The 2026 season begins!
April 21, 2026 by Alex Rubin in Preview
The 2026 Ultimate Frisbee Association (UFA) season begins this week. An exciting offseason that included re-alignment, player movement, and new league-wide sponsors sets up one of the most interesting seasons in recent memory. If you’re itching to watch every minute of action, the first game will begin on Friday, April 24 at 8:30 p.m. ET when the Atlanta Hustle face off against the Houston Havoc. The season will end with the league’s annual Championship Weekend showcase, set to be held in Madison, Wisconsin on August 28-29.
Key Storylines
Free-Agent Frenzy
As the commercial viability of the league increases, players can demand more in order to play for highly motivated teams and several teams have more flexibility to offer enticing packages to convince talented players to switch teams. That means player movement is at an all-time high. Just because a given player lives in a certain city or played for a team before doesn’t lock them in to doing it again.
Take James Pollard for example. The defensive standout lives in Philadelphia and played for Minnesota last season, but he’ll be suiting up for the Indianapolis AlleyCats this season. Daan De Marrée lives in Belgium for most of the year, but he is moving to New York for the UFA season. Tobias Brooks and Zeke Thoreson are commuting from college in Colorado to their UFA team in Carolina (where Brooks grew up).
And those are but a handful of players willing to sign with a team in a faraway place for a better shot at winning more games. All of this is to say that the league is in a good place when teams are willing to do everything they can (read: pay money) to attract good players to help make their teams more competitive.
Who Won This Year’s Central Division Arms Race?
Last year, it was Minnesota and Chicago gearing up for a season-long contest. This year, Minnesota added yet more defensive talent with Noah Coolman and Lukas Ambrose joining the team, while Indianapolis added two starting lines worth of talent to bring their playoff ambitions closer to reality. It is difficult to compare the two approaches, but the simple way of putting it is Minnesota’s stretch for quality (two All-UFA level talents) compared with Indianapolis’s push for quantity (Indianapolis could literally make an entire 20-person gameday roster of players who did not suit up for the AlleyCats last year).
With the teams starting from different places (Minnesota made last season’s title game and won the 2024 title, while Indy missed the playoffs both of those years), it makes sense that their team building approaches are different. The end result though is two teams who will likely be competing for one spot at Championship Weekend.
It will take an incredible effort from Indy to get there, but I would not be writing about it if it was not a possibility. Under the leadership of new head coach Nathan Bussberg, the vibes in Indianapolis are different than they’ve been since the AlleyCats’ last Championship Weekend appearance in 2019. With so much new talent, players are eager to compete for and earn playing time. There is an increased sense of buy-in and commitment from a team that may have stagnated using retread rosters in the past. Will it be enough to knock off the Wind Chill? We’ll all find out by the end of August.
On The Boards: Teams Looking To Rebound
For various reasons, at least one team in each division is heading to 2026 looking to better their disappointing results from last season.
The Carolina Flyers are seeking to get back to the South Division playoffs after their stunning miss last year. With an influx of talent, the Flyers have a stronger roster than their 2025 team, but several of their new players are still finishing their college season before joining for the rest of the UFA schedule. If Carolina can avoid the 0-4 start they suffered last season, they should have everything they need to make the playoffs. If they suffer another slow start, the Flyers could once again end up as the odd team out of a four-teams-for-three-spots situation.
Over in the West, Oakland is a near lock to make the playoffs again, but their challenge will be unseating Salt Lake atop the division. Fun fact: the Spiders have never beaten the Shred. That’s likely to change this year during one of their meetings, but the one that matters will take place in August, and that’s where Oakland faltered last season. The Spiders are aiming for the highest heights in 2026, but to get there, they’ll need to exorcise the demons of playoffs past first.
In the Central, Indy is making a push for their first playoff appearance since 2023, and as a stretch, perhaps their first Championship Weekend since 2019. The team signed over a dozen new major contributors and should have a totally new look from the squad that struggled to beat teams not from Detroit last year. That Indianapolis will improve this year is more or less a given, how far that improvement will carry them is the real question that can only be answered once games start.
In the East Division, the Toronto Rush made a lot of noise last offseason with the Rush Reboot that, honestly, ended up flopping. Bringing in several talented players from Europe to help the team compete against the Bostons and New Yorks of the league, Toronto could not get the wins they expected and still finished towards the bottom of the standings. This year, they bring in Canadian talent instead, namely with the British Colombian additions of Gagan Chatha, Max Pettenuzzo, and Justin Podnar along with the legacy returns of Isaiah Masek-Kelly and Akifumi Muraoka. After another offseason of exciting roster turnover, how the Rush integrate their new talent will impact Toronto’s ability to stay in the playoff picture…or suffer through another season dropping in the standings.
Coaches Cornered
In a rare instance of mass turnover, half of the UFA teams have new head coaches this year. Chicago, Austin, Colorado, DC, Oakland, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Houston, Seattle, and Vegas to various degrees have made changes at the Head Coach position. In some instances, the transitions seem simple, like the case of Chicago where Charlie Furse is taking on head coaching duties alone after sharing them with Dave Woods last season. Likewise, Colorado, DC, Seattle, Indianapolis, and Houston all feature new coaches with previous experience on the team as either Assistant Coaches or players.
Nevertheless, there is a learning curve that comes with taking on this kind of significant leadership for a professional squad. Fine tuning the decisions for who makes the 20 person active game-day roster, sorting out line calling with quick breaks between points, organizing strategy related to the game clock, and managing relationships with the referees are all potentially new facets of the job that someone without (as much) UFA coaching experience might struggle with.
One the flip side, the teams who have the strongest coaching continuity should enter the season with some confidence. Longtime coaches like San Diego’s Kevin Stuart, Kaela Helton, and Jonathan Helton; Minnesota’s Ben Feldman; and Salt Lake’s Bryce Merrill might have an extra leg up on the competition this year given their longtime excellence.
More Advanced Statistics Available
Here at Ultiworld, we are proud to have pioneered EDGE (Efficiency-Derived Goal Equivalents) as an all-encompassing metric to help explain a given player’s contribution in any game.1
Last year, Salt Lake’s Jacob Miller and New York’s Braden Eberhard introduced Shown Space, which they presented at the 2025 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Shown Space comes with another set of advanced statistics such as Adjusted Expected Contribution, a number that is expected to show how much a player helped their team score. This season, Shown Space is partnering with the UFA to be able to offer these advanced statistics for every game.2
While some new statistics might be able to help better tell the story of a given game, they can also be used for larger analysis. Take this analysis of offseason player movement by Eberhard. In a few charts, he summarized the impact of player additions and subtractions by team. While this type of analysis does not account for natural player development and will not include information about player additions without previous UFA experience, it can be really helpful to spot trends around the league and to help quantify the bigger storylines of the offseason, like Indy’s significant O-line additions and the major departures out of Chicago and Philadelphia.
We are quite a bit of time away from the UFA entering a real “moneyball” era in which advanced statistics determine roster makeup and justify major transactions. Given the lack of defensive statistics and nascent technology following the flight of a disc,3 there is much work to do before trusting these kinds of decisions to numbers. But, the advanced statistics we do have are helpful for those who can parse what they really mean and who can make appropriate decisions based off of what they share.
Players to Watch
Alex Atkins
The latest star acquired by the New York Empire, Atkins profiles similarly to Jack Williams when he joined the team in 2019. An incredibly versatile offensive hybrid, Atkins can line up anywhere on the field and win his matchup. Athletic enough to play defense as well, Atkins could also become the Empire’s counterattack quarterback.
Thomas Edmonds
Like Atkins, Edmonds is an incredibly versatile player who can slot just about anywhere on the lineup sheet. He has experience as the top thrower on a World Games team and as a D-line grinder. Joining the defending champions, he likely slots on to the D-line to replace the Tannor Johnson-Go sized hole there, but his skills will help him be successful wherever the Glory leadership decide to play him.
AJ Merriman
Without Edmonds and Rowan McDonnell, the DC Breeze are in need of a dynamic athlete to step up and take on some of the tougher touches. Yes, Christian Boxley will surely be part of the solution too, but the conditions are ripe for Merriman to have a second breakout season. His 2021 triple-double season put Merriman on the national radar. Though he has not reached those statistical heights in recent years, he continues to develop and improve as a player and should find more opportunities to impact the game this year.
Noah Coolman
In one of the more stunning moves of the offseason, Coolman (and his college teammate Lukas Ambrose) signed with the Minnesota Wind Chill. Another incredibly versatile player, Coolman paired his 2024 offensive breakout with a 2025 season where he led the league in blocks. On the Wind Chill, he bolsters one of the Association’s top defenses and yet is still sure to stand out.
Xavier Payne
After a season in Chicago, Payne is returning to Indianapolis, where he had his breakout season in 2021. With so many additions crowding the AlleyCats locker room, Payne is the type of veteran leader who can bring a team of newcomers together and his leadership might be just as valuable as his throwing prowess and decision making.
Jacob Miller
A mainstay of the Salt Lake program, Jacob Miller is in for a big season. With fellow O-liner Will Selfridge departing to Atlanta, the Shred have space for some new midfield play to develop. With years of built-up chemistry alongside Jordan Kerr, Joe Merrill, and the Yorgason brothers, Miller is poised for a breakout season.
Brett Hulsmeyer
When most people look at Brett Hulsmeyer, they notice his size and figure it must be very difficult to guard him. That is true, but Hulsmeyer is coming into his own as a very, well, well-rounded player with a good toolbox of throws to deploy on the big UFA field. In each of the last three seasons, Hulsmeyer has both 20+ goals and 20+ assists. As he enters his physical prime, Hulsmeyer is ready to wreak havoc on the South Division.
Tobias Brooks
It can be difficult for players still in college to make a big impact in the UFA given that they typically miss the first two months of the season, but such is the talent Tobias Brooks possesses that he still could change Carolina’s fortunes. Last season the Flyers were a very solid team, but this year they add another playmaker who could help them reclaim a place at Championship Weekend.
Khalif El-Salaam
Entering his second straight season in San Diego, El-Salaam is poised for a strong season. With now a year of chemistry development with Travis Dunn, KJ Koo, Matt Miller, and company, El-Salaam should be able not just to make his typical fair share of great plays, but also to help put his teammates in even better positions to succeed, too.
Walker Frankenberg
Following San Francisco Revolver’s title winning season in the club division, their UFA counterparts are hunting for another trophy. Frankenberg is integral to the Spiders offense as a major connecting piece in the midfield. Like a spider sitting in the middle of a web, Frankenberg filters the disc between different points of the field and makes sure all of his teammates are staying together in their offensive system.
Division Previews
Preseason Power Rankings
This appears to be available on the Shown Space website; for example, see the Week 1 schedule here ↩
Shout out to the folks at Disc Sense who are working on this ↩
