April 16, 2020 by Charlie Eisenhood in Opinion with 0 comments
The Mailbag is now for subscribers only. That’s going to do a few things: it will keep me committed to writing it every week. It will reward subscribers with a weekly column they can count on. And it will allow us to offer a free one-month Mini subscription for the best email or comment we get and publish in the Mailbag. If you’re already a subscriber, you get a free extra month (or a discount). If you’re not, you can come in and check out the benefits.
You can email me anytime at [email protected] with questions, comments, ideas — whatever you’ve got.
Q: Interested to hear your thoughts on the AUDL debut on FS2. I’ve played for a while and spent a lot of time watching film of College and Club competition, which is frequently exciting and engaging. As we’re stuck at home, I was excited to watch the New York-Dallas final with my family. We watch a TON of sports (i.e. my family are not novice consumers of athletic events) and everyone was excited to watch the game.
Largely, we found it to be way too long (2.5 hours), unengaging, and almost a waste of time. It was not captivating for me, an avid ultimate fan/player, or my family, who are avid sports consumers. I find it hard to believe that someone would stumble upon that game and watch for long enough to become engaged. Cutter defense looked nonexistent until the last four minutes when Dallas had to turn it on to have a chance at coming back, mark defense was a joke for most of the game (hammers went off almost uncontested, even in double teams), and overall, we felt it did not highlight the athleticism or technical skill that makes ultimate so exciting.
We spent a lot of time talking about how the different AUDL rules make defense so much more difficult in a game where the offense already has such a significant upper hand: frankly, the complex defensive schemes meant to limit certain offensive structures were just not fun to watch.
This leads to a couple questions that I have:
- With current AUDL rules (field size, for example), do you think the game exciting enough to garner new viewership from people turning on FS2?
- What rules might make the game more exciting (an extra defender, a lower stall count, or just returning to a smaller field)?
Hoping you are well through this crazy time.
Mailbag: AUDL FS2 Debut, Von Alanguilan, Players’ Personal Brands is only available to Ultiworld Subscribers
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