One major challenge I’ve come up against as a captain is how to find awesome youtube videos of women playing ultimate at elite club levels – highlight reel style – to my teammates pumped up and to show new players the beauty, ferocity, and athleticism of the game.
Let’s be real: I am a youtube fiend! I have assiduously trying to find awesome youtube videos of elite women’s ultimate since last year and it’s been hard!
The only two elite women’s club teams that I’ve found videos for are Seattle Riot and Brute Squad. These two videos are awesome (great music selection, relatively short, sick sick plays, etc.) and get me really pumped up, but I wish there were more. If you know of more videos, please send them to me and I’ll share them with my team and post them on the blog.
Because of this difficulty in my first year as captain, I have been curious to figure out why there aren’t more videos of elite women’s ultimate out there on youtube, a major video server to the common (wo)man.I have many hypotheses. One is that there are perhaps more people watching men’s ultimate (perhaps because people assume that it’s better/more fun to watch/more athletic, you name it), and therefore there are more people who might be taping men’s ultimate and posting it on youtube. I find this the most likely hypothesis and I find it troubleseome because arguably, if people are only watching men’s because they think its “better” then they just obviously haven’t seen good women play. By not having youtube videos of elite club women playing, the perception of men’s ultimate being “better” is hard to combat.
While it’s probably true that the average National open’s club played can jump higher and run faster than the average National women’s club player, women play beautifully too, and in both women’s and mixed, women are usually paired with other women, so it’s all relative anyways! In reality, there’s no excuse why people should think that women’s ultimate is less athletic just because they think we can’t jump as high or run as fast and men: we, too, make sick plays, get layout Ds, sky our opponents, release perfect hucks, and get hand blocks, and yes, that looks awesome on film.
Another hypothesis is that there is (a perceived) low demand for women’s elite club highlight reels. This piggybacks on the same problems and assumptions as my first hypothesis, and therefore is also problematic. If there is a perceived lower demand for youtube videos, then perhaps there is less money for women club teams to make videos and the time it would take to make such a video seems less worthwhile given the perceived low demand. Just so you know, there is a demand! Or at least I demand more…
Lastly, I have a hunch that the reason there aren’t as many videos of elite women club ultimate is because the guys are worried we’ll show them up so they’ve been magically deleting all the videos! They know that if spectators know how awesome, equally athletic, and equally beautiful women’s ultimate is, combined with the added sexiness of women playing frisbee, it would take away all their spectators! Muahaha! I’m just kidding…maybe… 🙂