Part 1: Damage to the Local Ultimate Communities

Local Communities:


I have something of a background here. For three years, I was President of MCUDL, the largest league in New Jersey and the longest running league in the world. In those 3 years I co-founded a hugely successful overnight indoor tournament, helped stabilize and modernize the league, and generally helped create an atmosphere where several club teams and the league could work symbiotically. I also was married (partially overlapping with my presidency) the first ED of the Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance, one of the larger communities out there. Organizing ultimate was in my blood for a long time. Let me tell you something, USA-U's change will not be beneficial.

This is actually, between the three parties i mentioned at the start of this series, the group that gets harmed the least, as the damage does not hit every group.  This is also the lengthiest piece, but may be of interest to people for other reasons.


I will share some secrets that not everyone knows. Not all of these apply to all leagues evenly, but between my friends who have run leagues in Pittsburgh, New York, DC, and other areas, most of this is what we can call generally true.


Secret 1: Not all leagues make money. It's true. For a smaller league (400 people), such as MCUDL, the boards are all volunteers. Some cases there arent elections as there are 3 open spots and only 3 volunteers. I became president of MCUDL by accident. A departed friend and mentor of mine (RIP Linda) had semi-twisted my arm within a year of me playing MCUDL, and I reluctantly agreed to be treasurer. Fast forward 6 months, there was no presidential volunteer, and basically everyone else put their finger on their nose and thumb on their chin or however it works faster than me.


This experience is typical. This usually means boards aren't always the savviest group of business people around. But you know who is polished? Ultimate clothing vendors! Insurance salespeople! Much of the stuff you sort of take for granted. If it's your first time buying shirts, and you don't fully understand that how far you can bargain down from the quoted price, you end up overpaying by $3 a shirt, and that ends up being a big loss. You fail to get enough volunteers to cook at your end of league picnic/playoffs/awards ceremony, you hire professional picnic people. Things like that put our league in the red by $2,000.


Year two was going better, but there was no way we were making that $2,000, until we stumbled upon.... a midnight hat tournament. We couldn't do it alone, we enlisted the help of PADA, they took care of some details we took care of others, hit both of our mailing lists, advertised on the major places to publicize events at the time, sold out the tournament. Our entry fee was $10-15 lower than any other all night hat tournament and almost certainly had more amenities. The tournament profit, with 180 people, was more than enough to cover our budget shortfall, and actually make back a decent chunk of the $2,000 lost earlier.


This money didn't go into anyone's pocket (ok some went into the Medical person, and some volunteers got free/reduced dues), but it went into the MCUDL budget. We could afford to pay for a few more kids who might be completely short on money because they didn't live in the right zip code. Maybe we could afford nicer fabric than cotton for shirts, maybe there was money for a thank you gift to the captain volunteers, and maybe we had enough in the bank to launch a fall league, and not be completely stressed about being able to afford the field time the first year or worry about having enough money saved up if the league was a money loser.


This experience is typical. I know some leagues that don't have enough saved borrow thousands of dollars (presumably interest free) from wealthier players in march, and pay the money back in may when they collect enough in dues.


The real point here, is that tournaments are a lifesaver. Tournaments make money. Sometimes that money finances someone's lifestyle (the ultiment tournaments are the primary source of income for Noah Bane for example), but many times, especially if the community runs that tournament, it's funding for the club team hosting for the year, or for the league.


When hurricane Irene hit the mid-atlantic 3 years ago, Chesapeake was cancelled. The teams (including mine) only got partial refunds, and none of them complained as far as I know. The real devastation was to WAFC, as that was a source of profit  for them, and seemingly a year or two later they were still trying to sell discs from that tournament or use them as game discs at regionals.


And let me be clear, most club tournies are not overpriced. If a tournament costs $350, my guess is the actual cost of goods (field permits, insurance, medical staff etc), is probably in most cases $250-325 for a first rate tournament, and it used to be that tournaments that weren't worth it from a cost standpoint quickly stopped drawing teams. I think I remember the cost of renting polo fields in philly (12 fields) to be something like $6-7,000 for the weekend, but my math might be a bit off. That hosts 32 teams with byes, so you can kind of do the math. 


Incidentally, if there is a tournament that's overpriced, its the non-nationals triple crown events! Parking fees! $800 bids! $100 to attend the convention or whatever! Paying for USA-U Staff to fly from wherever and oversee it!



But hey, first prize was a "Big" check of $2000 for the winning teams of the US Open. That paid for maybe 20% of their cost of you know, actually attending the tournament after flight costs.



Running those tournaments takes coordination, and dozens if not hundreds of hours of volunteer work. If WAFC or BUDA or whichever league is hosting an event, be sure to thank the TD multiple times, as they are likely doing it for free because they care about their league.
So if we've established that many leagues are on relative shoestring budgets (and this can be confirmed at sites like guidestar.com, which will list the largest leagues), and tournaments are a key source of revenue, what happens to the new calendar?


Well we need to first answer a few questions.


We know who usually hosts college tournaments (usually the colleges themselves).


Who typically hosts club tournaments? When are they hosted?


Who goes to the largest number of club tournaments? When do they go?


The answers to these questions are pretty easy. While there are some few post-season and pre-season and in-season silly season club events (Trouble in Vegas/Potlatch/Kaimana etc), the biggest tournaments are usually in season, attended by club teams. The schedule, for years, has been more or less foolproofed. Teams build their team up usually in April, with college players filtering in in May. There are tryout tournaments in May and Maybe June. There are likely two tournaments in July or August, and a 3rd for a few teams. Then the series. Most club teams go to 4 tournaments a year plus the series. This has been true for a number of teams. The calendar was relatively predictable, and there exists some degree of agreement among the leagues. BUDA hosts two major events in June. Philly hosts what is a tryout tournament for many teams in May (Bell Crack). It wouldn't make sense for DC or NY or boston to try to host something the week of, or even the week before or after because it would draw poorly.


Club teams don't want to burn out their players.


These tournaments again are all important events for the communities that host them. I'm sure DiscNW looks at Emerald City Classic as a huge part of what lets them do what they can do.


I think most of us, on the balance, want to support our local leagues. They are the grassroots of ultimate.


Already in the last few years tournaments have been harmed. There's sort of a winner take all mentality to grab one of the precious triple crown tour events that have the nationals teams. If you don't get one of those events you're pretty much hosed. Amp used to have a 24 team event called Philly Invite. It was a first rate tournament, at a great price, and raised money for Amp which no one begrudged them for. Last year they reduced the field to 12 as they got the Pro-Elite Challenge. This year that bid went elsewhere, and their tournament, which used to fill up with 24 teams no problem, and still having the select flight status, had to cut their tournament size in half. Amp will not be able to use this tournament to help defray their expensive travel costs.


And again, on their own, they ran an excellent event. Due to the whims of the USA-U bid process, even though their tournament has been the same weekend more or less for years, they are pretty much stuck taking whichever team they can to simply get even half the field they'd normally get.


Now what happens when Regionals is late june/early july, sectionals is early-mid june, and Nationals is July? (or are we going to give teams less than 2 weeks to try to find plane tickets so they pay through the nose for nationals?)


What happens to tournaments like the Motown Throwdown, just outside of Detroit, that have run a first rate men's event for years in late July? Lots of teams used it to get ready for the series. Are they going to try to move their event to June and compete with all of the other tournaments doing the same thing? Or will they fold? You can repeat this scenario ad nauseum. There are probably hundreds of tournaments in mid-July on, who really only attract teams that intend on playing in the series. After the series is over, these teams may play a post season event, but most post-season events are silly teams, reunion teams, friends you haven't seen in a while teams. They are not the bread and butter of the tournament calendar, and most players don't go to one offseason event per month as they would in season.


This impact will have a negative impact on the leagues that rely on these events for fundraisers, and in some cases league dues will go substantially up, and some teams will find it really hard to help out that promising young player who doesn't have a baller job (yet).


Lastly, what happens to summer leagues? They still exist, but how many players will be jazzed up about playing games the week before regionals or nationals? This effect is unclear but I think it leans negative if you ask me...


This change will simply take money out of leagues, and local ultimate organizations. I am not sure who's pockets get enriched here.