Help support Ultiworld as ultimate returns to play!
October 12, 2021 by Charlie Eisenhood in Other with 0 comments
Today, Ultiworld is launching its fifth annual membership drive.
Normally, our membership drive takes place in May, but it’s far from a normal year. With the sport slowly returning to play amidst the pandemic, we’ve grappled with when and how to do our annual drive. More than ever, we need the support of our readers to operate.
So we are asking you to sign up for a subscription and support the journalism and video coverage that Ultiworld provides to the ultimate community.
For you the subscriber, a subscription doesn’t just offer access to the largest collection of game footage in the sport. You will also get exclusive articles (from features to analysis and beyond); subscriber-only podcasts like Sideline Talk; bonus segments from all of our free podcasts, including Sin The Fields, Deep Look, and our latest additions Laying it Out and Huckin’ Eh; video analysis in the Film Room; In The Zone, a monthly business newsletter; a weekly Mailbag column; the ability to turn off ads and improve your site experience; and more.
But more than that, subscriptions make it possible for us to fund all the coverage, commentary, and guides we publish, whether public or paywalled — and keep pushing to be the best resource we can be for players, coaches, organizers, and fans at all levels of the game.
You can learn more and subscribe now here:
Subscribe Now
Starting from $3.99/mo.
If you’re already a subscriber or just want to support what we do, you can also donate towards the cost of a subscription for a youth player, student, or a group of your choosing. Ultiworld is matching all donations one-to-one, so you can double your impact. A $40 donation, for example, will get two players an annual Mini subscription. We’re counting donations towards our membership goal!
One-Time Donation
Matched one-to-one by Ultiworld
We know that not everyone can afford to subscribe or donate, especially now. You can apply to receive a donated subscription here.
You may remember our subscription drive from last August. What are some of the things we’ve done in the last two years? Here’s just a few items of note.
In our video coverage, we…
- Provided the most video coverage of the club season in the site’s history, with over 160 games already released for subscribers
- Served as a livestreaming producer for the Premier Ultimate League and American Ultimate Disc League in 2021
- Produced high-quality live video coverage of the 2019 Under-24 World Championships, the 2019 Pan-American Ultimate Championships, and the 2019 Division III College Championships
- Produced the LA Throwback Color of Ultimate showcase game in early 2020
- Continued to expand our livestreaming capabilities, integrating more graphics, stats, cameras, and video features
Across the site, we…
- Continued to expand our reported coverage globally, with previews, recaps, and analysis from events like XEUCF and the Ultimate Canada Invitational
- Launched strategy and teaching resources like our Ultimate Fundamentals series, including a glossary and guide to throwing a backhand; our Play Call series, where top players share advice on strategy and developing as a player; and Davide’s Doctrines, a multimedia feature series from CUSB La Fotta’s Davide Morri
- Published an extensive subscriber-only series developing and testing better ultimate stats with Paul Würtztack’s EDGE project
- Published a resource guide for college captains and a comprehensive project management guide for tournament directors, including adaptable resources for running your own events
- Published features and profiles telling stories around the sport, from Zoe Collins Rath’s feature on the Black experience in ultimate to profiles of figures like Emily Smith-Wilson and Amy Kendziorski to an extended interview with the minds behind Contested Strip
- Continued to bring more voices into the ultimate conversation with new columns like Witmer’s Wisdom and Bring It In and podcasts Huckin’ Eh and Laying it Out
- Expanded core editorial staff to incorporate more perspectives at the content management level, undertook focused work to increase transparency and accountability on EDI efforts, and launched the FWD program, a paid internship for emerging writers
- Created disc golf subscriber-exclusive content on Ultiworld Disc Golf
So why sign up? We want to be able to continue to offer more and deeper coverage of all aspects of the sport — and that means we want to be able to pay reasonable compensation to the hard-working editorial staff instead of asking them to write or edit for a small stipend and their love of the sport. No one is getting rich from Ultiworld, but in order to source the best-quality work from a truly diverse range of contributors, we need to pay them for their effort, knowledge, and time.
Moreover, a steady foundation of reader subscriptions helps us make editorial decisions that go beyond what pieces get the most clicks, or what content can be sponsored or monetized. We’re here to cover established leagues and first-year startups — star players and smaller stories that matter — and we don’t want what’s notable in ultimate to be dictated by what’s been seen before.
Think about all the Ultiworld articles you’ve read and shared over the years, and all the extra tournaments that you’ve followed because of our coverage. We want to keep doing that work and more. You can subscribe for as little as $3.99 a month — and get two months free when you sign up for an annual subscription.
What’s coming up? What will your subscription help us achieve? Here’s a few things on the horizon:
- In partnership with USA Ultimate, two livestreamed games from every round at the Club National Championships (and two additional games filmed during each round) — it will be the most full-game video coverage ever at Club Nationals
- All-day liveblog reporting and analysis from our reporting team at Club Nationals
- Live coverage and reporting from December’s combined College Championships (and May 2022’s regularly scheduled College Champs)
- In-depth coverage of 2022’s international events, including the World Games, World Clubs, World Beach, and World Juniors
- More livestreaming and reporting at the fourth High School National Invite
- Comprehensive coverage of the Spring 2022 college season, with video coverage at multiple events
- Expanded coverage of the PUL and WUL in their 2022 seasons
- Continued expansion of our international coverage
- More video analysis, both in writing and video
- Subscription content coming soon to Ultiworld Disc Golf, included at no extra cost!
A monthly subscription is the best way for readers to support all of our initiatives. If you enjoy our strategy articles but also want to support more youth coverage, a subscription is a great way to do it! If you religiously watch all of our club women’s footage, but want to support D-I and D-III college women’s coverage, a subscription is a great way to do it! If you appreciate all of our reporting but you really just want to make sure Pat and Tad can survive another year of Sin The Fields, a subscription is a great way to do that, too.
Our goal is to add 400 new subscribers by Sunday, October 31st.
Subscribing is super easy — check out our subscription page to learn more and sign up. Thank you so much for your support!
If you have questions for me about subscribing, the economics of ultimate journalism, or anything else, don’t hesitate to ask below in the comments or by email at [email protected].
