33 games will be broadcast from this year's Pro Championships!
August 29, 2025 by Alex Rubin, Theresa Diffendal and Edward Stephens in Preview, Video
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2025 club ultimate season is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
There’s an an age-old saying about the club regular season: when Pro Champs is a good event, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is horrid. The 2024 edition was, to put it kindly, one of the horrid years: full of going-through-the-motion games and, thanks to the fact that it ran at the same time as the World Ultimate Championships, lacking a huge swath of the best players. The results did not feel particularly representative or memorable1, and there was a general sense of “this could have been an email” about the whole thing.
2025, on the other hand, is shaping up to be one of the good years, a true Nationals preview and the regular season event players are most likely to use to try to reach postseason form. And the guest list is A-list: all eight of the top eight women’s teams from 2024, all eight of the top eight men’s, and six of the top eight mixed teams from 2024 are making the journey to Virginia Beach. Read on for full streaming details and previews of each division.
We’ve got you covered for all the exciting action this weekend. Follow along on the Pro Championships 2025 event page for livestreams and updates throughout the weekend. It all starts Saturday, August 30th, LIVE on Ultiworld!
More Pro Champs Than Ever Before
We’ll have four livestreamed games every round through quarterfinals, three livestreamed games during semis, and full showcase broadcasts of all three finals on Labor Day.
All broadcast games will be available on-demand for viewing immediately following the live broadcasts.
How To Watch
You will need an Ultiworld Standard or All-Access subscription or a 2025 Club Team Pack to be able to watch games from Pro Championships 2025.
Full Broadcast Schedule
Tournament Preview
Women’s Division
Favorites Fury
Forget title hangovers. #1 San Francisco Fury are putting together a season to rival their near-undefeated 2024 and look poised to hoist the trophy once again come October. And it doesn’t look particularly close at the moment, as Fury easily handled six of the next seven top-ranked teams at US Open, caveats about World Games-shortened rosters aside. An undefeated Pro Champs showing would net Fury their first undefeated regular season since 2012.
But Pro Champs brings together the best of the best, and this is the most capable cadre of competitors Fury have faced thus far. #3 Boston Brute Squad have been Fury’s most frequent foil in recent years and even took half on San Francisco back at the US Open before ultimately falling 15-10. New squadmates Liv Player and Grace Conerly have been natural fits for the defense-first Brute, and will face Fury in the last round on Saturday to potentially decide the pool.
Meanwhile last year’s fellow finalists #5 Washington DC Scandal lurk in the other pool just below an ascendant #2 Seattle Riot, who have played Fury the closest so far in 2025. Scandal will welcome the return of World Games gold medalists Claire Trop and Kami Groom as they look to rebound from a so-so US Open. Fury, of course, will be reintegrating their own World Games players in offensive drivers Carolyn Finney and Anna Thompson, an extra bit of dynamic firepower to fend off those hoping to dethrone the favorites.
Are Riot for Real?
Riot have been one of the real stories of the women’s division this season. After some post-pandemic rebuilding years, they have slowly risen back up the division’s ranks, claiming a quarterfinal spot in 2024 after two years of prequarter exits. Their 2025 campaign boasts wins over #4 Denver Molly Brown, #6 New York BENT, and Brute Squad, as well as the other hot commodity of the year, #7 Pittsburgh Parcha.
Riot’s rise can be mapped to the ascendancy of their young talent. Chloe Hakimi and Nora Luloff are fresh off a Youth Club Championships title with Seattle Seven Hills and have yet to enter their first semester of college, while Ella Monaghan, Kelly Tam and Ella Widmyer are just starting to make their mark with title-contending programs.
Riot’s US Open run was the strongest indication yet that Seattle is primed to return to their heights of old, but Pro Champs will put that to the test. The win over Molly Brown came without some of Denver’s biggest contributors, and Riot’s other two pool play matchups — against Flipside and Scandal — are hardly gimmes. Riot will face Scandal for the first time since a sound beating in a 2022 Nationals consolation game, while Riot haven’t notched a win against Flipside… ever. A strong Pro Champs could lock in a top pool spot at Nationals and kick off Riot’s triumphant return to the title-contenders table.
Reintegrating, Reemerging
Every team in the field – save for Seattle Riot – are bolstered by the return of World Games players, and none perhaps more so than the challengers lurking the bottom half of each pool.
As the sole non-US team in attendance, #8 Toronto 6ixers roster is populated by Team Canada vets in Molly Wedge, Lauren Kimura, and Sarah Jacobsohn.2 While Britt Dos Santos, arguably their most prolific player, is out with an injury sustained at the World Games, 6ixers will benefit from an infusion of the leaders of Team Canada’s best-in-tournament offense.
While it’s often said one player alone can’t win a game of ultimate, #14 San Diego Flipside’s Kaela Helton and #12 Raleigh Phoenix’s Dawn Culton are more than enough to tip the scales. Each will have their own obstacles to work through, as Raleigh compete in their first tournament in over a month while San Diego try to shake off a 2-4 US Open. Though Nationals is all but assured, collecting a marquee win would go a long way toward bolstering their outlook as the postseason rolls around.
Down at the bottom seed, the reinfusion of the Cárdenas sisters and Claire Chastain to Molly Brown’s roster has the potential to catapult Denver to a Pro Champs victory. Despite the talent throughout the roster – Lisa Pitcaithley remains one of the predominant deep threats with and without the disc, rookie Alex Guy was a goal-scoring phenom at US Open, Jesse Shofner’s return was one of the more intriguing offseason moves – adding a trio of the best players in the world will go a long way toward flipping the losses from earlier in August. Turning that 15-13 loss to Riot into a dub is well within Molly’s capabilities, making the 1:30 PM showcase game must-watch viewing.
Mixed Division
Mixed Favorites
Pro Champs is not yet Nationals, but the best teams all have one final dress rehearsal before the Series begins. This weekend will give fans and players alike a glimpse at who might be taking home a trophy in October. US Open winners and defending champion #1 Ann Arbor Hybrid are surely the favorites, but the proceedings are rarely straightforward in the mixed division.
#5 Seattle BFG already have wins over three of the teams attending Pro Champs and added Allan Laviolette to their event roster. Laviolette is a talented hybrid who is now rostered for his third club team of the season. After starting the year on Durham Brunch Club, Laviolette is fresh off a run to the Elite-Select Challenge final with men’s division team Raleigh-Durham United. While BFG certainly have proven themselves a worthy challenger without a mercenary addition, Laviolette’s addition adds a bit of intrigue and pop to a team with a lot of potential.
#4 Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust have perhaps the highest floor in the division given their steady success over the last decade and a half. Despite mixed results so far this season, Drag’n absolutely have the talent to make a bracket run in Virginia Beach, and can set up a more important one a few months later by using these important reps to develop their younger players like Chagall Gelfand and the Suelflow twins into significant club contributors.
Title Town
#6 Boston Slow and #8 Boston Sprocket are not just vying to be the best team at this tournament, but also the best mixed team in their shared city. Slow historically have had the most success, but Sprocket’s run to last year’s final upended these hypothetical standings. Both teams added offensive college stars this season (Devin Quinn on Sprocket, Luca Harwood on Slow), so which team can integrate them best by the time Nationals rolls around3 will have an advantage.
Lurking right behind the proud Boston squads are regional rival #9 New York XIST. With some significant pickups of their own in Sadie Jezierski and Audrey Parrott, XIST will look to continue their upward trajectory and perhaps upset one of the Boston squads who are responsible for two of their three losses this season.
Bid Watch
There’s still a little bit of bid business to settle. #21 Seattle Mixtape currently sit without a strength bid for the Northwest. As they watched BFG scoop up much of the region’s talent and team talisman Khalif El-Salaam play for another club team for the first time in over a decade, this is a transition year for the former champions. For them, this weekend represents an opportunity to earn the kinds of wins that can get the Northwest an additional bid, or the kinds of games that can get a young team the kind of experience they need to steal one come Regionals.
#12 Huntsville Space Force are currently projected in bid earning territory, but that could all change with a poor showing this weekend. Just 33 points separate Space Force from losing their strength bid and needing to overcome #3 Durham Toro or #16 Nashville ‘Shine at regionals. With a competitive slate of games ahead, every point will matter for a team whose season could come down to a few algorithm points after this tournament ends.
Men’s Division
Gunning for a Triple Crown
There are a few ways to interpret the phrase “Triple Crown” in the context of club ultimate — is it US Open, Pro Champs, and Nationals? Is it an undefeated run through three USAU tentpole tournaments? — but however you define it, #1 San Francisco Revolver, who have already won PEC West and US Open as part of their phenomenal 11-1 season to date, are in a position to crown themselves. Can they do it?
Of course they can. Not only have the O-line’s variety of looks — offenses can center on Mac Hecht, on Nate Prior, on Adam Rees, or on a brutally effective Raekwon Adkins weave — made them one of the more break-resistant teams in the division; not only have the D-line’s offensive capabilities bloom this year under the guidance of counterattack backfielders Jason Vallee and Kyle Lew; not only can they boast some of the hungriest cutters in the division in Leo Gordon, Dan Ritthaler, and Simon Higgins: they now also, in addition to that, enjoy the presence of Michael Ing. Ing only spent a week in China at the World Games looking like the best defender in the world.
It’s all shaping up for another big weekend for Revolver, and if they can pull it off they will cement themselves as that prohibitive favorites for a 2025 national championship.
Gunning for Revolver
Revolver have been the best up to now, but they aren’t so far ahead of the field. Several other clubs are looming in the sideview mirrors preparing to attempt an overtake. Each of them have their argument to be considered top challenger. Do you take #3 Washington DC Truck Stop, the only team to hand Revolver a loss this season and one whose already-fearsome roster will regain Thomas Edmonds, who looked like one of the best offensive players in the world in Chengdu for Team Canada? Do you take a #4 New York PoNY side who pushed them to the brink in quarters at US Open in one of the best played games of the year? Or perhaps you see #2 Boston DiG, whose star offensive players Jeff Babbitt, Tobe Decraene, and Orion Cable are riding the momentum of last weekend’s UFA championship run with Boston Glory?
Those three are the ones who have been closest to Revolver’s standard so far this season, but the sleeping giants of #5 Portland Rhino Slam!, defending national champions and the team most impacted by World Games (with Raphy Hayes, Dylan Freechild, and Henry Ing all missing the US Open to play in China) could be the real threat. The way the top of the men’s division has gone this season, though, every game will come down to one or two plays — the margins are that thin.
Who Even Are You?
Of course, we haven’t gotten a real effort out of two of the division’s most storied programs yet in 2025. #12 Raleigh Ring of Fire and #14 Chicago Machine have been playing more of a waiting game, electing to (more or less) punt on game results at their first outings (PEC East and US Open, respectively) while they wait to assemble full, committed rosters for the run up to the postseason.4
Machine are a case of questions. What will their lines look like? Will they care about any games before the skinny end of regionals? How many more times can Jack Galle burn a much taller defender deep? How will they integrate Sam McGuckin, Daan De Marrée, and Sofiène Bontemps? Ring, meanwhile, have less uncertainty about the roster and drive, and more about the game readiness of their roster after a two month absence from competition. Depending on how they show up to Pro Champs, they could throw their hats in the ring with the other challengers — or they could continue to languish in the second or third tier.
One exception was the electric mixed final between shame. and Drag’n Thrust. ↩
Of these, only Kimura is listed on the Pro Champs event roster. ↩
And which team can avoid any hangover from the MMPs on the UFA champion Boston Glory ↩
#6 Denver Johnny Bravo sort of did this when they brought a [varsity] designated squad to PEC East in June, but we saw them significantly closer to full strength and full effort at US Open. ↩
