USA Ultimate Releases Six Year Strategic Plan

October 18, 2012 by Charlie Eisenhood in News with 22 Comments

After over a year and a half of discussions, surveys, and analysis, USA Ultimate released its new six year strategic plan late yesterday. The plan — what USA Ultimate is calling its first “vision and set of core values” — will guide the organization from 2013 to 2018.

“We are very excited to share our plan for the next six years,” said USA Ultimate CEO Tom Crawford. “Getting to this point was an 18-month-long process of listening, listening and more listening, followed by a great deal of analysis, deliberation and strategic thinking. We had some very smart, talented and dedicated colleagues invest a significant amount of time, energy and thought into the development of this plan, and for that we are extremely grateful.”

The plan has six major goals, each of which include a number of somewhat more specific strategies to achieve them. The goals are listed in the order of priority. We will take a look at each in turn.

GOAL 1: Increase The Visibility Of Ultimate

USA Ultimate, explicitly calling this their “top goal,” will implement “ambitious television and broadcast plans, sponsorship activation, [and] emerging media and public relations efforts” to start pushing ultimate out to a much larger audience. They hope to reach “national sports news visibility” while also broadcasting their top events each year (presumably Club Championships, College Championships, and the US Open, with the possibility of some youth events as well).

Mike Payne, USA Ultimate’s Board President, wrote, “By investing in visibility and exposure as a top priority, we are saying to the sports community at large: ‘Here we are, the coolest sport on the planet. Check us out and have your kids give it a try!’” He added that “millions of kids” will be exposed to Ultimate through the new club division restructure to be announced later this month.

Brodie Smith, a player for Austin’s Doublewide who has a huge following on social media, responded to USA Ultimate’s news release with a video blog. He pointed to one of their strategies — “Reach a broad audience via promotions done in collaboration with sponsors and other partners” — and stressed his desire to be involved. “I have been trying to work with USA Ultimate for a very long time…,” he said. “I would love to use the platform that I have, I’ve been blessed with 180,000 people that watch my videos.”

GOAL 2: Grow Youth, College, And League Ultimate

In their previous strategic plan that guided the organization since 2008, growing youth ultimate was USA Ultimate’s first priority. That remains a large focus for the next six years.

Along with developing and sustaining more programs at the youth and college levels, USAU will “vastly increase the number of qualified coaches and observers via training and certification programs.”

An additional focus this year will be on local leagues. They plan to “facilitate…program integration between leagues, other local organizations, and USA Ultimate.” What this will look like is not yet clear. But when we spoke with Crawford about USA Ultimate’s financial position and priorities, one stumbling block was that just 40,000 people are members of USAU, although 100 times that many people play Ultimate in the US. Finding a way to integrate leagues with USAU is a way for them to raise the membership roles in a big way.

GOAL 3: Organize The Highest Quality US Competitive Events

With the American Ultimate Disc League and now Major League Ultimate looking to earn a profit from competitive ultimate, USAU faces more pressure than ever before to achieve this goal. The announcement of the Club Restructuring is the first step here — and its reception will be critical to continued participation from the sport’s top athletes, another of USAU’s strategies.

There is good news for perennial Sectionals and Regionals teams. USAU will “evolve and enforce operational quality standards for all stages of [their] Championship events,” which should make the tournaments leading up to Nationals a much more pleasant experience.

USAU also plans a “world-class marketing and promotional program” to highlight the events and athletes.

GOAL 4: Make Spirit Of The Game Real For Today’s Ultimate Players And Community

With the increasing desire from younger players to have more observers — and even referees — in today’s game, this will be a real challenge for USAU. Spirit of the Game (SOTG) is a far bigger component of the focus of players outside the United States, highlighted recently by Colombia’s National tournament, where SOTG directly affects the seeding of teams.

USAU will “lead a community-wide effort to clarify and communicate how Spirit of the Game applies to behaviors on and off the field,” an important move. Too often, the entire concept of SOTG is lost on players. With the increasingly competitive nature of Ultimate, a rethinking of how to define the term may be necessary.

GOAL 5: Achieve Sustained Excellence Of USA Ultimate Teams In International Competition

The first strategy in this category is to “refine and maintain fair and effective Team USA player and team selection processes at all levels,” which may mean a move towards a true National team, rather than having the Club Champions represent the US.

USAU will also “support gradual progress” towards Pan-American and Olympic participation.

GOAL 6: Govern The Organization To Ensure Stability And Excellence

This is largely a commitment to good financial practices. The most important strategy is that USAU will “diversify and expand [the] revenue base, including a USA Ultimate fundraising program.”

The strategic plan was created in consultation with Rader Consulting, an organization which is, according to Payne, “considered the guru of strategic planning for National Governing Bodies and the Olympic movement in the U.S.”

Here is USA Ultimate’s video released in conjunction with their plan:

Tagged 2013 Strategic Plan, AUDL, international, Major League Ultimate, olympics, SOTG, USA Ultimate

Tom

I love the fact that USA Ultimate finally has some competition and it isn’t the only avenue for people to get involved in ultimate anymore.

The plan seems solid, I think they set a lot of ‘safe’ goals. There weren’t any surprises; all of these goals could have been predicted by just about anybody. However; I think that it will be interesting to see how the new pro leagues affect USA Ultimate from reaching those goals over the next six years.

I’m not sure how seriously USA Ultimate was considering pro ultimates’ impact on their organization when they made these goals; but we will see how it works out.

I just love seeing the ultimate envelope being pushed. It will do great things for the sport in my opinion.
Chris

Brodie may have expressed interest, but I am assuming that USAU wants to separate themselves from him, rather than promote him as a posterchild for ultimate.

I don’t want to attack him personally, because I have never met him, but he certainly has a REPUTATION. That reputation is probably not one that USAU wants to keep in the spotlight as they increase the visibility of the sport, despite the fact that he is a very skilled and athletic player.
Kevin

Hasn’t Brodie been pretty critical of USAU, and doesn’t he have a bad reputation? I can’t imagine they would be interested in working with him and promoting him as the “poster child” of Ultimate if he doesn’t share the same ideals of USAU.
ManlyMan

Could you give more examples on how SOTG is a “far bigger component” outside of the US? Colombia is an interesting example, but I assume there must be a lot more evidence besides just that for you to make that statement.
- Charlie Eisenhood
  
  It’s anecdotal, I’ll admit, but everywhere I’ve played overseas (Buenos Aires, Abu Dhabi, Paganello) there is a much greater emphasis on SOTG (i.e. spirit circles after the game, detailed SOTG score sheets to fill out after every game). Also, only the US and Canada use observers in a systematic way. WFDF doesn’t have them and doesn’t want them, because most of their membership wants to maintain the full self-officiation aspect.
  
  This is not to say that games are always spirited — that is definitely NOT the case. But, in my experience, there is a much greater sense of disappointment when a game does end up with bad calls or outbursts.
Evan

Gotta agree on the Brodie question. The guy’s been vocally opposed to self-refereeing and SOTG; while these are legitimate positions to take they’re directly in opposition to the direction USAU is going, so why would they endorse him? He’s also just not very thoughtful or strategic when he speaks.

The plan looks decent, not earthshaking but I’m not sure it needs to be. The video… Well, the video is just awful, sorry.
Tom

I agree about the Brodie thing…I don’t think that would be an effective partnership at all. Total opposite view points on a lot of the biggest issues surrounding ultimate right now.
Bryan J

Agree on the Brodie thing. He’s on record as supporting referees which is fundamentally against USAU’s beliefs and vision for the sport. Why would they partner with someone who expresses completely different ideals on such a fundamental issue?
Ryan Mallen

I’m glad that USA Ultimate includes Spirit of the Game in its plan, but they don’t discuss any details about how to resolve the issues with self-officiation that have arisen with increased levels of competition over the past few years (especially in the US and Canada). In my opinion, ultimate in its current state is not viable as a spectator sport because of the chaotic nature of self-officiation. If USAU wants to market and display (and eventually charge admission for?) competitive ultimate, it needs to improve the quality of play in a number of ways.

They could start with some adjustments to the rulebook.

To me, competitive ultimate has become increasingly difficult to watch. Too many questionable calls are being made (and subsequently argued for way too long) at the most exciting moments, and it creates an awkward pacing to the game. As a player, I stay engaged because I’m interested in the call (read: shameless ultimate nerd), but I can imagine that non-ultimate playing spectators (read: expanded viewership, see goal #1) would be confused and/or turned off by this.
A quick fix for the pacing issue (credit: Charlie Eisenhood) would be to implement a time cap on foul call discussions (10 seconds?), after which the ruling is automatically turned to the observer. Also, to cut back on the number of calls in general, I think travel calls should be taken out of the hands of the players and made actively by observers only.

As for the un-Spirited play… it really bothers me when teams use techniques like calling bogus travels and intentional fouls to slow offensive movement; its a clear violation of Spirit, but observers rarely intervene (unless the fouls become excessive to the point of physical harm/danger). I believe that observers need to take a much more authoritative role in penalizing teams that persist in violating Spirit. Whether its a more liberal assessment of TMFs/PMFs or a new system entirely, I believe some adjustments are necessary to deter teams from playing in an un-Spirited fashion.

I don’t think ultimate needs referees. I think self-officiation (with the aid of observers) is a valid (and sometimes more efficient) model for organizing competitive play. But there are some refinements and clarifications that need to be made before USAU starts pursuing a wider audience. I personally would like to see (from USAU) a clarification on the role of Spirit, which seems at times like a redheaded stepchild in discussions for furthering the sport. I believe its up to the USAU to (re)commit itself to SOTG and set forth a plan to establish the important role of Spirit in playing ultimate at all levels of competition. Self-officiation under the code of SOTG is part of what makes ultimate so great; it’s a unique and intriguing element to the sport the just needs some fine tuning to become sustainable. I hope that SOTG can endure the growing pains of our sport to bring the Spirited ultimate we know and love to a wider viewership.

USAU says it plans to “lead a community-wide effort to clarify and communicate how Spirit of the Game applies to behaviors on and off the field”. I look forward to finding out what that means exactly.
ProUltimateTeamInsider

For USAU goal number 1: Why is USAU trying to essentially compete with professional Ultimate? Why not try to leverage the dollars that investors are willing to put into

professional Ultimate initiatives to handle objective number 1, and concentrate on all the other objectives from the grass roots up through college and club? What is the

point of making Ultimate more wide spread? To increase membership, right? Won’t that happen naturally at no cost to USAU if pro Ultimate takes off? I can understand the

political prudence of the USAU board to keep the SOTG zealots happy by distancing itself from pro Ultimate… kinda like today’s Republican party. But with the USAU

membership at large clamoring for a wider exposure and acceptance of Ultimate as a legitimate sport its just frustrating that USAU has made no effort whatsoever to try to

bridge the gap and communicate with folks trying to take the sport into the professional mainstream before spending untold membership dollars in televising a product that only

the membership will have the patience to watch. Its as if USAU wants to make Ultimate into a new art form, with fans who just like Ultimate for itself. Again, those are the

already paying members, not the mainstream.

Also, the idea that USAU wants to charge admission to these tournaments just smacks of greed. Nobody outside of the Ultimate scene comes to watch Nationals and its FREE! Now

you want to charge people’s parents to watch their kids play in a tournament that the kids are already paying to attend? Does charging admission to watch a tournament equate

to legitimizing the sport? Or is the plan just to gouge an already captive audience?

The bullet point about SOTG seems like a direct attack on the notion of refereed Ultimate. SOTG is such an over and misused term. SOTG should be a simple idea: play by the rules and have good sportsmanship. This idea should apply to any sport. However, SOTG, as Ultimate zealots view it, is this pseudo-religious fervent belief in the ideal scenario that top athletes competing in games of larger and larger consequence can and will make non-partisan judgements. It is this belief that will ALWAYS separate Ultimate and the main stream. Why? Because the same impluse you and i have to question the accuracy of a close call made under duress is the same impulse that the main stream will have. Can you imagine if NBA players were allowed to make their own calls? The home crowd would go berserk at every call the opposition made and really, the game would be unwatchable. You can gather a group of Ultimate players to watch and appreciate the asthetics of an Ultimate match, but the fan in general wants to root for one side or the other. Big crowds are generated when there’s a fan base rooting for a home team and the mainstream sports enthusiast will never trust SOTG.

Is the real worry about refs that Ultimate will go the way of professional soccer with all the demonstrative dives and other unsportsmanlike conduct? I have news for every SOTG fan out there… there’s unsportsmanlike conduct aplenty in Ultimate already. Referees are inconsequential to that part of it. However, when a ref makes a bad call, he just missed the call. When a player makes a bad call, its looked upon as cheating, and invites retaliatory bad calls and other anti-SOTG behavior. You can make arguments about isolated instances about biased refs, etc, but to think that the number of biased refs could outnumber the number of biased player-refs would be truly blind faith. You can also argue that observers can help cotrol games that are getting out of hand. Thats true, but a stoppage and discussion is a stoppage and discussion, and frankly unwatchable. The more power you give observers, the more like refs they are anyway. One thing i liked a lot about the AUDL was the “integrity rule”, where a player or coach could overrule a call that went in their favor. That was an excellent homage to SOTG that was enacted many times during the season, and really is superior to the idea that players should make their own calls. The players still have power to shape the game by negating incorrect calls, but in general are free to play hard and let the refs make the close calls instead of generating incessant do-overs.

I can’t speak for what Brodie thinks or doesn’t think, but the idea that USAU would actively disengage itself from one of the singular links between the sport of Ultimate and

the rest of the world, simply because of a perceived difference of opinion on how Ultimate should be refereed (by refs vs. players) is ludicrous. If USAU actively distances

itself from Brodie on those grounds, i think they’re wildly missing what a number of athletes like Brodie want out of Ultimate at the highest levels.

In essence, all the bullet points sound great, but as a long time Ultimate player and coach i wish USAU would at least reach out and communicate with the fledgling pro leagues

and try to see if there’s some common ground upon which both organizations could benefit one another. The MLU in particular is being built from the ground up by Ultimate

players. Does anyone really want to see the attempted commercialization of USAU Ultimate? Does anyone really think Ultimate is commercially viable as a kind of pseudo action

art form? Round hole, meet square peg.
Bryan J

ProUltimateTeamInsider,

What do you mean by “professional” ultimate? It seems that term gets tossed around here a lot, but you don’t indicate what that means. Do you mean ultimate with refs?

Also, I missed the part about charging parents to watch their kids play, where was that mentioned?
ProUltimateTeamInsider

Professional Ultimate, as in Ultimate where players are paid to play (expenses, etc) and fans are charged to watch games (e.g. MLU, AUDL) as opposed to USAU Ultimate, where players pay to play and nobody watches.

Maybe its just rumored, but i’ve heard that USAU wants to charge admission at some of their tournaments for spectators. Since the only spectators at any of these events tend to be parents, friends and family, that means that if implemented, these folks will have to pay to watch.
Ryan Mallen

I don’t think USAU will charge for most of its tournaments, but it is advertising its “US Open” showcase pretty heavily and I would expect them to charge for tickets to that (I believe they started selling tickets before they had to cancel the event this past summer). But as far as I know, USAU has no goals for further monetization of ultimate.

As far as the Brodie issue is concerned, I see no reason for USAU to reach out to him. Why would they? For his 180,000 followers on YouTube? Seems like a drop in the bucket in the estimated 5 million+ ultimate players in America, not to mention that most of his followers are already ultimate players (and therefore not the target of USAU’s goals for expansion).

ProUltimateTeamInsider – you regard the word “art” as if it inherently contradicts the nature of sport. Are there not artistic elements to certain sports, even at the highest level of competition (see: Olympic diving, figure skating, gymnastics, etc.).
I don’t mean to argue semantics. I think you have some valid concerns about self-officiated ultimate being tough to market to an expanded viewer base. As I said, I think Spirit is an intriguing aspect of the game that could catch on to a broadened audience. Personally, I like that players have to know and use the rules, which requires both intelligence and grace in the heat of competition. But maybe I’m dead wrong, and Spirit eventually proves to be a detriment to the development of the sport. The point is, USA Ultimate had to make a decision on how to handle the ambiguity of SOTG and its role in today’s game, and I’m glad that they’ve included this issue in their strategic plan. While their actual plans are ambiguous, it’s comforting to know that Spirit is still an important consideration for the powers that be at USAU.

I find it interesting that — as a long time ultimate player and coach — you haven’t witnessed firsthand the differences between Spirit and sportsmanship. Spirit is about the ultimate community (specifically) agreeing to uphold a set of values that makes the sport enjoyable and sustainable at all levels of competition. Spirit is designed around the communal nature of ultimate, a characteristic that has undoubtedly fostered the rapid growth of ultimate over the past decade or so. SOTG is about remembering the importance of respect within the ultimate community even in a fiercely competitive setting.

Just because we all want ultimate to reach a wider viewer base doesn’t mean we should so quickly compromise aspects of the sport to conform to people’s expectations of what a team sport should look like. We’ve all watched the NFL prove this season how a referee system can go completely awry. I don’t think its inconceivable that new viewers would be open to a different style of officiating a sport.
Pingback: Frisbee-Sport | Beiträge zum einzigen eigenverantwortlichen Teamsport der Welt » Handsignale und Observer ergeben Sinn
ProUltimateTeamInsider

@Ryan That reverence you have for the notion of “spirit” is exactly what i’m talking about regarding what will always separate Ultimate and widespread acceptance. Frankly, its not that special to expect that a player not cheat or that a player respect other players on the field. Believe it or not, Ultimate didn’t create and isnt the sole proprietor of good sportsmanship. The extra significance people place on this “spirit” idea is not inclusive, but rather exclusive. Its saying “we’re better than you because we have good spirit”. Just play by the rules and respect your opponents and the game and get over yourselves.

The “integrity rule” system was a great compromise of active officiation and players empowered to overrule incorrect calls. If you cant find the connection to SOTG in that system then get in line for the kool-aid. And actually, the presence of refs would remove the urge for me to question someone’s sportsmanship when they make a questionable call.

I’d like to point out that i’m not advocating for the mass-reffication of Ultimate. I think there IS a place for self-officiated Ultimate: HS and College and non-elite club. I DO agree that learning the game this way helps promote and teach conflict resolution skills as well as the rules of the game. I just think that at the highest levels of Ultimate competition, and particularly for Ultimate aimed at a mass audience, the benefits of active officials far outweigh the detriments. The game is quick and full of action and there will never be a “Canada vs. Japan” game with refs.

And i love how people bring up the NFL scab refs as examples of reffed systems gone awry. The public hated it because there were so many lengthy stoppages while the officials viewed replays and wrung their hands over outcomes. Ummm… ever watch a hotly contested game at nationals? Lots of stoppages, reenactments, discussions, hand wringing? Yeah.
- Ryan Mallen
  
  @PUTI
  
  I do appreciate the “integrity rule” in the AUDL (although from what I understand, a lot of players found it laughable that they should make a call against their own team). Everything else the AUDL has done with ultimate is completely unappealing to me. The time cap instead of point cap, the wider field, the referees counting stalls (to 7), the automatic turnover as a result of a travel — at some point it seems like a different sport altogether. But that’s an argument for a different time.
  
  I think that (especially in light of goal #1) people often forget USAU’s responsibility to its current membership base, which is mostly comprised of non-elite level players. Doing some math to confirm this:
  Assuming that USAU will start its viewership expansion initiative by marketing nationals level competition, there are 68 teams (excluding masters, sorry old guys) that could be involved (club: 16 x 3(open, women, & mixed) + college: 20 x 2 (open and women)). Assuming each of those 68 teams has 25 players on their roster, that’s a whopping 1,700 USAU members involved in elite level ultimate, which I’ll just round to 2,000 because I don’t feel like using a calculator. While I haven’t been able to find the statistics on USAU membership for this year, in 2010 it totalled ~35,000, and I’d say it’s safe to assume that number is almost at 40,000 by this point.
  By this math (granted it’s rough but you get the idea), only ~5% of USAU players are involved in elite level play. I wonder, of the other 95%, how many members have even played in a game with an observer?
  My point is, Spirit is integral to the development of the sport at all levels of competition. Your argument is that Spirit won’t translate well to a wider audience beyond ultimate (which is a valid concern), but I’m willing to bet that more than half of USAU’s membership has never even played in front of an audience (and probably never will).
  I’m starting to wonder whether or not there is inherent contradiction in USAU’s strategic plan. Is its primary responsibility to the sport of ultimate, or the community of players that shell out their (arguably inflated) membership dues every year? While it seems everyone agrees that ultimate requires some changes to be more widely marketable, I think most of the 95% of non-elite players in the USAU are happy with the self-officiating / SOTG model (maybe with some minor tweaks). If USAU makes any major changes geared toward making the sport more marketable, isn’t it alienating the vast majority of its membership base? Talk about a square peg in a round hole.
  
  Here’s a solution that I wouldn’t be opposed to: if USAU would maintain its college and club circuits essentially as they are, but add an elite division with the sole purpose of presenting ultimate in a more viewer-relatable format. The officiating would be much more rigorous (either more authoritative observers or referees) to ensure a well-paced game that is both fair for the players and understandable to uninitiated viewers. An elite division should involve the best talent in the country, so perhaps there would be some type of play-in system for upper level club teams. I have to admit this is a relatively new idea to me, and I haven’t thought it that well through, but it seems a fair resolution for the aforementioned dichotomy in USAU membership.
  
  As for your last comment (about the NFL), I think we are making the same argument. Neither refereeing nor self-officiation provide a perfect model for officiating organized sports… it’s more about how the system is implemented. I believe that, in the interests of making ultimate a more watchable sport, a modified implementation of the observer system could be as (or even more) effective as incorporating referees.
Pingback: WFDF's Worlds Discussion About Observers & Referees | Ultiworld
ProUltimateTeamInsider

@Ryan

You are making my point exactly with regards to USAU essentially barking up the wrong tree when spending so many resources on “mainstreaming” Ultimate. I agree completely that USAU should serve its membership, rather than trying to compete with the professional leagues for ESPN highlight time. Yes, most definitely, there is a contradiction in USAU’s plan. That was the point i was trying to make when i said it might serve USAU’s interests more to perhaps support and/or work with these professional leagues in some way to take the sport to the main stream. USAU could theoretically exert minimal resources and let people who are willing to invest in these leagues do the promotional leg work. This enables USAU to better serve, as you’ve estimated, the “other” 95% of its actual membership.

Your comment regarding players finding it laughable making a call against their own team is a little ironic, considering thats what i’m saying the root problem with self-officiation is in the first place: the reluctance of a player to hurt his team with a call, or lack of a call.
- Ryan Mallen
  
  I don’t believe that the root problem is self-officiation. I believe the root problem is the increasing disregard for Spirit of the Game, a concept that really serves as the backbone for the current self-officiation model. USAU knows this, which is why they’ve made a point to address it in their strategic plan.
Evan

Here’s my concern with refs and the erosion of SOTG:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWv5Zpf8D6A

At 1:07 in that video, Brodie throws a HUGE, intentional foul, then catches an spikes the disc, and gets away with the whole thing. [Ed. note: It was not in the video, but he was in fact called for a foul and it was a turnover.] Big whoop, right? Except for all the comments praising the play. Comments, most likely, coming from young ultimate players. What does that teach? How will those lessons translate into pickup/league play?

With traditional ultimate you couldn’t get away with that. Outsourcing the officiating encourages people to get away with what they can. The flow of the elite game needs to be improved, I agree – but spirit is not the problem.
Pingback: USA Ultimate Announces Major Club Restructure: An Explanation Of The "Triple Crown Tour" | Ultiworld
Pingback: Light, Dark, and Cleats: 11/1 | Ultiworld

USA Ultimate Releases Six Year Strategic Plan

About Charlie Eisenhood

Related Posts

Recent Posts

Find us on Twitter

Recent Comments

Find us on Facebook