The association licensed the word 'frisbee' from the owner of Wham-O Discs
January 17, 2024 by Alex Rubin in News with 1 comments
The American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) is no more: the semi-pro ultimate league has officially rebranded as the Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA).
The association formed a partnership with Sport Dimension Inc. (SDI), which owns Wham-O and the Frisbee® trademark, and now has an official license to use the word Frisbee in its name and marketing.
As reported last month, the UFA will also be using its own new disc, called the Professional Ultimate Frisbee, for all games starting in the 2024 season. The league is expected to partner with SDI to sell their discs in big box stores starting in 2025.
“Over 60 years ago, Wham-O launched a new product called the frisbee and not long after, a new game sprung up across college campuses and sport fields throughout the USA,” said SDI President Kurt Rios in a statement on the UFA’s website. “We are so excited to be bringing frisbee back to the official sport of ultimate by partnering with the UFA. I couldn’t be prouder to see frisbee as part of professional ultimate. Working with the UFA and their amazing athletes, we look forward to the next generation of competitive frisbee products used by the best players in the world.”
The league’s new website is watchufa.com (though the old url theaudl.com redirects users there). The league’s social media handles have been changed to @watchUFAtv.
The UFA features a new logo–a silhouette of a player laying out to catch a disc inside an oval shape with the league’s classic red and blue color scheme creating an oval behind the silhouette. The font of the UFA wordmark is unchanged from the AUDL font that debuted ahead of the 2019 season.
As the league heads into its 13th season, a few other changes are expected. The UFA will broadcast a “Super Series” of top games that will be free on YouTube rather than aired on Fox Sports 2 as had been the case in seasons past. For the first time, the league’s Championship Weekend will take place in Salt Lake City. Finally, the league is adding a second Professional Ultimate Academy to its successful pilot from last season. The overnight camps aimed at elite youth ultimate players will have sessions at Davenport University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and on Whidbey Island just north of Seattle.
The league does have some competition for the use of the term UFA: A quick Google search reveals the Russian town of Ufa, the United Futbol Academy, and the Ultimate Fighting Area, a SuperSmash Brothers tournament, all claiming the same three letters. As the league publishes more content under the UFA banner, the new name is sure to gain more prominence in online spaces and should eventually be one of the top results in a search for the word frisbee.
