Ledgestone and Discraft are happy to announce today that they have inked a ten year deal that makes Discraft the title sponsor of Ledgestone through at least 2030. This announcement is the 9th in our series of announcements titled the Twelve Days of Ledgestone. “Since 2015 Discraft has been the event’s biggest sponsor, and without them the event may not even exist anymore. Discraft invested so much into this event early on, and it really gave me the space to make mistakes, learn from those mistakes and make the event better,” said Nate Heinold, Ledgestone TD. "Discraft and Ledgestone work together like peanut butter and jelly. You truly need both ingredients to create the sandwich, so when we discussed possibly extending the sponsorship deal it only made sense to all involved to push this great momentum forward for another 10 years,” said Bob Julio, Discraft’s Team Manager and head of Disc Golf Sales.
This ten year deal will essentially cement the relationship between Discraft and Ledgestone, forever making these two organizations synonymous with each other. “Most people don’t know this, but Discraft was one of my first sponsors. I ran 400 discs the first year to support the event, half of which were Discraft, and I still have a few of those original, unthrown discs,” said Heinold. The relationship will continue to see Nate and Ledgestone planning and releasing the annual Ledgestone disc releases, which have gone from a smaller, cult attraction to now what garners widespread industry attention. “We have a waiting list of vendors who want to sell Ledgestone limited edition discs, and that program continues to grow. We will release more LE discs in 2021 than we ever have, and that’s a testament to the great product that Discraft continues to produce,” finished Heinold.
Even though Nate and Discraft had a relationship as far back as 2011, it really blossomed in the winter of 2014. At the time, Nate was beginning to plan for the 2015 Ledgestone event, which was to be the first National Tour event held in Illinois. He got a call from his future best man one night, Justin Jernigan, who had a unique idea: Discraft. “I remember driving home from a basketball game one night and Justin called me. Justin had recently moved to Peoria and he knew that I was looking for a title sponsor. When he pitched Discraft to me I was initially skeptical because I hadn’t really worked that closely with them. He got me in touch with Bob Julio, and I suppose you could say the rest was history,” said Heinold.
After Nate and Bob first chatted, a deal came together pretty quickly. Nate had the idea to run some Limited Edition discs to support the event, and Discraft was all in. The first discs that were ever run as part of the program included several Titanium discs (Comet, Zone, Flick), a CryZtal Flx Zone, a CryZtal Flx Sparkle Force and Glo Flx Buzzz. After the deal was struck, Nate already had the bug, so he and Justin went up to visit the Discraft factory. “We were both in awe; we had never seen that many discs before, and we weren’t even allowed into the factory (just the old warehouse). It was insane, and it immediately pumped me up even more. I couldn’t contain my excitement and bought thousands of discs, which at the time for me was by far my biggest order ever,” continued Heinold. Over the years, Nate has made many more visits to the factory, including 5 last year alone. The relationship between Discraft and Ledgestone has only strengthened, and Nate calls several people at the factory good friends. Bob was even in Nate’s wedding, and Nate will be the best man at Bob’s wedding. “Discraft is literally like a family to me. Discraft has seen me at my lowest lows (ie, 2015, volleyball hole!) and the highest highs. They have stuck with me through everything, and I can’t imagine working with anyone else. This ten year commitment doesn’t even feel like a big deal to me, because I plan on working with Discraft as long as I am running this event,” said Heinold.
The 11th Annual Discraft Ledgestone Insurance Open will take place August 5th to the 8th in Central Illinois. Registration will take place exclusively at Disc Golf Scene and will open in early 2021. Registration for AM players and age protected professionals will take place at dgscene.com/ledgestoneam and registration for the DGPT event will take place at dgscene.com/ledgestone21.
