When Portland Rhino Slam! claimed the program's first USA Ultimate club championship in October 2024, it felt like a new high for the long-time ultimate hotbed. Why have the local professional ultimate teams been in disarray?
January 23, 2026 by Ted Shorack in News
In 2022, professional ultimate made a triumphant return to the state of Oregon. After the closure of Major League Ultimate in 2016 shuttered the Portland Stags franchise, the proud ultimate hotbed was excited about the newly announced Portland Nitro (of the then-American Ultimate Disc League) and Oregon Onyx (of the Western Ultimate League). The local community of players and fans in Oregon was eager to embrace professional ultimate once again.
In March 2022, the Nitro, debuting as one of three expansion teams that season, released the team roster for its inaugural season. Nearly half of the players were some of the most recognizable names on Rhino Slam!, ones that would go on to become national champions of the USA Ultimate men’s club division in 2024. Onyx was similarly loaded with past and present members of Schwa, which tied for third in the women’s division of the 2019 club championships.
A young businessman, Joel Caswell, was the financial backer of the franchises. He boasted of having deep pockets and an array of connections from a family with vast real estate and timberland holdings in southern Oregon. Facing a tight timetable to prepare for the season, he relied heavily on Jake Johnson and Jaycee Jones, both competitive ultimate players, to rapidly get both teams rolling as General Managers for the Nitro and Onyx, respectively. Caswell knew Johnson from southern Oregon, where the two grew up and played ultimate. Johnson and Jones, who were previously married, were offered a small part ownership stake for “sweat equity” prior to the season: Johnson recalls working up to eight hours a day for 3-4 months to launch the new franchises. Looking to make a splash, Caswell promised to find more investors and was adamant that the home games be held at Providence Park, a 25,000 seat stadium that plays host to the city’s professional soccer teams, a palatial venue by the standards (and crowd sizes) of professional ultimate.
Despite having just a couple of months to get the teams up and running, Johnson and Jones were able to drum up interest during the short window they had before tryouts and secured key team leaders to build upon. “It kind of felt like there was a chance for this to be something really good for Portland and the ultimate community in Oregon,” said Jackson Carol, who played on Nitro in 2022 and became the play-by-play commentator for the team in 2023. “There was a lot of energy.” Nitro’s first game was a 29-24 victory over the Seattle Cascades at Providence Park stadium. Onyx took the field against Seattle Tempest afterward as part of a doubleheader in the team’s final regular season game and narrowly lost 22-20. There were nearly 2,000 fans in attendance.
“We’ve got a great team and I’m really excited to see what we can do this season,” Johnson told a local TV reporter.
But the excitement quickly started to fade. As the club season got underway, most of the top players shifted their focus towards their area club team, Rhino Slam!. Caswell, who enjoyed being known as “Daddy Joel,” the team’s benefactor, was incensed by the decision to choose club over playing in the then-AUDL. By the third game of the season against the Oakland Spiders, several of the best players were no longer listed on gameday rosters. The game, played at Oakland Technical High School, was the first Caswell appeared in, suiting up as #55. He would soon regularly join the shrinking list of available players for away games.
Carol said the decision by the owner came as a surprise, given he would be unlikely to make the team based on his skill set alone; he did not try out for the team. Johnson said that Nitro’s owner didn’t indicate to him any intention of playing before the first season got underway. The optics were difficult to accept given the amount of time and work players had put in to earn a spot on the team. Some players said it was among one of the first “red flags” they noticed during the first season.
“I was interested in us having success and building something and it felt like there was some significant drop off [as the 2022 season progressed],” Carol said.
Meanwhile, it was clear to many early on that Caswell was mostly focused on Nitro and felt obligated to back Onyx rather than nurturing a genuine desire to build a team in the WUL. Still, there was excitement from the women’s ultimate community about a chance to play in the professional game, especially after a failed attempt at a different Portland WUL team in 2021. When word spread that someone was willing to fund another try, players who had dreamed of suiting up for professional ultimate jumped at the chance. Most came from illustrious college and club programs in the state and around the country. Several were Fugue alums from the University of Oregon, while a handful had recently arrived from playing on Boston and San Francisco club teams.
“Everybody really bought into the team and was excited to make the team grow,” said an Onyx player, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Those feelings quickly subsided after their first game against the Bay Area Falcons. Players expected to be flown down for the away game, but at the last minute were asked to take turns driving Sprinter vans with their teammates from Portland to San Francisco. Taking long-distance road trips for college and club teams is well understood, but enduring a 600-mile drive wasn’t the professional experience players had anticipated. The plans for getting back to Portland after the game seemed equally chaotic to players, who were told they could stay and hang out with the opposing team or start making the trek back to Oregon in one of the other vans. Caswell told players heading home that they would be staying at a hotel in northern California, but while driving the van he informed them the rooms were in Medford, nearly 6 hours north of San Francisco in southern Oregon. They didn’t arrive at the hotel and find their beds until well after midnight. It was the first instance when players realized they couldn’t take their new owner at his word.
For weeks, several players paid out of their own pockets for travel expenses during away games and were still waiting for reimbursement. When the season ended, most struggled to be paid for being on game day rosters by the due date specified in their contracts. Players recall ownership asking the team via a Slack channel whether they could take on upfront costs, if possible, such as renting cars for away games, which had not been part of their contracts. Those who were able paid with their own money, but other team members made clear they could not afford to foot the bill. The players who did were still seeking reimbursement weeks afterward. Compensation for games played at the end of the season was slow to arrive as well, according to multiple players. Their contracts were for $50 per game in 2022, but dropped to $25 in 2023. The same issues arose with reimbursement during the second year. In September 2023, some started posting on social media about the lack of payments.
“They didn’t hide the fact that they had financial issues, though they didn’t share the extent and always claimed late payments were because some sponsors hadn’t come through yet,” a former player said.
The financial issues ran far deeper than late game payments. Those familiar with Caswell during his ownership of Nitro and Onyx said they weren’t shocked to find out when he was arrested by the FBI in April 2025 for alleged wire fraud, identity theft, and tax evasion. (He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.)
The indictment brought by the U.S. attorney’s office alleges Caswell falsified information to obtain federal loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA) that were distributed through COVID-19 and disaster relief programs. Federal prosecutors allege Caswell produced false payroll records and other supporting documents, including his claim that at least two of his businesses were generating revenue of more than $1 million, in order to obtain a $224,000 loan for one of his businesses, Siskiyou Cascade Industries. According to the indictment, that business had a bank account balance of less than $150 when he received the loan from the SBA.
He then allegedly transferred $70,000 to Pearl Sports Group, a limited liability company he registered with the state to manage Nitro and Onyx. The money was used, according to federal investigators, to put a deposit down for renting Providence Park in April 2022. Nitro played seven home games at the stadium during the team’s inaugural season, while the Onyx played three at the venue. (The American Ultimate Disc League, now the Ultimate Frisbee Association, held the 2022 All-Star Game at the stadium in November of that year. The UFA declined to comment for this article.) Former business associates of Caswell’s recall persistent emails from Portland Timbers staff reminding the team owner of neglected payments for use of the venue. A spokesperson for the soccer club confirmed that Caswell still owes approximately $134,000 in unpaid invoices for renting Providence Park.
While awaiting trial in that case, Caswell was arrested in August by the Medford Police Department for allegedly driving by and shooting at the home of a former girlfriend. He was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and recklessly endangering another person. A federal judge subsequently denied his release from jail prior to his federal trial. A request for comment from Caswell through his attorney went unanswered.
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The Nitro went 2-10 and finished seventh in the West Division in its first year. Leandro Marx, an Oregon Ego alum and Rhino Slam! regular, played in every game and was named the AUDL Rookie of the Year and an All-Star with 50 goals and 58 assists for the season. But other players lost interest in the team. Raphy Hayes played four games in 2022 with 10 goals. Daniel Lee, who had four blocks against Colorado Summit early in the season, played only three games. Jack Hatchett, David Sealand, and others dropped off the team as well.
Like for the Onyx, game payments were delayed for weeks or months for Nitro players. Carol recalls asking Caswell and Johnson about compensation he was owed for games. “I was hounding Jake or Joel every week,” he said. “I had to make jokes and look at Joel and get serious with him.”
Marx returned to Nitro in 2023, as did Hayes, but many other top players in the city decided against playing for another season. Caswell was listed on the 2023 team roster. The second season was even more disorganized than the first, according to Carol. It became clear where the team stood financially when both Nitro and Onyx played home games at Kiggins Bowl, a high school football stadium for high school teams in Vancouver, Washington, which was first constructed in the 1930s. The stadium is known for its odd layout with a concrete grandstand stretching high above the field. Front row seats at the 50-yard line are 40 yards from the sideline. The location is 10 miles from downtown Portland and across the Columbia River.
Johnson said Caswell never let on why the Timbers stadium was no longer an option, but he was included in email exchanges with the staff of the soccer club that indicated invoices for renting the venue were six months overdue. “That’s when we knew it was really bad,” he said.
He remembers that time as increasingly stressful while trying to manage the financial predicament the team was in and the guilt of not being able to get players the compensation they were owed. People routinely called and texted hoping to use the money toward rent or other living expenses.
“We [Jones and I] were the ones getting all the questions,” he said about himself and Jones.
After Onyx’s second season, the WUL board voted in October 2023 to remove them from the league after determining that Pearl Sports Group was “ineligible to operate a team,” according to a press release.
Caswell sold the Nitro in 2024. Bill Freeman and Darci Fredricks, two local longtime ultimate fans and players, bought the franchise and revamped the professional teams. The UFA’s Oregon Steel and WUL’s Oregon Soar debuted during the 2025 season. While there is a renewed sense of hope in the new leadership, the teams have so far struggled to improve on their on-field results; the failures of past ownership have cast a long shadow that has been difficult to shake. Steel finished fifth in the West Division, while the Soar went winless.
Caswell remains in the Jackson County jail on a federal hold until his trial, which has been scheduled for February 2026 at the U.S. District Court in Eugene. The trial was postponed multiple times last year at the request of his lawyer to allow for more time to review evidence. His attorney has made attempts to secure his release before trial. Federal prosecutors have argued in court that Caswell is a “danger to the community,” a flight risk, and that he allegedly committed additional fraud after he was released on bail.
“I dedicated a lot of time,” said Martis Artis, a former Nitro player. “I love the sport. It sucked for it to be this whole scam. It’s years of my life poured into this just for it to be this front.”
