AUDL Teams Stiffed Broadcasters, Jeopardizing Future Partnerships

September 10, 2012 by Charlie Eisenhood in News with 7 Comments

Late in the first season of the American Ultimate Disc League, some teams that had contracted radio broadcasters to cover their games stopped paying without explanation.

Richard Rodawalt, an ESPN sports radio broadcaster from Columbus, started working with the AUDL in the early part of the season and co-hosted Cranes Weekly, an AUDL radio show. He and his partner Matt Douglass also called games from Columbus, Detroit, and Kentucky.

However, Rodawalt said, each of the teams balked when it came time to pay for their services.

“The [Kentucky] Bluegrass canceled all the broadcasting in my understanding…and didn’t answer any of my partner’s invoice requests,” said Rodawalt. Columbus had made a tentative agreement to pay the duo $2000 once the team acquired sponsors, but owner Michael Moses never did — and quit the league back in July.

Douglass and Rodawalt put together a radio show, video packages, and more — and, in Columbus, even “finished out the season out of respect for the players,” calling them “all great guys.”

The duo also called Detroit Mechanix games, including the Championship game. But Rodawalt says the last four games of the season haven’t been paid for. “We haven’t even received a ‘thank you,’” he said.* [Ed. note: see update below]

“When I see that [Detroit owner Brent] Steepe bought the Boston team but couldn’t even throw $50 to us for the broadcasting,” said Rodawalt, “I decided I wanted to separate myself from the league…To not even get a thank you or an explanation or anything to me was kind of wrong.”* [Ed. note: see update below]

He stressed the importance of media to a young sports league, saying “you can’t spread the word about it without advertising, without media, without broadcasting,” and said treating broadcasters poorly is not a good way to build towards the future.

He pointed to the success of the Indy Alley Cats franchise through their acquisition of Brodie Smith, a well-known Ultimate player with a strong online presence. Smith helped to get AUDL’s highlights onto ESPN SportsCenter’s top 10 throughout the season.

“I think Brodie Smith did more for the AUDL than the AUDL did for the AUDL and he only played a handful of games,” said Rodawalt.

Right now, Rodawalt says, he won’t work for the AUDL again. And he wouldn’t ever encourage higher-ups at ESPN to get involved with the league after his experience. But he likes Ultimate and is optimistic about the game becoming a professional sport, saying that if there were another league he would be “very open” to broadcasting again.

“I want Ultimate to be on a professional level for the players…I have the utmost respect for [them],” he said. “There’s no reason why in five or ten years it couldn’t be bigger than lacrosse. But you need to have the right people for your leadership – you need people to work with you and not against you.”

*UPDATE: The lack of thank you’s was attributed incorrectly to Detroit. In fact, those quotes were about the Kentucky Bluegrass franchise. Also, see Douglass’ response to the article in the comments.

Tagged AUDL

AUDL player

Richard Rodawalt is a class act and an excellent broadcaster. Whoever actually figures out how to run a proper league should put him at the top of the list to work for them. It’s a shame that he is another person on the long list of people who have given their time and talent to help this league succeed only to be rebuffed for their efforts.
kevin

It’s really too bad that Richard & Matt got stiffed like this. Although, it’s not surprising as the list of who’s not getting paid by the Cranes is growing daily. Seems like millions of promises were made and none were (contracturally) kept.

AUDL: Quit being dumb and start making smart decisions. Richard didn’t know ultimate prior to this year and is now a big fan. They’re both great at doing the play by plays. Good luck finding another group that can come even remotely close to calling games like these 2.

Kevin
WaterAndSand

Have you guys run any sort of piece about the financial state of Ultimate? I’m personally surprised to see that an agreement for as much as $2000 for radio broadcasts was made, as I didn’t realize the league had any sort of revenue streams that could even speculatively accommodate that. It’s something I think would be interesting to read. The article you linked mentioned the profits of the Cranes’ last game going to charity. What sort of ticket prices and attendance volumes are typical for the sport? Are players making money, or are they generally just supporting their ability to play with the profits?

Rodawalt’s comments about Brodie hint at something important which also relates to the recent discussion involving ESPN: Ultimate needs to build itself up on tier at a time, and literally cannot afford to put the cart before the horse when it comes to expanding the sport in popularity. To my limited knowledge, Brodie’s clips started with the online Ultimate community as their nearly exclusive audience. You all shared the videos with outsiders like myself, and they quickly became viral with youtube view counts far outreaching the confines of die-hard players/fans. This general audience was so large, that ESPN couldn’t help themselves from riding the popularity wave, and Brodie became a repeat web gem/top 10 highlight machine. Now anything he does, as Rodawalt said, almost automatically carries more weight than the rest of the league. It’s not as though this serves as a blueprint for bringing popularity to the sport — there will only be one Brodie, but what it does do is serve as a bonafide example of something that got people more interested in the sport, and a framework for outside the box thinking that may accelerate participation in and attention towards the Ultimate community.

Perhaps that $2k could have been used in a way to creatively generate more interest in the sport, such that when it comes time for next season, teams will not only have larger revenues to pay the broadcasters, but also a set of fans that will actually be tuning in to listen.

Sorry if my comment are long/uninformed, I have nothing to do between classes and like to think about things…
AUDL

We apologize for these unfortunate events. Matt and Richard did a tremendous job all season long and their efforts are truly appreciated. We request if you see this, please contact the AUDL with what was not paid and we’ll get things settled, whether you wish to ever participate with the AUDL again or not. Unfortunately our owner in Columbus made some arrangements that we were unaware of until now and quit the league a few months ago. This is not acceptable and will be rectified.
Matthew

While I cannot speak on behalf of Richard, and I would never intend to, I can speak for myself, since I was mentioned in the article. I have to say that since the time this article was posted, I have been in communication with the aforementioned teams, and I have received payments from Kentucky and Detroit. By no means do I want to defend Cranes Owner, Michale Mosses, but no amount of money was ever agreed upon – only that I would be paid for my services. While I did not receive any payment, Michael sent me an email late in the season, explaining the situation, so I knew what the outcome would be. Although I still have many questions about the league, and feel that things could have been done differently, I do respect the AUDL for what they did for the game of Ultimate Frisbee, which I consider to be my favorite sport. Like any fan of the game, I hope to see this sport grow. I think the AUDL has taken the steps to do that, and I look forward to future seasons.

Matthew L. Douglass
Richard

I want to clear up that Matt’s name was not supposed to be included in this article because I did not want to indicate or imply what his intentions/relationship with the league were going to be going forward. I was speaking only for myself on the factors that contributed to my decision that being involved with the AUDL as it was last year is not something I will be including myself in going forward. Again as Charlie noted above, the comment of “receiving nothing not even a thank you” was in reference to the Bluegrass franchise and not the Detroit franchise. Brent has been a guest several times on our show and I even made the comment several times that he in terms of the Detroit franchise in my opinion had been “doing things the right way” (facility, reaching out to media/local news stations, dance team, mascot etc..) and my comment regarding him and the Boston franchise was more an indictment of the league itself as I, as an objective person, fail to see how that would not be a conflict of interest. That being said I also said “I can understand why you would want someone like Brent to own a 2nd franchise as he seemed to understand the big picture of things, mainly that when you are an owner of a franchise of a startup league it may take awhile to reach the ultimate goal in the end”. Again I want to emphasize one more time the respect I have for the players of this game that I truly do enjoy now. I wish you all the of best luck and hope it does succeed, if not for the AUDL on some pro level capacity. Thank you all for your time and insight and there were also several non-players, who were in coaching/owner roles who were fantastic along the way and I thank you as well and wish you the best! But one more time my intention was not to “speak for” Matt but some of the things we encountered together or I saw through him along the way contributed to my decision, and I had asked for his name to not be mentioned, so for anyone who cares these opinions are my own and are not idicative, nor do they speak for him in any way shape or form, so for anyone in the league who wishes to broadcast games (whether for the AUDL, NexGen or anyone else looking to broadcast the game of Ultimate) in the future please keep Matt in your consideration. He brings a rare combination of someone who played the game for years and also has a strong background in broadcasting working both for a radio station in our Columbus market and for the Columbus BlueJackets, and those connections and people with that kind of experience, and also retaining those types of people are vital towards growing this sport. Thanks!

Richard Rodawalt
Anonymous

So, let me me understand …. it took this article highlighting the issues, for the AUDL to respond and pay for the service rendered? So the teams and AUDL didn’t realize they owed money? Aren’t these guys running a business? What about Kentucky… aren’t they also part of the AUDL,or does the AUDL only speak for Detroit and/or Brent?

I applaud Rodawalt in his statement that he would encourage ESPN not to get involved with this league.

As far a Steepe, lots of talk no results, his team had some of the lowest attendance. As I understand it he was also responsible for the Championship failure (oh I mean game).

How is it that 8 new teams signed on in midst of this disaster? You have to wonder if anyone in this league has any business sense at all! Well maybe the teams getting out. So new 8 teams in and I am thinking about 5 old teams out. Stats say that some of the new teams will fail (in this league the failure rate exceeds normal start up stats). Not sure how anyone would support or buy into this league,it is almost becoming a joke. Let’s hope that someone with some business sense starts something new for professional Ultimate that we can all get behind in a positive way.

AUDL Teams Stiffed Broadcasters, Jeopardizing Future Partnerships

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