For most of the formative years of disc golf, tournament directors were challenged to attract spectators and fans to their events, so that sponsors could be convinced our sport had a significant following. These days, however, with the ballooning number of media outlets and distribution platforms, disc golf has been able to flip the script. Now, instead of the challenge being to bring fans to the disc golf tournament, the latest media technologies have allowed us to take the tournament to disc golf fans. And that is no more apparent than with this month's broadcasting of the 2014 PDGA Professional World Championships TV show on 26 regional sports affiliates around the world.

"I remember asking Paul McBeth #27523 about 5 years ago at the Beaver State Fling, 'How will we know when disc golf has made it'," smiled John Duesler #12789, Principal at DiscGolfPlanet.tv, who is in his second year producing PDGA television shows for the Beach Sports Network. "Paul's answer to me was simple. He told me when we get disc golf on TV."

Well that has been happening now for the last two seasons, as the PDGA's affiliation with the Beach Sports Network has lead to a total of eight shows being produced for television. This month, the 2014 PDGA Pro World Championships is airing on as many as 26 regional sports affiliates that have over 95 million household subscribers. With such a wide net cast, the disc golf community can be sure that the World Championships considered by many to be the most exciting ever will be seen by what could be disc golf's largest viewing audience ever.

"Live-streaming and producing for TV are two fundamentally different processes," Duesler explained. "The TV shows we have been producing start with an almost blank slate, that gives us license to fill the half hour with content and storylines we think best serve the event and the sport. Clearly, the PDGA World Championships storyline was the emerging rivalry between Paul McBeth and Ricky Wysocki #38008, but we cannot ignore the other players who were part of the tournament either. Hopefully, our fans will find that we struck a reasonable balance between who we covered and how we covered the event."

The 2014 PDGA World Championships TV show is now airing throughout the United States and the world, so check out the Beach Sports Network distribution list to find the dates and times you can watch the show on a regional sports network near you. And if your local cable provider does not carry one of the affiliates, no need to fret. DiscGolfPlanet.tv will be releasing the show the week of September 28th on their online Worlds Livestream portal.