Given that our respondents are so enthusiastic about playing, what can/should the UPA do to increase opportunities for people to play the game at every level?
Please review the findings for this topic before engaging in discussion.
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One way the UPA could provide more opportunities to play would be to remove the restriction that prevents a player from participating in the Open/Women's, Mixed, and Masters Series in the same year. To be practical, this would require some rescheduling of some events. I would feel more like I was getting my money's worth if my registration fee made me eligible for multiple categories rather than just one.
the UPA needs to sponsor and encourage Div II and Div III in college.
I'm not sure the UPA needs to do that much to provide more opportunities to play. The vast majority of Ultimate is non-UPA sanctioned. I do like some of the other proposals to create a "season" for the various divisions, but beyond that opportunities are going to have to come from the local level.
I strongly disagree with Todd. If players were allowed to play in multiple divisions, then the same set of players would be playing in all the divisions, and there would be less opportunity for others.
With the possible exception of the Masters division, I think there are enough teams showing up to compete in the championship series, and since the sectionals tournaments can't turn anyone away, that is at least one guaranteed opportunity for anyone who is interested. So I don't think there is an "opportunity" problem with the way the series is run.
The one potential problem that I have noticed over the last several years is that while the number of teams and individuals involved has increased, the number of non-championship-series tournaments has remained roughly constant. So it is now more difficult to get a spot in many of the tournaments (other than sectionals). For a new team, it could be somewhat discouraging.
What can the UPA do? The most difficult part of hosting a tournament is getting field space. Perhaps some help with that would have an impact.
If players were allowed to play in multiple divisions, then the same set of players would be playing in all the divisions,...
This is the point. Based on the assessment results, UPA members want more opportunities to play. The same players playing in all divisions instead of just one means more opportunities for members to play. It also makes UPA dues more worthwhile to people on the fence about joining.
...and there would be less opportunity for others.
I don't understand this comment. You mentioned that sectionals can't turn teams away, so making more people eligible doesn't use up the available slots.
I think there are enough teams showing up to compete in the championship series, and since the sectionals tournaments can't turn anyone away, that is at least one guaranteed opportunity for anyone who is interested.
Surely you agree that 2-3 guaranteed opportunities to play is more than one guaranteed opportunity to play. College players are currently allowed to play twice a year and I don't see that hurting the club series or the college series. Let the rest of us compete in multiple divisions if we want to.
So I don't think there is an "opportunity" problem with the way the series is run.
I respect your opinion that we can better increase opportunities through other tournaments. I would love to see more tournaments on the schedule. But I don't see what your objection is to allowing current players more chances to compete at a national level.
burn.
Perhaps what David was getting at wasn't so much "opportunities" to play, but "incentives" to play.
The UPA Board experimented a few years ago with splitting the Mixed Series from the Open/Women's, which provided the increased opportunities Todd is talking about by allowing members to play in both series. Before moving Mixed back to the fall, some exhaustive research was done by a special task force to explore the issue of keeping the divisions separate or putting them back together. A report was presented to the Board.
One of the complaints the Board heard a lot was that all the best Open/Women's players/teams were just taking over the Mixed Series on what were seen as "ringer" teams. And there were quite a few of them. There were enough that traditionally Mixed players/teams said that they were not all that interested in participating at sectionals or regionals if the same handful of players that go to regionals and nationals in the fall were going to regionals and nationals in the summer. Many said they simply would choose not to play in such a Mixed series...not b/c the opportunity didn't exist, but b/c the incentives to practice and travel and compete didn't exist. Such incentives might include playing in competitive games, meeting with success, having realistic opportunities to advance, etc.
I'm not saying the solution was the right one, or that even if it was the right one 6 years ago that it is still the right one today. But we do know that making the Mixed Division an exclusive part of the Club Series like the other divisions has resulted in increased participation of unique players and teams.
So, perhaps in summary it makes sense to say that what the sport and players want/need are not just:
1 - opportunities for more people to play, or
2 - more opportunities for a select group to play, but rather
3 - more opportunities for more people to play.
How to accomplish #3 without getting stuck flip-flopping between #1 and #2 is the real challenge.
Thanks for the additional information Will. I think your delineation of incentives versus opportunities to play is on target. The questions you raise about how to provide more opportunities for existing as well as new players are useful, too.
The assessment results say former players would be inspired to join again by 1) fun/different/new opportunities to play/compete and 2) Lower Fees. I would be interested to know more specifically if former players would be interested in playing multiple divisions. And I wonder if those listing lower fees would be willing to pay the existing fees if they got more Series opportunities (they listed the Series as the thing they missed most.)
The assessment for this topic only addresses former players, so it would be interesting to see the opinions of current mixed players to the idea of more eligibility. I suspect many would still be concerned about ringer teams, but it would be nice to have an idea of what percentage feel that way. In some regions, mixed competition still fields relatively few teams, so a large percentage make it to regionals. So having more teams would mean a larger percentage of players who ended the series at sectionals.
Mixed players/teams said that they were not all that interested in participating at sectionals or regionals if the same handful of players that go to regionals and nationals in the fall were going to regionals and nationals in the summer.
This attitude puzzles me. Why would you want to make Mixed into a B division by preventing top players from being involved? (I'm not claiming Mixed is a B division just that the exclusion of the ringers necessarily lowers the competition level.)
If there were enough Mixed teams out there, we might want to look into having multiple levels of play like other sports do (AAA, AA, A, BB, etc). That would give more people a chance to advance in the Series and might address the occasional comments that the UPA spends a skewed amount of money on elite competition.
It disappoints me that no talk about membership changes has been around communities of people who are not traditionally the white middle class people who represent our sport now. We have youth outreach and woman's outreach, but what about trying to start teams at inner city schools who are predominantly students of color? What about immigrant communities? What about working class people? How about trying to change the face of ultimate and making it more accessible? The UPA fact-sheet does not mention race, but does state that 92 percent of players have undergraduate degrees and 55 percent have incomes of 50k, this is definitely evidence that our community is homogenous. I think Ultimate players are some of the most open-minded people I know, but I would like that attitude to be represented in our membership.
I think that's an excellent point, ccordell. Think about why basketball is so popular and baseball and hockey aren't as big in the national culture as they used to be. Basketball doesn't need much equipment and is cheap to play, thus appealing to inner city youth. Ultimate is also very cheap to play, all you need is a disc and a place to throw it.
Basketball is popular for kids in the city because they can all gather in the cage by the street and play ball. It may be complicated, but what if the UPA looked into the abilities of city parks departments to furnish safe fields for kids to play in, and promote Ultimate in those areas? I would think that may help develop a loyal base of Ultimate devotees.
Cordell makes a critical point about the lack of opportunities to play in inner city/lower income/minority communities. To overcome this problem, the UPA should help foster a community-based youth program to supplement its current suburban school-based orientation. Most schools serving lower-income and inner city youth have either eliminated or drastically cut back their physical education programs. The UPA should focus on after-school programs centered in city parks and youth centers.
It took lacrosse about a century to move out of the prep schools and suburbs to the inner city. Ultimate doesn't have to wait so long.
Supporting local organizations and individual/solo TDs is critical to expanding opportunities for play.
Is the UPA about 'UPA' owned events or about people playing the game? I doubt that UPA ownership is as tied to revenues from annual dues as one might traditionally think.
Ultimate is the sport of the future!
I think we need to think more towards that goal. All other sports are well-established, weighed down beaurocracies (spelling?) bent on getting money. Ultimate is everything that all other sports are not. It takes enthusiasts and makes them good athletes and good people.
And it is the only sport whose rules and future are decided by a network of thousands of PLAYERS and not a small group of board members thinking about money. Think about it: Ultimate is the MySpace of sports and it will explode in the next several years. It will be the most common family sport! And it will be started by a network of college kids who loved a sport and had a dream. And i think nothing else should be our goal.
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