50th Anniversary of the First Interscholastic game of Ultimate (1970)

On this day fifty years ago, the first interscholastic game of ultimate Frisbee was played. The game was played between two New Jersey high schools in the parking lot at Columbia High School (Maplewood, NJ) on Saturday November 7, 1970; Columbia High School (CHS) Varsity Frisbee Squad won 43-10 over Millburn High School. The game was played in the evening at the faculty parking lot where it was lit at night.

Nearly two years later,  the first collegiate ultimate game was played on November 6, 1972.

History of AUDL Championship Locations

The American Ultimate Disc League championship is this upcoming weekend in California. It's the 8th annual championship in AUDL history.

Below is a history of each AUDL championship's location.
2012: Detroit, MI @ Pontiac Silverdome

2013: Chicago, IL @ Lane Tech High School Stadium

2014: Toronto, ON @ Varsity Stadium One

2015: San Jose, CA @ Avaya Stadium

2016: Madison, WI @ Breese Stevens Field

2017: Montreal, QC @ Claude Robillard Sports Complex

2018: Madison, WI @ Breese Stevens Field

2019: Los Altos Hills, CA @ Foothill College Stadium

Hosting of AUDL Championship by Division

AUDL Division	Qty
Midwest	4
East	2
West	2
South	0

Part 4: A Conversation about Major League Ultimate with Nic Darling

Below is the final portion of a multiple-part series documenting our conversation with Nic Darling, Executive VP and Founder of Major League Ultimate (2012-2016). In this installment, Nic talks about the MLU disc, his sales pitch, and MLU's sports content.

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 

Part 3: https://sludgeonline.blogspot.com/2019/03/part-3-conversation-major-league-ultimate-nicdarling.html

This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.


The "Disc"-ision
SLUDGE: Let's talk about Major League Ultimate disc. In retrospect, would you choose Innova again?
Nic Darling: 100% and I would do that again because it was the best thing—not only for the MLU at the time, but for the sport. And I still believe it, and I think that people's failure to understand that and embrace it is a failure that has hurt the sport. My first call when we decided to do this was actually to a product manager at Wham-O, and we had a really interesting conversation. But it ended up not going anywhere at a certain point because their disc just wasn't usable in its form. We tested it and had a lot of throwers throw with it, but it just wasn't a usable disc in our feeling. And Wham-O expressed some interest in creating a "professional ultimate disc", but their product life cycles are really long and trying to get that done in the time frame we were trying to do it in was impossible.

My first call when we decided to do [a new league disc] was actually to a product manager at Wham-O...but it just wasn't a usable disc in our feeling.

So then I called Innova, and they were immediately very interested in what we were doing. I still have a huge amount of respect for that company, they were amazing partners to work with. I had the same argument with them, the Pulsar that was out at that point was not good enough to play in our league. It lacked stability and the distance wasn't great on it. And I'd played with their golf discs long enough to know that they had the capabilities engineering-wise and technology-wise to make something better, and they were interested in doing that. And it turned out our timing was really good. They had been talking about doing something anyway, and so over the course of a number of months, they sent us a variety of different molds to test, different plastics to test.

We had throwers in a bunch of different cities around the country try them, tested them out all over and eventually landed on the Pulsar. Innova invested a good amount of money into the process. They invested a ton of frisbees into the process, including thousands and thousands which we gave away to schools and to kids and to youth programs and that was what they were really passionate about, was getting frisbees in people's hands. We still had a couple of years left in the deal and I don't see any reason that would've stopped being a positive relationship going forward. I also stand by the disc itself. I like it better. I like throwing it better. I can say now that because of my tiny, little hands, I like catching the Discraft a little bit better because the rim is a little lower and it's a little curved. But I prefer throwing the Pulsar.

I had a great conversation with Innova about the Pulsar. We went out, we talked to players maybe after the second year, and they gave feedback on the disc and what they liked, what they didn't like. And I went back, and a lot of what players didn't like is when I throw inside out, I wanna leave it way inside out, and have it flatten, and I want it to tail off this way. At the end of the conversation, Innova's like, "So, they want us to make our disc worse? I don't understand. They want us to engineer the good stuff out of it?"  It was very confusing, because they're disc engineers.

SLUDGE: I remember at the end of the first season, there was a player survey and one of the questions was about, do you like this disc? Do you remember?
Nic: Yeah, I do remember. By and large, people didn't care, or they claimed not to. Some people liked it, a bunch of people didn't like it. But the most people were just like, "Whatever." And I think a lot of 'em too, because we explained it better probably to the players than anybody else, a lot of them got that the reason you're on the field is 'cause these guys are putting money into this. If we didn't sign that deal, we wouldn't be able to do a lot of the other stuff that we're doing. It's always the case. And that's a hard thing for people to remember. It's a business.

If you pay for it, if you pay dues, then you should expect to get what you're paying for and to get what you like out of it, to an extent. It's still a democracy, 'cause there's a lot of people paying for it, it's aggregate power.

And we still believe that players deserve a disc that can do what it needs to do. Otherwise I would have followed that Wham-O trail, and probably been able to chase more money. But the Wham-O disc just wasn't good enough to do what players needed to be able to do with it on the field; the Pulsar was. [The Innova Pulsar] was different and that was frustrating to some players.

Brandon Malecek is a good example. He got super frustrated because it didn't do what he expected it to do. But he still was a ridiculous thrower, and he could put that thing 100 yards on a line. But a lot of players, in their response for that survey, were like, "I don't care."

SLUDGE: Any other disc vendors that were in the conversation?
Nic: Oh yeah. We had actually some early conversations with Vibram, creating a new type of ultimate disc. I always think the disc has a lot of room to evolve.

SLUDGE: I remember you mentioned on Cleats & Cufflinks about having a tracker or sensor in the disc.
Nic: Oh, I had a good conversation with the people at Intel about that. There's so much cool stuff you can do.

Field
SLUDGE: I assume MLU utilized a football field because the lines were there and better for optics, right? But playing or having experience for four seasons, and having played club, what do you think is the optimal size field?
Nic: For those that were playing in MLU, the larger field is definitely optimum. On a club field top level players are too fast, too strong, that space is not enough to really get everything out of them, I don't think. I love the big swing passes, I love the long set up puts and the way these guys go. I don't think it's an appropriate field size for amateur, rec league players necessarily, or for youth players.

For those that were playing in MLU, the larger field is definitely optimum. On a club field top level players are too fast, too strong, that space is not enough to really get everything out of them.

SLUDGE: Do you think a 53-yard wide field is accurate?
Nic: I wanted to set it at 50.  But once we said 53 we kept it. Because, statistics being as important as they were to our organization, Luke, we really wanted to make sure that we had just total consistency in field size. I come from a soccer background, so I'm not as much of a stickler about that. Soccer fields have a range, and I'm fine with that. But people were very adamant that it had to be the exact size, which is fair.

SLUDGE: What about retaining the 10-yard end zones? It bothered me that end zones were extended into the playing field.
Nic: It drove me nuts. I tried to convince everyone that a 10-yard end zone was enough. I can't remember why I lost that battle. I definitely fought for the 10 yard end zone, to just use the football end zones. It is a different sport, so the bigger end zone do make some sense to me, because of the way the disc floats. It's a little tougher to get it to drop exactly where you want it to. But these guys are good... feel like that adjustment could easily be made, and I think visually it would have been a lot better. But I did love the way it looked when I got to paint the lines. But yeah that was the big driver. It didn't make any sense, there was no real way to take it to real television. I can go to ESPN three, right? You just send a video they'll put it up. To go to a real TV and play on a football field but play with a weird sideline that was just cutting in the middle, it looked terrible.

Soccer had this problem in the US when they used to play on the football fields in New England and things like that. The MLS was playing on football fields and it just looked terrible. And we struggled with that all the time at MLU as we constantly were looking for stadiums or venues where we could paint lines. They just don't exist unless you have a lot of money. MLS stadiums were great, PPL park was great because of that but tough location.

SLUDGE: That painted field for the 2014 MLU Championships was beautiful.
Nic: I remember the game between DC and Vancouver really well, because that's the first time we got to paint our field - just amazing. And, I remember the Vancouver guys when they landed saying they saw it from the airplane.  It was hard to go back to a football field.

Hats
SLUDGE: One area, though subtle, that distinguished MLU was not allowing hats. You look at how players wear their hats, and it's all different. Take it away; it's all the same.
Nic: Oh yeah, that was me. That was almost solely me. I was dying on that hill. It's a field sport. You don't wear hats in a field sport. Nobody wears hats in a field sport. Some people wear helmets. Maybe we should wear helmets.

Pitch
SLUDGE: Did MLU’s hat ban help when approaching potential sponsors?
Nic: Yeah, so my pitch and my idea was, "Look at this sport, people, advertisers, content marketers, anyone who's in marketing branding for big companies, right now is looking for content." They're looking for content that they can brand, that they can collaborate with, that they get on top of. And they particularly like sports content because it's immediate. And so little is immediate now. DVR, Netflix, all these things takes all the immediacy out of content. I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want.

MLU's particular sports content was attractive. The type of athletes that we had, even if you want to go down to the way players look, the way they dress, these things all fit really well with a lot of brands we're looking for.

MLU's particular sports content was attractive. The type of athletes that we had, even if you want to go down to the way players look, the way they dress, these things all fit really well with a lot of brands we're looking for. So there were a lot of positive brand attributes that I thought we could leverage, and I thought there was a lot of opportunity there. But we had to approach it from that being the primary objective. And I don't think we always did that, and I think that hurt us sometimes.

There were a lot of choices that were made that I think were frustrating to players on some level, but were super important, because each thing that we did like that... So the ‘No Hats’ thing is a great example. The ‘No Hats’ rule let us get future apparel deals, because we showed that we had a level of control over our product. And I used it in pitches. I was like, "Here's what Ultimate looks like in the club level, and here's how players dress, and how they wear hats." We said no hats, our players agreed, because they understand that it's important. And that's why Puma, Canterbury, that's why you should work with us, because our players are committed to what we're doing, and are able to be disciplined in these areas that are important to you.

I used it in pitches...."Here's what Ultimate looks like in the club level, and here's how players dress, and how they wear hats." ... And that's why you should work with us, because our players are committed to what we're doing, and are able to be disciplined in these areas that are important to you.

And this is a problem for every sport, by the way. Uniform rules are a problem for everyone. What socks are they wearing? What knee braces? What shoes? What under-gear? So the hat thing had a lot of reasons behind it. Aesthetically, it's better. It's better from an aesthetic level, better packaging. From a gameplay level, it makes more sense. How many guys throw their hats off when they're going out to play. Now you've gotta go fetch a hat. It's gonna slow things down. There were all sorts of reasons. And what if you throw your hat off, and it hits a guy in the face who's going for a disc? Is that a foul? Is that an intentional foul? There are all those reasons, but the biggest one is the one, that some people had trouble understanding was that was the example of what it would mean to future partners that we could make those kinds of decisions and stick to them.

SLUDGE: Can you talk about some of the constraints about why they weren't interested in it?

Nic: Sure. I mean those reasons were endless. Some primary reasons; the sport's not established enough, the audience size needs to improve. Depends on the brand, what they care about more, whether it's live or it's online. But there's certain metrics you need to hit to crack anyone's interest level. So, it just depended on who you were talking with. Certainly, it's always... The main things were audience size and overall reach, overall engagement, 'cause we were still building all those legs. The positives were, everyone loved the demographics. The sport made sense to people, relatively quickly. They could see it, they were like, "I get it. I get what's happening."

The sport made sense to people, relatively quickly.

SLUDGE: Did they know what ultimate frisbee was? Or did you have to show them something?

Nic: Some people knew, some people didn't. Everybody knows somebody who plays, it feels like, but they don't necessarily understand what the actual sport is, or what the level is. The first year was like pulling teeth.

Some people knew, some people didn't. Everybody knows somebody who plays, it feels like, but they don't necessarily understand what the actual sport is, or what the level is. The first year was like pulling teeth.

You had to really hit people over the head with it hard. But by the third year, you were like, "Oh yeah, I saw that on ESPN," or, "Yeah, you guys were on Comcast the other day, I saw that." That's what you have to do. You have to keep making strides. And we also developed partnerships like with Whistle Sports. That was a big partnership, because that got us into a lot of places we couldn't get otherwise, and it got our content to people who wouldn't have seen us otherwise. All those little moves that we made were important too. But yeah, there were still things to overcome. How many eyeballs can you deliver me, and how much do those eyeballs care about what they're seeing? And if you can't make a compelling case for those two things, you're not gonna land anybody.

Like when we went to pitch Fiat... So [MLU Sales Associate] Burt Katzen, I think was the guy who had made the contact and warmed up that deal. And then Jonathan McQueen was the sales manager at the time, and he had worked with the guy a little bit. And then I always did our pitches for big deals, so I could write the pitches and I could build the decks. And so I wanted us all at this meeting, and I felt like we should show up in force, the three of us out there. But financially, we didn't wanna spring for three flights and hotels and all that stuff, so we drove to Detroit. And I drove us straight through. I can't remember where we stopped, but almost all the way out in one day. And then we finished it up and did our meeting. 

We bootstrapped so many things so that we could spend the money elsewhere. 'Cause it's like, if we spend it there, then we can't invest it here. And we need to invest it here. So it was constant decisions. I traveled everywhere by BoltBus. I'd go up to Boston on the bus. I'd go to New York on the bus. I'd go to DC on the bus. And I'd go for big meetings, I'd pack my suit and try to fold it up. You were always playing that game of how can we scrape enough here, so that we can spend it over here where we think it matters more. That's the startup decision making process.

##

On This Day: Ultimate Frisbee Game Was First Publicized

On this day (June 21) in 1969, the sport of ultimate Frisbee was first publicized in a Newark Evening News article. Columbia High School student Joel Silver, contributing as a "Special Writer" for The Newark Evening News, introduced the team game of Frisbee (without ever mentioning it by name) to the people of New Jersey in a story entitled "Frisbee Flippers Form Teams."

From the article:
"There is a new sport at Columbia High School (CHS) in Maplewood-frisbee. Every day, students from the 10th through 12th grades take part in the newly popular game. Though many may consider the sport to be immature, these high school students are joining the thousands of other people in the country who are enjoying the fun and exercise of the game."

The inaugural game played in the springtime between the two CHS teams - the Council (included president of CHS Student Council) versus the Columbian team (sponsored by the CHS newspaper) - was mentioned:

"In the first meeting between the teams, the Columbian team won by an 11-7 margin."

Silver boasts:

"A number of frisbee-ers hold varying degrees in the International Frisbee Association."

The Newark Evening News was an American newspaper published in Newark, New Jersey. At its apex, the newspaper was widely regarded as the newspaper of record in New Jersey. Its last issue was printed on August 31, 1972.


[H/T Ultimate: The First Four Decades]

Ooops! UFO

Sorry I'm late. I boarded a Frisbee by mistake.

Roswell

Part 3: A Conversation about Major League Ultimate with Nic Darling

Below is the next portion of a multiple-part series documenting our conversation with Nic Darling, Executive VP and Founder of Major League Ultimate (2012-2016). In this installment, Nic talks about launching MLU, what he's most proud of about MLU and its legacy.

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.

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.

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.

Part 2: A Conversation about Major League Ultimate with Nic Darling

Below is the next portion of a multiple-part series documenting our conversation with Nic Darling, Executive VP and Founder of Major League Ultimate (2012-2016). In this installment, we chat about the future of MLU, versions of MLU and MLU as a business.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

MLU II
SLUDGE: Is there any chance for MLU to be resurrected in some form?
Nic: I don't know why it wouldn't. It's by far the most powerful brand around the sport. If we're gonna keep calling the sport Ultimate, then what else would you call the league, but Major League Ultimate? There's no other name for it that works.

[MLU] is by far the most powerful brand around the sport. If we're gonna keep calling the sport Ultimate, then what else would you call the league, but Major League Ultimate?

And I think that the assets still have value, there's still followers on everything, a decent number of them. They don't go away. If you kick those things back up, you reawaken that machine, it's still there. Until these platforms die, those things are still there. People don't unfollow anything.

Facebook likes: 73K; https://www.facebook.com/MLUltimate
IG: 17.4k followers
Twitter followers: 14.8K;  https://twitter.com/MLUltimate
YouTube Subscribers: 28K; https://www.youtube.com/user/MajorLeagueUltimate/featured

There were a couple of people who came and approached, and I don't know where this has gone, because I haven't been involved, but I know that people have come and approached the investors about the Twitter page, Facebook, and using them for new projects. Maybe that's moved along, I don't know, but I know that those conversations have happened. I would love to see the brand rise again, as it were. I think it's a really strong brand and a really strong name. I think the logo's strong. I would love to see somebody do something with it to be honest.

I would love to see the [MLU] brand rise again...I think it's a really strong brand and a really strong name. I would love to see somebody do something with it to be honest.

[NOTE: This conversation happened prior to the UUL and PUL announcements]

MLU Mixed and MLU Women
SLUDGE: Was there ever talk about the MLU transforming into a mixed league?
Nic: One of the things that we talked about and researched pretty heavily over the 2016 season were ideas for a mixed Ultimate. We looked at a lot. And I don't mean looked at like, "Oh, we thought about it and talked about it." I mean I went to sponsors, I went to Comcast, I went to TV partners, we talked about it in depth, got feedback from their marketing departments and got some feel for how we might think about approaching that. And it seems like a big lift, still, but compared to...starting an Ultimate League. I guess it's not that big a lift anyway.

what we thought about all the time was there may be, again, like Ultimate in general, there may be a more difficult path that has a higher return, which is why we started talking about mixed as an idea.

So when you go pitch sponsors and pitch people like that, they're much quicker to listen (and I'm not crediting this with any value, but investors, sponsors) because we were pitching a men's league. And that's just the way it is. That doesn't mean that that's right, and it also, what we thought about all the time was there may be, again, like Ultimate in general, there may be a more difficult path that has a higher return, which is why we started talking about mixed as an idea.

Could we make that jump? It would be difficult, we would lose some things, but we would gain other things in the process. It was possible, and there was definitely some interest.


SLUDGE: What about a women's MLU?
Nic: Yeah, so mixed was just one of the ideas. There were a couple of other ideas. One was to have a mirrored women's league that would play sort of same travel schedule, same stadium kinda thing, double-header approach, there were a bunch of different ideas. There were different ideas constantly, so it's hard to separate these out.

SLUDGE: When did this start?
Nic: From the early days, we talked about how do women play into this on the field, because from the first days Lindi Sabloff, MLU Chief Financial Officer, was on our team. She was one of the primary founders. She helped me draw our initial corporate structure, all of our initial finances. She helped us put together. And so, from the beginning, we talked about how in the long run does this play out.

David Kucherlapati was also big on bouncing ideas around. And it was always a long-term thing anyway, that that would be part of the way that this would play out.

SLUDGE: How close did it get to becoming a reality?
Nic: It was just constantly in the conversation. Because innovating sports is what we needed to be able to do on some level. And in the beginning, we weren't really doing that. We were mimicking sports that existed.

Some of the brands we talked to had interest in a women’s MLU because they wanted to reach that audience very, very badly. Again, we come back to the real time thing. Sports is the best way for brands to reach audiences in real time in a lot of ways, and that audience is largely 18 to 45-year-old men demo.

And so reaching women of that age range is really challenging in any kind of live real-time aspect. And so there's some attraction to that idea. It was also just a good time to start having that conversation, women's soccer, with the accomplishments that they had, actually finally getting some massive TV audience behind a women's sport, in a way that hadn't been seen before. There are a lot of things that have been turning over. And the women's part of the game is something we talked about from day one. We couldn't wrap our heads around how to tackle it in a way that was manageable from our perspective.

There were no shortcuts in it, whereas the men's game had more shortcuts into raising money and things like that. There were people who were ready to do that that weren't necessarily ready to go for a mixed or women's. Mixed has its own enormous challenges, when you start thinking about it as a professional sport. You obviously have to make decisions about how you treat gender, which we were pretty clear about. So we put a presentation together, put it in front of the Board of Investors as a pitch for the 2017 season.

When you get into the boardroom, the on-the-field product didn't have much to do with the discussion. Not really. It makes people feel good if things are going well on the field, and that's nice because it adds a little bit of positivity to the conversation, even when you're looking at numbers that are tough.

But in the end we had investors and we had people working for us who were there to try to make this financially viable. And you can have a great game... We had a couple of games where there were a lot of people [in attendance] but the revenue wasn't right. Too many tickets given away...the concession deal wasn't good...the stadium was too expensive. Then when you run the numbers in a year, you're like, "Oh, that felt like a great game when we were there. Energy was good, it was a good crowd, the game was great. But on the books it's a bad game."

SLUDGE: I definitely think that’s how the casual observer might misperceive semi-pro ultimate as a viable product.
Nic: Yeah. The last [2016] championship game [between Philadelphia Spinners and Portland Stags], we probably did five times the revenue that we did at any normal game. But I don't think we made much more money on the game.

SLUDGE: Five times?! Was this revenue compared to other championships or other regular season games?
Nic: To other regular season games. We did probably five times the revenue, but probably similar above the line. So not much more than any other profitable game. And profitable is hard to pinpoint too. Because no game's been profitable. It just depends how you draw those lines of profitability. Does a game make money? Or what are you factoring into that game? Are you just including the stadium costs and the refs? Or do we include travel? (The most expensive thing out there.) There's all these different elements that we did, and it's hard to make a distinction.

SLUDGE: I always thought that the business model that the MLU had was sound. And, I always envisioned that one day that AUDL and MLU would go in front of the Shark Tank, and pitch their idea, pitch their leagues, and have the sharks would pick which one to go. That didn't happened, but...
Nic: It didn't...I feel like we would have won that battle...I know we would have won that battle.
We lost a bunch of others though. [chuckle]

I think the failure in the model was one of vision. I think that if I could do one thing differently in the last year, I would have spent less time on operations, and a lot more time selling this idea to investors—and to people with money, basically. Because the one thing that we underestimated is how much money it really takes to do this. If you wanna get to profitability, it takes a lot of money. And we accomplished a lot, with very little. We still had a lot of money by the standards of the sport at the point it was at, but we weren't even close really to the level of investment it would take to click over. And I think that that was the main flaw in the model. And it wasn't an unknown one, we kind of knew it was there, but there was always, we need to get just a little further before we go, find that cash, we need to go a little deeper before we find it. But I really, particularly in retrospect, wish I had spent a significant amount more time over the last year finding other money, and more money. But I got very hung up in operations, and not in that job, which is the job I probably should've been doing more.

We were looking at how to name a League Commissioner after the 2016 season, but we ended up going more in the marketing. We ended up investing the money we would have spent there in marketing company that helped us develop the sponsorship outreach that we were doing, and in the ticket sales department, which had already started to really kick things up. It was really cool actually watching them. And that was the other thing is if you look at the company, we never invested the money that we needed to make the money we needed to. If you wanna sell tickets, you have to sell tickets. You can't just expect people to buy tickets. You have to sell them. Once we, just even started selling them, we were like, "Oh, okay, this is how this works."

But you need to invest a lot of money into those programs. Into building them out, staffing them, giving them the materials they need, writing scripts, putting someone in charge who really knows what they're doing. And we just, frankly, needed to invest more and that meant we needed to go get more and that meant we should have been selling more.


[MLU] still had a lot of money by the standards of the sport at the point it was at, but we weren't even close really to the level of investment it would take to click over. And I think that that was the main flaw in the model.


SLUDGE: Was MLU - as a company - a success in its inaugural year (2013)?
Nic: I wouldn't call it a huge success. We didn't come out of the gate and surprise anybody. And in some cases, there were probably surprises that were negative, things would cost more than you think they're going to. You learn a lotta lessons about where you're gonna lose money and where you're gonna make money. A company like this has to be prepared to lose money for 10 years. You just have to be ready for that kind of thing.

A company like this has to be prepared to lose money for 10 years. You just have to be ready for that kind of thing.

SLUDGE: As a startup?
Nic: Yeah. And particularly as one that's trying to do something as big in scope as this is. Even though we're not paying people much, we were doing payroll for 400 and some people every week, every other week.

SLUDGE: Would you say MLU overachieved for that first season?
Nic: No, I don't think we did. I think there were a couple of games here or there. A couple of wins maybe, starting the sponsorship with Innova and things like that, I think, were really positive, but no, I definitely wouldn't say we overachieved.

SLUDGE:  What do you remember as being the end game for MLU?
Nic: I think there were a lot of differing opinions on what that was gonna be. There were a lot of people that wanted this really boot strapped slow growth, invest as little as possible, try to just build a little bit of revenue here, a little bit of revenue there. I was much more in the camp of the tipping point for this company is when we get a major brand invested and that should be the only thing we're trying to do. Until we have a major brand partner whose capable of putting money in and drawing all of the fish smaller than it into the pool, we don't have a chance. We're not gonna get by on selling tickets to events, we're not gonna get by on selling merchandise, the money is in our content and that's why our focus was so heavily on content.

Until we have a major brand partner whose capable of putting money in and drawing all of the fish smaller than it into the pool, we don't have a chance. We're not gonna get by on selling tickets to events, we're not gonna get by on selling merchandise, the money is in our content and that's why our focus was so heavily on content.

On social media, on websites, on the video stuff, on statistics and all those pieces were coming together to a point where we were getting conversations. I got to go to Detroit and sit down with Fiat and all their head marketing people and have a conversation. And I had to pitch Zappos....I had to go to LA and meet with Red Bull. I got to do these things because, while everything was pretty raw it was all there and when we'd pitch these brands they could look at it and they could see it. They could see the numbers, they could see the impressions, the views, the engagement and they could buy into it.

The way I always thought about MLU was that we were a media company that produced our own product. We didn't cover somebody else's, we made our own.

The way I always thought about MLU was that we were a media company that produced our own product. We didn't cover somebody else's, we made our own.

##

Part 1: A Conversation about Major League Ultimate with Nic Darling

It has been 2 years since Major League Ultimate decided to shutdown. MLU completed 4 seasons with memorable innovations until the abrupt stoppage in December 2016. SLUDGE spoke with Nic Darling about many various MLU topics with Nic who provides candid behind-the-scenes insight.

Nic Darling was the Executive VP and Founder of Major League Ultimate from late 2012 until December 2016. During Nic's tenure at MLU, he became the face of the organization as the host of MLU's podcast Cleats and Cufflinks, the lead in MLU's 'Speaking Ultimate Frisbee' segments, and was called on to broadcast some games.

Below is part 1 of multiple part series documenting our conversation.


This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.


December 2016
SLUDGE: Take me back when you found out about the decision to cease operations of Major League Ultimate.
Nic Darling: We had just moved into our new offices. There were hints a couple of days before this, that this was a possibility.

SLUDGE: Were the hints communicated to you? Or you were just sensing them?
Nic: Kind of communicated. It was like stuff got wishy-washy that wasn't wishy-washy prior. I had some inkling of what was going on. We talked very, very regularly with all the major investors. But yeah, the final decision was still a surprise on some level, even though maybe it shouldn't have been. But you could see the context. There were three days where I'm thinking, "Something bad is coming, and I'm not really sure what it is. What's going on?" And then three days later, it's like, "Okay. That is what's going
on."

...a huge surprise to everyone...We had some deals in the works that I was really excited about. You could call it a shock. There were just a couple of days of oddness that preceded it.

This is still a huge surprise to everyone here, because new offices, new ticket sales team, all this good stuff going on. We had some deals in the works that I was really excited about. You could call it a shock. There were just a couple of days of oddness that preceded it.

I'm pretty direct, or had been at least for the year prior to that, where we had some deals moving forwards for financing and I would be ask the investors, "Are we good? Everybody's on board, we're okay? Are there any metrics we need to be able to hit to make sure we're good?" And so, we would do check-ins.

There was always anxiety… The rug can be pulled out from you at any moment when your business is based on investors. It can disappear in a second. My first startup, a software company that I was in, we had a patent lawsuit that came up. Investors were like, "Yep, we're done." And, we're done. And we're just done. And it's just the way these things go... There's only so much protection you can build in, so you always have a background level of anxiety.

There was something different with this one. And I don't have a good explanation of what exactly happened, oddly.

...there was still a long way to go before [Major League Ultimate] was turning a profit.

I know the basics of it; there was still a long way to go before this company was turning a profit. And while that seemed to be pretty well communicated between all of the parties involved, I started to get the sense in those days leading up, that it wasn't as well communicated as I thought.

I would have been less surprised if we chose to end operations right after the end of the 2016 season (July 2016) than I was after making several positive moves through the fall.

SLUDGE: Unpack that for me.
Nic: Okay. I would have been less surprised if we chose to end operations right after the end of the 2016 season than I was after making several positive moves through the fall. An investor-funded business always has a certain amount of uncertainty and the time of most instability is when the end of an agreement is in sight and the next round of funding is not yet secure. By the beginning of December 2016, I was fairly confident that we had secured funding for 2017. After the 2016 MLU Championship [August 2016] I did not yet have that confidence.

SLUDGE: Any other issues, in retrospect?
Nic: The problem is that there were different philosophies as to how the company was gonna run over the years. So some people thought, "Hey, maybe we can make this sort of a subsistence thing, and we can find some mechanisms for leveraging people's volunteerism and stuff and just running things that way." But in the last year or two we had a shift, to  "Let's make this a real company, let's run it like a real company. Let's go find what we need to survive. So let's find new investment, let's find this." And that started to be the philosophy through 2016, and it felt like that's the direction we were headed in. So yeah, there's some surprises there. And I still don't have all of the background reasons why the plug got pulled.

SLUDGE: It seems like you - of all people - deserve to have those answers.
I think I could have them, probably, now, if I wanted to go back and have the conversation. I just haven't. For me, another thing that I think is important to understand is that this job, for me, was really brutal. It was more than double full time. I worked constantly. I missed weddings, and parties, and family events, and anything you can imagine. I worked every day, I worked every night. During the season, I traveled all the time. And there was certainly a part of it being over, once I finally got over the shock of that, and the painful part of having to lay off a bunch of people, and all that stuff, where I remember I was sitting in the office by myself cause I was closing everything down, and I'm like, "Maybe this is for the best. I'm tired. Drinking too much, and I'm stressed out, I don't feel good. Maybe it's not all bad."

"Maybe this is for the best. I'm tired. Drinking too much, & I'm stressed out, I don't feel good. Maybe it's not all bad."

And I rode that feeling for months. And that was the time period where I could have sat down with the people involved and got better answers, and I just never really did. I don't think that there's anybody that wouldn't give me the answer. The investors are great, I still have a lot of respect for them. They treated everybody really well with the exit, which is abnormal when a company closes down.

The investors are great, I still have a lot of respect for them. They treated everybody really well with the exit, which is abnormal when a company closes down.

I'm pretty sure I could probably get better answers. They're probably just gonna tell me it's my fault. I don't know if I want to know that.

SLUDGE: How much future planning was already done for the next year's (2017) championship game?

Nic: We always had a challenge, in that, the reason it was in Philly is cause MLU headquarters was in Philly and the production level that went into that was really hard for us to do anywhere else. Now it looked like the 2017 championship was going to be determined not by us but by the title sponsor. We were in conversations with a few different companies to title sponsor that game and that would've had a large determination on where we held it. Both the size of the venue, the type of venue, and in the end, probably the city location.

We were in conversations with FOX Sports and Comcast to do a live national broadcast of that game.

Aftermath

SLUDGE: Was it ever considered, for some departments of MLU to continue as an offshoot?

Nic: Absolutely. [Production Manager] Matt Gray and I batted that idea around a lot. We looked at different ways of doing it. I think he even shot a couple of games for the AUDL, as a kind of test of the thing. But there's just no money in it. There never was money in it. You have to monetize it and nobody on the AUDL side was doing that. We looked at other sports, and there were more possibilities there. But everybody wanted to pay the barest minimum for that kind of coverage, so there wasn't really a lot to do with it. Now, again, given some time and some runway, could we have spun up a media company out of that, that might have been able to work around Ultimate? Yeah, it’s possible. I think there's an opportunity there for sure...just like there's space around any sport. But you gotta find corporate partners, it's the only way to make it happen. Gotta find people with money, who have something to sell.

But there's just no money in it. There never was money in it. You have to monetize it...I think there's an opportunity there for sure...just like there's space around any sport. But you gotta find corporate partners, it's the only way to make it happen.

SLUDGE: The other two efforts that I thought MLU had that was of value were the Fantasy platform and the stats system.

Nic: That was great, wasn't it? The fantasy thing was insane. Stats, fantasy, our websites, all that stuff, we way overachieved on all that. 

SLUDGE: Back in December of 2016, you said that the stats would remain intact and online, but stats have since been removed.

Nic: I was actually surprised to see the main site had come down, and the [stats] portion of it. We were working off of...I can't remember, Luke would know better…I think Google Cloud services for that, and that was one of the expenses that got dropped by the investors. We still have the data, but the system isn't there to publicly display it.

SLUDGE: How invested were you in the MLU?

Nic: Most of mine was sweat equity. So I made very little money for a long time. [chuckle] And that's how I have equity. But that equity gets diluted over the years as you bring in more money. And in the end, when things go south, part of that shutdown deal is... those brand assets, anything, gets taken by the investor that has the most control. So I don't have control of those assets anymore. 

I think there's plenty of opportunity to do something with [MLU assets]. I don't think that that's a closed door at all. In fact, somebody approached me a bit ago with an idea, and I passed them on to the investors.

However, I think there's plenty of opportunity to do something with them. I don't think that that's a closed door at all. In fact, somebody approached me a bit ago with an idea, and I passed them on to the investors. I don't know what conversations are happening now and, again like I said, it isn't 'til this conversation that I've thought about it, but I have kind of...since February [2017] I think is when I finally finished up everything with MLU... I've just shut it out. I haven't paid attention to it. I haven't... I mean, I still need to get the trophy to the investors, I haven't done that. So the MLU Championship trophy is sitting in my house.

Retrospective

SLUDGE: Do you ever have any "aha" moments related to the MLU?

Nic: Oh, I have those all the time. I have those at the gas station sometimes. [chuckle] Retrospect is a beautiful thing. You look into the past and you can always make the right decisions and the right choices. And those constantly occur to me. This is something we could have done or this is the way we could have done that. And frankly that occurs to me in anything that I do. I have a lot of tendency to be looking backwards at what I've done and trying to learn.

One of the things I think we could have done that we actually talked about earlier in the years of the MLU and that just didn't get traction with all of the stakeholders, was taking some lessons from what players associations do and trying to blend that to what we did as a league.... I am constantly coming upon ideas that we could have applied at MLU to engage the players more fully that would have had a positive effect on that part of the MLU business. 

"How could we have done a better job engaging the players in the actual process of running and growing the league?" That would have been a more effective method than paying them $15 extra dollars a game.

It just depended on the level of buy-in, which goes back to that, "How could we have done a better job engaging the players in the actual process of running and growing the league?" That would have been a more effective method than paying them $15 extra dollars a game. Right? And I think we all knew that. We just couldn't figure out how to do it, with all of the other things that we had to accomplish.

Now we were always strangled for resources, not just monetary but human. And so as thin as we were stretched, some of those would have been difficult to accomplish without significant buy-in from our investors and people understanding why it was important.

MLU Store

SLUDGE: It was reported there was 500+ orders at the end of December 2016 after the MLU had ceased operations.

Nic: That was awful, totally forgot about that until you just brought it up.

SLUDGE: Sorry.  After all of that hard work that you've done for four years, were you surprised at this reaction of so many people showing interest with their wallet?

Nic: I don't know. I think people wanted to grab a piece of history. We expected it. So it wasn't surprising. I expected people to come out. We always sold stuff, people bought stuff, but just never on that scale all at once, but we were also dirt cheap. [chuckle] But, yeah, piling all that stuff, that was a rough couple of weeks, getting those orders out.

That's another thing people forget, we ran an entire retail store as well. That was crazy. 

SLUDGE: It must have been hard for you since you're already dealing with this cease operations, but then still having this obligation to send out all those swag orders.

Nic: Picture an old cowboy movie, and your horse dies, and you sit there, and you watch the vultures come down and get the horse.

##

Ultimate: The First Five Decades

Ultimate history repeats itself by publishing another tome chronicling the 50 years of ultimate.

ULTIMATE–The First Five Decades, Vol. II (2005-2018)

Contents:
• Recap of Volume I
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Ultimate Plants Its Feet (2005-2009)
• Chapter 2. Divergent Visions Take Root (2010-2013)
• Chapter 3. Competing Priorities Bloom (2014-mid-2018)
• Chapter 4. Local Disc Organizations and Leagues
• Chapter 5. Equity & Diversity in Ultimate
• Chapter 6. WFDF and World Overview
• Chapter 7. Where Does Ultimate in the USA Go Now

Price: $39.50 plus shipping & tax

(US shipments will begin in February.)

Former AUDL Teams

The 2019 AUDL season is projected to have 21 teams in 4 divisions across the United States and Canada.

There have been 14 teams that used to play in the American Ultimate Disc League; they are:
Buffalo Hunters
Charlotte Express
Cincinnati Revolution
Columbus Cranes
Connecticut Constitution
New Jersey Hammerheads
Philadelphia Spinners
Rhode Island Rampage
Rochester Dragons
Salt Lake City Lions
San Francisco FlameThrowers
Seattle Raptors
Vancouver Riptide

Maplewood, NJ Proclamation Honors the 50th Anniversary of Ultimate Frisbee

The township of Maplewood, New Jersey, honors the 50th anniversary of Ultimate Frisbee with a proclamation declaring November 22 and 23 as "Ultimate Days."

Maplewood, NJ proclamation [photo via The Village Green]

Whereas, in 1968 Columbia High School student Joel Silver introduced to the student council the idea of (Ultimate) Frisbee.

Mayor Victor De Luca declares November 22nd and 23rd as Ultimate Days in the Township of Maplewood.

The Frisbee Joins AARP

It has been 61 years since the agreement for a plastic flying disc - the Pluto Platter model - became a Wham-O toy.  In 1958, the toy was renamed the Frisbee Pluto Platter Flying Saucer which makes 2018 the Frisbee's true 60th year...which brings the following: 

On This Day (1957) Toy Company Gains Contractual Rights to Plastic Flying Saucer Toy

While the Frisbee's Birthday is typically celebrated today, the historically accurate celebration should be the contract between the Morrisons and the toy manufacturer on January 23, 1957.

The "plastic flying saucer type toy" in the 1957 contract (above) and 1957 toy catalog was not called a Frisbee yet; it was called the Pluto Platter.

The plastic flying saucer type toy would later be renamed after the Frisbie Baking Company as "Frisbee" - a name the inventor Fred Morrison is quoted as saying: "I thought the name was a horror. Terrible."

Remembering Major League Ultimate

Today (December 21) marks the one year anniversary of Major League Ultimate suspending operations after just four seasons.

History: MLU started on September 28, 2012 with a meeting between Jeff Sander, Nic Darling, Skip Sewell, Marc Stackowski, and Lindi Sadloff. AUDL-Owner/Coach-turned-MLU-Commissioner Jeff Snader began building a 12-team sports league that would rival American Ultimate Disc League. MLU sought to model itself after Major League Soccer's shared revenue model.

Seven months after that initial meeting, MLU's first season would start on April 20, 2013 with a 10-game schedule for 8 teams (eventually dropping San Jose Black Hats and New Jersey Founders) in 2 divisions on the coasts.

"The league contracts the players, the league covers travel costs, the league covers uniforms and equipment, everything."


Logo: What a creatively designed logo by Skip Sewell!

The combination text-based logo with the full company name of the startup league is effective for easy recognition. Major League Ultimate is strong sounding; and inclusionary of teams who are outside of the American headquarters.

Storytelling: MLU did an excellent job of hyping each and every game; providing an instant reaction to each and every game; recapping each and every game. Regardless of record, an MLU team was going to be covered by the MLU. UltiPhotos as the official photographer of Major League Ultimate aided MLU's storytelling with action photos.

MLU's podcasting was another way for MLU to communicate - for better or for worse - about the league. "Cleats" (Nic Darling) & "Cufflinks" (Jeff Snader) debuted on February 2014, changed up in November 2015 after Snader's departure (September 2015), and continued with Dusty Rhodes for the 2016 season.

Cleats & Cufflinks recorded its 50th podcast episode in the summer of 2016.

Stats: Truly a game changer. MLU's box score and interactive data were major improvements to an already robust stats system. Beyond goals and assists, MLU started tracking analytical data for its 2015 season. MLU began using live updates for their stats in 2015. Collected stats were applied to field visuals in 2016 for Week 10 & Week 11. You didn't need to be a stats geek to appreciate the summary of game results. [NOTE: MLU stats were taken offline on May 3rd, 2017 @1:33PM.]

Collected MLU stats were a major source of these yearly snapshots - in 2014 and in 2015.

Another element MLU borrowed from professional sports world was the weekly injury update. Sure, it become a sponsorship opportunity, but the injury update also provided value to the weekend's scheduled games to understand which players would not be playing.

2,200 accounts were created for MLU Fantasy in 2014.

Streaming: MLU Live via YouTube showcased a weekly game from each division in 2013 through 2015. By 2016, MLU boldly attempted to livestream all of its entire 2016 season...for FREE.

MLU Live offered multiple camera angles, instant replays, well-informed broadcasters (Dusty Rhodes, Geoff Poster) plus halftime and postgame interviews. The media arm of MLU provided plenty of eye candy, but was occasionally hamstrung by poor internet service.

Staffing: There was a clear understanding that the success of the league would require local teams to operate successfully. As such, MLU advertised 20+ jobs (paid, unpaid, internships) to support team operations and logistics.

Uniforms: MLU unis brought a sense of distinguished style to the semi-professional sports league.

2013 season: The 3/4 length sleeved jerseys produced by Five Ultimate were especially awesome. They were uniquely tailored and eye-catching.

2014 season: The form-fitting Puma kits.

2015-2016 seasons: The V-neck collar Canterbury kits.

Another distinguishing feature of the players was MLU prohibited players to wear hats.

MLU was all about making things look uniform, hence the potential of a backwards baseball hat ruining that MLU player image was removed.

Innovations: 
Player Advisory Committee (PAC), a group of MLU player volunteers that worked with the league to provide input on rules, schedules, contracts and other matters concerned with the MLU's long-term goals.

MLU video game: This was no EA Sports FIFA, though it was a pivot in the right direction as a portal for getting the MLU product, teams and players in front of more faces (and could have been another platform for advertising). 'Championship Ultimate' was one-of-a-kind video game that was a tad clunky in mimicking the real-world action of a frisbee game. Hey, remember there was an option to select a women's squad as your team?

MLU-designed lined field
The decreasing lines beginning at half-field are meant to signify the approach to the end zones.

MLU Executive Vice President Nic Darling: "The overall idea was to create a field with the markings we need within a minimal, open design to highlight the unique flow of ultimate. We wanted the functionality of the yardage markings without the rigidity of football's gridiron."

Half-field pulls
The MLU was willing to bend the rules in the name of competition. MLU played with this new rule impacting the pull in the 2015 season. Instead of pulling 80 yards away from an opponent, the pull was thrown 40 yards away at midfield when the pulling team called a timeout before the point started. The pull from midfield (or half-field pulls) were an exciting addition to the pro game. Teams with the lead used it to keep their pressure; teams that were down utilized the tactic to help with a comeback attempt.

New Ultimate Disc
MLU's business decision to work with Pulsar seemed justified. In college basketball and soccer, using a different brand for the essential equipment piece is commonplace. Alas, the Innova Pulsar may be symbolic of the MLU - it was slightly different, yet people did not buy into it.


In the End:
The business model is at the core of any successful startup, because no matter how cool an idea is or how unique something may seem, a startup must have a viable way of making money that is worthy enough for future investment and to sustain itself.  Like any startup, operations are at the whim of its investors. The MLU completed 4 seasons (2013-2016) and seemingly were on its way to a 5th (2017) until the league's investor's made the decision to suspend operations on December 21, 2016.


[NOTE: Links to Major League Ultimate's website do not work since it was taken offline.]