best pros on video. In one of the rare cases they didn't have access to a premier event (see Konopiště , filmed by SpinTV), people were still plenty willing to watch.

Instances like this suggest that eyes will watch coverage of the best, regardless of tour or video producer. Do those eyes prefer to watch the best on Jomez? At the moment, absolutely. However, with DGPT's media moving in-house and plenty of top pros signed up for its events, it will be interesting to see if the producer side of a 2019 top 50 features a healthy amount of DGPT red, white and blue to compliment Jomez's green, black, and white.

BigSexy Rounds

Team BigSexy. Jeremy "Big Jerm" Koling (left) and Nate Sexton (right). Both photos credit: Alyssa Van Lanen

We watched most of our 2018 disc golf in edited form with the commentary team of Jeremy Koling and Nate Sexton. And in this top 50, there are only two rounds with commentary that lack Big Jerm, who teamed up with A.J. Risley or Paul Ulibarri for a few tournaments this past year.

A lot of this is because they are commenting on popular and important tournaments, and so we see them by default. We are watching Jomez and Jomez likes BigSexy.

But this is also because we love them. The BigSexy promo video “What Happens in Vegas,” which dropped the first day of the 2019 Las Vegas Challenge, grabbed 30,000 views in its first 24 hours, and it seems like the BigSexy Star Destroyer sold by Jomez sold out in the blink of an eye.

McBeast

It may not surprise anyone that Paul McBeth’s rounds have the most views of any other pro, but the sheer number of McBeth logos on the chart at the very bottom really hit home disc golf fans' overwhelming interest in the McBeast.

One way McBeth got views was simply showing up on a huge number of cards at big events. He made many round one feature cards, and he also kept earning a spot on lead cards all last year.

But our appetite for McBeast media shows up in all sorts of other ways. The biggest video of 2018 was Jomez’s special coverage of his 18 under round. Also, the only Champs vs. Chumps episode (a Central Coast Disc Golf franchise pitting a large number of amateur players versus a team of two pros) to crack the top 50 stars McBeth. Even his first Building the Bag and sponsorship reveal videos made the top 50, garnering more views than the back 9 lead card at Worlds!

To compare this with other pros, we used the list of most favorited pros on UDisc Live from a previous post and tallied the total views of videos featuring them not just for the top 50 videos, but the top 1,500 videos from our research:

Paul McBeth 8.9 million Ricky Wysocki 5.52 million Eagle McMahon 5.51 million Simon Lizotte 4.3 million Nate Sexton 4 million James Conrad 3.8 million Gregg Barsby 2.2 million Paige Pierce 1.7 million Jeremy Koling 1.6 million Paige Bjerkaas 466k

These numbers don’t account for exposure via commentary (which almost all have done at least once) or from livestreams like Smashboxx, where multiple cards might be followed.

The Top 50

Below you'll see in a condensed form of all the information we've talked about above (and plenty more). We've enjoyed taking a dive into these media numbers over the last two weeks, and we can only imagine that the numbers from 2019 will only be bigger and even more interesting. We hope to bring them all to you when they're in.



Until then, feast your eyes upon the top 50 videos of 2018: (scroll the table right if on mobile)