Friday, May 06, 2016

USAU Announces Indoor Ultimate Competition for 2017

In the spring 2016 issue of USA Ultimate Magazine, the theme of Dr. Tom Crawford's Letter to our Members is unpredictable change and also announces a new surface/competition division for next year.

USAU CEO Crawford writes: "I believe anyone who thinks they know what this sport will look like in five years is full of malarkey."

Crawford also announces USA Ultimate will be adding indoor ultimate as a competition division: "2017 will also be the first year of our indoor championships, as well the shift to youth club regionals. More change!"  (2015 was the first year for USAU's beach championships.)



More details on the new indoor ultimate competition series: "The indoor season will obviously fall in the winter months. We are excited about introducing another new playing opportunity and we are working with WFDF on the planning....the indoor discipline creates an enormous opportunity at the youth level."


5 comments:

dusty.rhodes said...

USAU Indoor will not add a new playing opportunity.
It would USAU-ize an extant playing opportunity (IUC).

Anonymous said...

Is it really a good idea to add another division when they're doing such a great job /s with what they already have?

Trent Simmons - Founder of the IUCs said...

Fortunately the IndoorUltimateChampionships.com has a 4 year head start being the series of the players, by the players, and for the players. No need to pay an extra membership fee to support a $180,000 salary, and we play on indoor turf, not hardcourts.
If they are doing this just for the youth division and playing on basketball courts to keep the cost down and they can avoid adding observers, then good for them.
We'll be adding our own youth tournaments, again on turf, so players can choose their surface. And we've got a major expansion in the works, with over 100 tournaments planned in 2017. Tournament directors can choose to volunteer their time to work for USAU, or they can get paid to work with us. Players get to choose if they want to support an independent operation which has been working for them for years to create a system that keeps costs as low as possible while also raising money for youth Ultimate around the world. Or like the previous comment says, support an organization which is already struggling to take care of the needs of the majority of their members. Oh yeah, our events are also fun, community based events which make an effort to avoid conflicting with existing hat tournament and league tournaments.

Indoor Ultimate Player said...

As someone that loves indoor ultimate, I've very excited to see USAU take over indoor. They bring a sense of legitimacy and organization that has been sorely lacking in the IUC, when tends to over-promise and under-deliver by a wide margin. I think this works with the season (winter) better than their current beach series (spring).

WarrenJWells said...

Sure looks like Trent answered his own question in the two above comments.