Topic of the Week: US Open Ultimate Championships

[matthewbourland]

One of the exciting new items coming out of our summer Board Meeting was the approval for USA Ultimate to develop a new, high-profile international event that will welcome the worldwide Ultimate community to the U.S. to experience and celebrate “character, community and competition”

The vision of this event is to attract the worlds’ top teams and athletes from around the globe for world-class competition, combined with a festival and convention all wrapped into one multi-day extravaganza. While fans and enthusiasts will be on hand to watch Ultimate played at its highest level across several divisions, the Ultimate community will be able to take advantage of a wide variety of educational opportunities, clinics and participate/join in committee meetings and community building experiences. Examples may include coaching and observer training and development, best practices for leagues, case studies on how to grow Ultimate in your community/country, building a sustainable college program, sport science, tactics, strategy, strength and conditioning and much more. Top experts from around the globe will be invited to participate and share their expertise and experience. In conjunction with these learning opportunities, world-class competition will take place for the enjoyment of the Ultimate community, all in a TBD vacation destination.

As this event is in the early planning stages, USA Ultimate is currently laying the foundation for its structure, scope and schedule. We are planning to launch this event in 2012, and would like to know what you think. Do you have any ideas for events surrounding the U.S. Open that would be of interest to the Ultimate community? What would you like to see at the U.S. Open? We are particularly interested in your input to the non-competition aspects of this event. Thanks for your thoughts…we’ll take them all seriously into consideration.

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Beginning today, each Thursday usaultimate.org will feature a different topic of discussion on its message boards in order to engage USA Ultimate members and the Ultimate community around the world. The idea is to encourage discussion about some of the current events happening in the sport of Ultimate, and to collect opinions, ideas and feedback from our members and athletes across the globe. Interesting, exciting, controversial or informative, a featured topic will be chosen each week and representatives from USA Ultimate will provide their input in an effort to enhance its communications with the Ultimate world. Please send topics you’d like to see discussed to matthew@hq.usaultimate.org

[commitch]

What time of year is USAU looking to hold this tourney? I like the idea of more international competition here in the states. Given the international community's widespread non-use of observers, I don't know if an observer clinic is the best use of resources right now, but maybe exposing the teams to observed games might help change those feelings. Or are the non tourney activities going to be mostly US-centric most fans won't be from outside the states?

[ambler]

I believe the thought is that many of the non-competition activities, workshops, trainings, etc. would be catered towards US-based players, fans, and coaches. One of the really exciting possibilities from the US Open idea is developing an event that helps grow the spectator base of the sport here. Too often the only people watching high level play at tournaments are other athletes on byes or eliminated from that same competition. It would be great to provide lots of reasons for people to come to a location and then showcase top notch performances for them to watch while they are there.

Location is going to be critical to the success of the event. With their Ultimate Coaches and Players Conferences, Tiina Booth and George Cooke showed that hundreds of players and coaches will drive to attend ultimate-related events that don't involve playing, as long as there are speakers with a big enough draw. USA Ultimate has also hosted very successful Organizers Conferences that attendees will fly to, but ideally the location would be easily accessible for participants.

Another crucial aspect of planning the event will be to figure out a way that it fits into any club restructuring plans so that the top US teams have good incentives to attend and bring their A games. Timing will be a big part of how this event fits into the rest of the club season and also how well attended it can be by spectators.

[torre.hargett]

how many spectators show up for other big showcase-ish tournaments? (like ECC)

[davyduke17]

Where ever this event is located I'd like to see USAU really make an effort to get the word out to people outside of the community. Get the event listed in the local papers, covered by local television, ect. to get people to come and check out ultimate that never have before.

[andylee]

Where ever this event is located I'd like to see USAU really make an effort to get the word out to people outside of the community. Get the event listed in the local papers, covered by local television, ect. to get people to come and check out ultimate that never have before.

Davy, thanks for the thought. That is exactly our thought process and having a marquee spectator event is imperative to exposing our sport to a wider audience. Regardless of the location, I am sure we will partner with the local CVB and media outlets to create interest to the casual sports fan and potential curious spectators. Media outreach and local marketing will be a big part of our strategy as we develop this event. Given the expected scope of the event in terms of world-class competition, clinics, meetings, educational elements, etc... this will be a destination event to which the Ultimate community will travel to.

[andylee]

Torre, I can't speak for ECC and spectators for a sport that is free to watch is always a hard number to accurately quantify. Although I can say with a pretty good degree of accuracy that the 2010 USA Ultimate College Championships attracted five figures in terms of attendance. The finals alone, which were held at a 5,000-seat stadium, was standing room only, plus take into account solid attendance throughout the first three days of pool play, quarters and semis. Lots of potential for spectators at the U.S. Open...

[ambler]

I also wanted to mention that I think international teams would really jump at the chance to be a part of such an event. One of Clapham's (UK) players explains on The Huddle (http://www.the-huddle.org/weblog/2010/07/13/how-do-you-say-goodbye/) how eager his team is for more high-level opportunities to play against international competition. And the Japanese team HUCK mentioned after their quarterfinals game with Riot how they've never been to US tournaments (their counterparts UNO and MUD have both been to ECC), but think that would be a huge benefit to their team. The US Open would certainly fill that niche.

Getting the opportunity to see top international teams could also be a big draw for spectators. Especially for youth players eager to see in person the players they want to emulate. At ECC and other showcase events in Seattle, a large percentage of the non-playing fans are local youth players. The number of spectators usually goes up the closer to metropolitan Seattle the venue is; watching ECC over an hour away in Burlington, WA is a tougher sell to players than when a game is held in Seattle proper. Again, something to think about for the location of the US Open.

[joeseidler]

If handled correctly (that is, promoted correctly), this could be a great event. I hope it is held in a heavily populated and Ultimate dense city. Places like Boston, NY, Seattle and San Francisco come to mind. I'm sure there are others, so please no nasty postcards from other cities... no offense meant.

[stephenghubbard]

I haven't been to Boston yet, I vote for there. In all seriousness, Sarasota is not a great place for the event with the highest level of play - plenty of Ultimate player-fans, but I didn't meet or see a SINGLE fan who wasn't someone's parent or girlfriend. What we need is a local built for accommodating spectators. Yes, its gonna be more expensive, but some place like the Home Depot Center or the Disney Sports World (???) is what its gonna take to really get a real fan presence.