Part 1: https://sludgeonline.blogspot.com/2018/12/part-1-conversation-major-league-ultimate-nicdarling.html
Part 2: https://sludgeonline.blogspot.com/2019/01/part-2-conversation-mlu-major-league-ultimate-nicdarling.html
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Launch
SLUDGE: Take me back to the lead up for the MLU launching in April 2013.
Nic: I don't know if you recall the time frame we did this in, but it was insanity. We started this idea in, I don't know, August [2012] maybe? And we launched the league in April [2013]. And in the course of that time raised a ton of money and signed all these different types of partners and people that we needed. And I still look back on that as one of the biggest accomplishments that I've had - getting from there to go live. I also look back on it as potentially a mistake. I think we may have been better served by taking an entire year to build before we launched, which is something I had argued for early on, but was convinced otherwise of.
I think MLU may have been better served by taking an entire year to build before we launched, which is something I had argued for early on, but was convinced otherwise of.
SLUDGE: Talk about what convinced MLU to go live.
Nic: Part of it was that we had gotten the money that we needed to go live. Well, we made the decision to go live pretty early, September [2012], something like that, but part of the reason was we had gotten the funding that we thought we needed to go live, and we were concerned about the run rate of working for an entire year without any revenue. Even though, again, I stand by that it may have been the right choice, in retrospect. There were concerns at the time that we needed to show something. Some beginnings of work more quickly. So that's what pushed the date. There was also a competitive attitude, these are all frisbee players, everybody just wants to go and get excited about it.
There was also a competitive attitude, these are all frisbee players, everybody just wants to go and get excited about it.
SLUDGE: Was there a AUDL angle as well?
Nic: At that point, that wasn't as big a concern as you might think because they were in a tough spot. But it was there, for sure. I think my argument was that it didn't matter. Our product needed to be good when it came out. In the end, I think we put a decent product on the field, when we first came out. But I think it would've been tighter and more complete if we had had more time to work on it, for sure.
Proud
SLUDGE: What would you say you're most proud of about MLU?
Nic: If you wanna take a big picture look, I think that we elevated people's expectations of what the sport could look like and should look like. I really do. And I think that the AUDL has probably picked up some of that, and even USAU. And I think we've pulled people along in that respect. I don't know if we'll get credit for that in the long run but I think MLU took a step into professionalism that didn't exist before.
MLU elevated people's expectations of what the sport could look like and should look like.
Also, 2017 was a year I was proud of because we reached a point where the people that worked with us in the office were paid like normal employees, with benefits and a regular operating manual. And we had gotten the league to a point where it was running more like a real business, at least in the central office. Obviously the teams were still very much part-time people and a lot of people putting in extra work, but we had started to get away from this exploitation of our people that always bothered me, and that I think that any aspiring company has to get past in order to be taken seriously. And we did that and it put us in a good position to go forward, but other factors derailed that before we actually got there.
I'm also proud of the fact that I built something that my kids could come out and see and remember and still talk about, which is pretty cool. My son thought he was going to grow up and be a Spinner. He would tell all the guys on the team. "So you play for the Spinners, I'm gonna be a Spinner."
We made the players' conversations a lot easier when they went home for Christmas and people were like, it used to be, "Ultimate Frisbee? What is that? Is that the dogs?" Now their relatives had seen them on ESPN and it was a little easier to explain. I would get so many texts every time 'cause everybody felt they had to tell me, which is great. I loved it.
The other thing is there's so much in there. Once I can get past the things that hurt about it, 'cause there's definitely those, there's so much in there to be proud of. There's so many things that we did, so much new ground we broke, so many people we introduced to the sport, so many guys who worked for us who are now off in good jobs doing cool stuff and they learned how to do that stuff working for us. That makes me really proud. All the places people landed and all the cool stuff they're doing now that they wouldn't have gotten to do otherwise.
There literally was not enough money or people to do what MLU did.
There literally was not enough money or people to do what we did. Not even close. So the only way we were able to do it is we had crazy people working for us who were willing to do insane things to get this thing done.
Legacy/Challenge
SLUDGE: What do you think will be the legacy of Major League Ultimate (2013-2016)?
Nic: That's a tough thing. I would say that... And I don't think anyone that knows me will find this surprising, I tend to be kind of a pessimist. I think that the work that people did and a lot of what we accomplished deserves some kind of legacy but I'm pessimistic about there being one; or much of one. Even from where we started there is a lot of interest in us not being part of the story of Ultimate. And I don't think that's from everybody at all, but I think that there is an element of what we are doing is not what people wanted Ultimate to be about.
I think that people don't know this probably, but there was a lot... I mean, people know that there was some negativity to what we were trying to do, whether it was based on gender equity concerns, or referees, or rule changes, or the disc we were using. Any of the other stuff that people were worried about. What I think they don't realize is how personal some of the attacks based on that got. And the kind of hate mail that [chuckle] I would get, I think would surprise people. I got accused of ruining children's lives and morals by introducing referees.
I got accused of ruining children's lives and morals by introducing referees...that just gets draining when you're also trying to keep a company afloat.
And the thing is, is that just gets draining when you're also trying to keep a company afloat. It's a very challenging environment. It's not a simple product. It's not a simple marketing challenge, there's all kinds of other challenges without the frisbee cultural issues that we also had to tackle. And if we had started a professional, name another sport, we would have had an easier task. Because there's so many things built into frisbee players' understanding of their sport, and their ownership of it, which in a way I still will argue is positive in the long run. It's just a higher hurdle to cross when you're trying to do something with it. Because the engagement level of those players is so high, the people who play it are so into it, that that's positive in the long run. But in the short term, when you're trying to make adjustments that you feel like are necessary, it pinches everybody the wrong way.
SLUDGE: So, what would you hope for MLU’s legacy to be?
Nic: If I had one legacy out of this, one thing that kept and hung on when Ultimate's the big professional sport it should be, I hope there are refs. And I don't care what form they take, 'cause USAU has refs. They just call them observers. I don't care what you call 'em. We have thought about calling ours observers, just because why not? I mean who cares, same thing. They're refs! The other thing that I hope is that no one's wearing hats. [chuckle] ...you're not baseball players.
I hope there are refs. The other thing that I hope is that no one's wearing hats...you're not baseball players.
Care
SLUDGE: There are a lot of sports options available and plenty of other attention distractors. What was your approach in getting people to care about the sport of ultimate?
Nic Darling: So, I think there's a couple of things in my mind. When we thought about Ultimate, we were thinking about was it has to be easy to understand—on some level. I don't know, you can't ask too much of people from an entry standpoint. And that goes back to things like refs, field size, those sorts of choices. Let's package this in a way that's palatable and people can get. So, that's part of it. I think you have to make the barrier to entry low, or lowish. Not dumb though, you can't dumb it down to where it then becomes banal and boring, but you can make it accessible. But then, behind that accessibility there has to be a density to it. If you start getting in, there has to be some place to go. So, there has to be history, there has to be stats, there has to be a storyline.
That's what sports is. Sports is stories and I think this is what a lot of people get confused about. Oh it's got to be exciting. It's got to be this, it's got to be that. Sports that are not exciting: football and baseball are boring, right? If it's just happening out of context, you would never watch it. It's the context that makes it matter and if you're not telling stories and if you're not building statistics, you're not building all this other stuff, you have no context. You have no story. So, we really thought a lot about, how do we amplify stories? And we weren't super successful all the time. Or any of the time, but we knew it was important and we were trying to do it. We were trying to find the stories, the rivalries, the "what-happened-last-week-and-what-matters-this-week?" hook. Why should we care about this game versus the last game?
Cause even watching at bars with strangers, which I did a lot because it was on Comcast so I would go out and I would watch and people were like, what is this? Explain or what's going on now? Did they beat this team last time? This is Philly right? They're playing DC, did they beat DC last time? No, they lost to them last time. What the fuck? Why? Let's talk about it. Because this guy right there. See that guy, that guy keeps catching all these goals and these guys can't figure out a way to stop him. Well, how many goals did he get? Well let me look, he had six goals last week. We're just like, now you have context, you have story and that's what makes sports interesting. It's a soap opera, just like anything else, it's just built around a live game that's happening.
SLUDGE: In the MLU inaugural season at a Philly-DC game, there was a guy wearing a, um, custom shirt.
Nic: Greatest shirt ever. That guy cares.
Like when I would get shit from Ultimate players about calls. I was like, 'Okay, I get it.' But when I would get stuff from fans about calls after games... People who clearly were not frisbee players, just guys coming up to me, they're like: "what was that? That was garbage." Like, I love this, you care. Anytime where you saw that hint of people starting to care was just the best.
That shirt is a good example.
SLUDGE: There are a lot of sports options available and plenty of other attention distractors. What was your approach in getting people to care about the sport of ultimate?
Nic Darling: So, I think there's a couple of things in my mind. When we thought about Ultimate, we were thinking about was it has to be easy to understand—on some level. I don't know, you can't ask too much of people from an entry standpoint. And that goes back to things like refs, field size, those sorts of choices. Let's package this in a way that's palatable and people can get. So, that's part of it. I think you have to make the barrier to entry low, or lowish. Not dumb though, you can't dumb it down to where it then becomes banal and boring, but you can make it accessible. But then, behind that accessibility there has to be a density to it. If you start getting in, there has to be some place to go. So, there has to be history, there has to be stats, there has to be a storyline.
If [a sport game] is just happening out of context, you would never watch it. It's the context that makes it matter and if you're not telling stories and if you're not building statistics, you're not building all this other stuff, you have no context. You have no story.
That's what sports is. Sports is stories and I think this is what a lot of people get confused about. Oh it's got to be exciting. It's got to be this, it's got to be that. Sports that are not exciting: football and baseball are boring, right? If it's just happening out of context, you would never watch it. It's the context that makes it matter and if you're not telling stories and if you're not building statistics, you're not building all this other stuff, you have no context. You have no story. So, we really thought a lot about, how do we amplify stories? And we weren't super successful all the time. Or any of the time, but we knew it was important and we were trying to do it. We were trying to find the stories, the rivalries, the "what-happened-last-week-and-what-matters-this-week?" hook. Why should we care about this game versus the last game?
Cause even watching at bars with strangers, which I did a lot because it was on Comcast so I would go out and I would watch and people were like, what is this? Explain or what's going on now? Did they beat this team last time? This is Philly right? They're playing DC, did they beat DC last time? No, they lost to them last time. What the fuck? Why? Let's talk about it. Because this guy right there. See that guy, that guy keeps catching all these goals and these guys can't figure out a way to stop him. Well, how many goals did he get? Well let me look, he had six goals last week. We're just like, now you have context, you have story and that's what makes sports interesting. It's a soap opera, just like anything else, it's just built around a live game that's happening.
SLUDGE: In the MLU inaugural season at a Philly-DC game, there was a guy wearing a, um, custom shirt.
Like when I would get shit from Ultimate players about calls. I was like, 'Okay, I get it.' But when I would get stuff from fans about calls after games... People who clearly were not frisbee players, just guys coming up to me, they're like: "what was that? That was garbage." Like, I love this, you care. Anytime where you saw that hint of people starting to care was just the best.
That shirt is a good example.
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