As word of the Professional Ultimate league has been heard in the Frisbee World, I am weary of in what ways this would potentially change the game.
My first question is would you, as an Ultimate player, pay to watch an hour and a half game? And if so how much? $15? $50? $150? I honestly don’t think I would spend more than the $10 it was to watch a NexGen game and even that was stretching it. Not that I didn’t support or enjoy it, because I envied all of the players on the NexGen tour for the opportunity they earned. It stemmed from the NexGen game feeling less underground and more commercial. Even though I have only been playing a few years, to me not every game has a crowd watching. The Finals at College/Club Nationals and the game to go. Those are the places that generally do, and for a good reason, have a huge crowd. The natural intensity of games like that make people want to watch it. Having a crowd there for every regular season game seems odd to me.
That’s not even my biggest concern about the whole thing- I am more concerned with Ultimate having to conform to a more commercial playing style to reach a greater audience. I think helping the sport of Ultimate is awesome, why wouldn’t you want to expose everyone to something so great?! But changing the game to reach a bigger crowd makes it much less appealing to me. Especially with a more active role for observers. Spirit of the game allows players to make their own calls which heavily promotes honesty. In Ultimate, people are looked down upon for being dishonest. By taking away the players responsibility for maintaining a genuine care for this aspect of the game, a terrible message is being sent.
The idea that people cannot be honest if it does not give them an advantage is unreasonable. Sports at every level could use more self officiating to teach this.
As many professional sports that have been around for so many years are currently hitting road bumps, trying to start Ultimate at a professional level and making it more similar to other sports rather then highlighting it’s differences will not set it up for success.
Brit
