I’ve written about disc golf long enough to become a fairly hardcore “fanboy” of a few of the industry’s greats: Terry Miller, Ian Anderson, Jamie Thomas and Charlie Eisenhood, of course. Heck, even PDGA Rodman has earned a spot in the darkest, most vile recesses of my heart.
One, however, rises high above them all: Jonathan Gomez, founder of JomezPro.
I kid you not – if it were possible for me to have a life-size poster of the dude and his neckbeard hanging above my bed, I’d do it in a heartbeat. My wife might have an issue, but she’d get there.
Others arrived on the “disc golf media” scene long before Jonathan. Countless others (including yours truly) have shown up since. But nobody has done more for the rapid growth of disc golf than Gomez and JomezPro. This includes Innova, Ken Climo, Paul McBeth, COVID-19, etc.
And it’s not just me that thinks this way …
The Disc Golf Pro Tour (DGPT) is more than aware of JomezPro’s influence, too.
On Tuesday morning, the DGPT released a post-production media plan for the 2022 season. As you might’ve already guessed, Jonathan and JomezPro featured heavily in the announcement.
Here’s how JomezPro’s post-production coverage will take center stage in 2022:
- JomezPro signed a two-year agreement with the DGPT for 2022 and 2023.
- JomezPro will post-produce coverage for all MPO lead cards at Elite Series events.
- JomezPro will post-produce footage for Worlds, the USWDGC and the Champions Cup.
And now for the “historic” part – how much did all of this cost, exactly?
Half-a-million in cold, hard coin – that’s, right: $500,000
Just to clarify, that’s not $500,000 from the DGPT into Mr. Gomez’s pocket for his creative direction. No, that’s $500,000 from Jon-O’s bank account to the DGPT for the post-production coverage rights to all MPO lead cards for two consecutive disc golf seasons …
Therein lies the actual transaction.
Don’t get me wrong: The dollar amount is impressive. But what’s truly “historic” about this arrangement is that the DGPT isn’t paying JomezPro. Keep in mind that we’re only a few years removed from governing bodies and tournament organizers having to pay for camera crews …
Wasn’t that long ago that tournaments were paying film crews for coverage. Awesome to see the @DiscGolfProTour continue to grow and start selling big media right deals.
— Brodie Smith (@Brodiesmith21) February 22, 2022
Nowadays, there’s enough interest, viewership and, most importantly, ad revenue for JomezPro to fork over $500,000 and still make a killing on the backend – that’s disc golf in 2022, folks.
Queue the late Billy Mays: “But wait, there’s more!”
Also, per the DGPT’s announcement:
“GK Pro has agreed to a one-year deal for coverage rights to the FPO lead card, and Gatekeeper Media will produce MPO chase-card coverage for both the 2022 and 2023 DGPT seasons. Additionally, the DGPT will be working with GK Pro and Central Coast Disc Golf to provide post-produced coverage of Silver Series events on the DGPT’s YouTube channel.”
Clearly, if ever there was a time to get involved in disc golf media, it’d be now …
Go grab your camera. Or, even better – start a blog 😉
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I’ve been saying that Jomez will have no problem recouping and even profiting from this venture, and I’m excited for all the companies involved.
Dude, NO DOUBT …
Obviously, they wouldn’t have agreed to the deal if they weren’t going to make something impressive off of it on the backend.
What’s most impressive to me is that we now have a “ballpark” idea of the kind of money JomezPro is making each year of of post-produced coverage.
Before this deal, I would’ve have had any idea …
Whatever it is, it’s higher than $250,000 per year – and probably MUCH higher.