We would like to thank the members of this forum that have
offered thoughts, support and involvement over the past
several months, and welcome all who have interest in what we
are doing to learn more. We are encouraging the Ultimate
community to engage within the AUDL as players, coaches,
officials, sponsors, or fans, and help take the sport to
another level. We invite you to visit the league and team
websites and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
In Ultimate,
Josh Moore, President
American Ultimate Disc League
www.theaudl.com
mailto:in...@theaudl.com
--
Posted from http://www.rsdnospam.com
A number of Madcow's players are based in and around
Indianapolis.
You might remember Madcow as an elite club team who has made
Nationals in the past and lost this year in the game-to-go.
Whoever this mysterious Philadelphia owner is will probably
be surprised when their entire fan base chooses to go play
in their SL game instead of attending home games.
Well, the owners are apparently Katrel Kelly and David
Fitzgerald:
http://www.philadelphiaspinners.com/index.php/team/players-a-coachesgroup1/philly-spinners
Some quick Google'ing leads me to believe that David is the
assistant coach of West Catholic High School's freshman
football team, and Katrel Kelly is a rapper:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-h-fitzgerald-jr/32/572/ba5
http://www.britishhiphop.co.uk/features/interviews/trel_mack.html
I am convinced this is a joke.
Considering I've been playing ultimate for 10 years and have
been paid approximately (complete wild ass guess) -$5,000 a
year for it I am pretty excited for the opportunity to play
for a net zero cost. I'm looking forward to seeing what
they come up with.
It's not the concepts, it's the execution and the lack of
information. Some of the rule changes seem almost arbitrary
and poorly thought out.
Maybe it'll work, but I don't see it doing any better than
http://www.kronum.com, which is ridiculously obscure but
still seems to have far, far better funding, execution and
technology (sweet trailers and video recaps of games and
stats on their website) than the AUDL.
This will be fun to watch no matter what happens.
Jordan
Madcow #33, future Columbus Crane?!?!?!?!!?
--
http://kenyonultimate.wordpress.com
Who's bashing it?
point is not to bash any player or team. but just imagine
what revolver players would think watching this league.
Does anybody know anyone who is involved with this venture
so far who has any demonstrable knowledge of the sport?
This would truly be awesome if it took off, and the Ultimate
community should root for something like this to work. But
it would also be nice to see some credibility.
My guess is "joke" as well. The choice of cities, the lack
of information about any players, etc, etc.
http://www.rsdnospam.com/index.php?t=msg&th=2478&prevloaded=1&&start=0
http://www.rsdnospam.com/index.php?t=msg&th=35539&goto=101849&#msg_101849
Something else is every team website looks different, and
with the exception of a couple, they look really bad. Every
NFL team's website looks basically the same. Helps
legitimize it, and there is barely anything that legitimizes
this league, as of right now.
I agree we should be excited for this league, and I am.
Let's just hope it does more good than harm.
I would suggest that they expand their ruleset
significantly. For example, there is no mention of what
defines a foul, positioning before a pull, and it reads like
momentum carrying the disc into the endzone would result in
a score. Also, there is no mention of what happens when
play stops (do player freeze?), how continuation works,
picks seem to be legal (intentional rule change?), or how
the yardage penalties are assessed.
On specific question I see that needs a lot of expansion:
how does the clock work? Is it stopped time (like in
Basketball: clock runs only when disc/ball is in play),
semi-stopped (like in US Football: clock runs during
possession, sometimes between plays, and stops after
scores), or running (like Soccer: runs continuously whether
or not anything is happening on the field or not). What
rules are there to balance against delay-of-game tactics?
Innovation and experimentation such as this are good things
for the sport. Now, if it's all a joke that's fine, but I
don't know why someone would waste that kind of
time/money/effort....
-alan
I'm 50/50 on whether it's a joke.
Earned a degree in accounting... is what he told me in
recent e-mail.
Who knows, maybe he's a numbers, fundraising & marketing
genius.
Peter Mc
MDSC
(MUtants staff advisor since ~ 2003)
This is the kind of poorly thought out thing that generates criticism.
Holding the combine during club nationals? Seriously, who thought that
was a good idea? Don't they want these elite players on the teams?
It's these kinds of details that make this attempt at a joke
a very bad one, or an attempt at a real business a horrible
one.
---The UOA should be officiating this League.
....and training all the officials.
Louisville looks legit, you can become an unpaid intern if
you work long hours and weekends to support the team!
http://www.internships.com/posting/sports-marketing-intern-i8047
Hey Mike, I thought it was mentioned in a previous thread
that you and Josh Moore were getting in touch to discuss the
UOA doing the officiating. What became of that? Is it gonna
happen?
Quote:
> Company: Kentucky Ultimate.com
> Address: 325 E. Main Street, Suite 150
> Location: Louisville, KY
It might be a little awkward working out of a
http://www.theupsstorelocal.com/6123/. Guess they will just
work from home and just attend meetings at the UPS Store.
"Salaries of players/coaches this is negotiable by team,
but many players may play for free given the fact that
playing in organized leagues usually costs THEM money for
participation."
The numbers in the document are fanciful and would, at a
minimum, take hundreds of hours to achieve the sponsorship
he dreams of. If anyone wants me to email them the document
so you can see the bullshit yourself, feel free to email
me.
j mac
I have an older copy of the same proposal, when he was
trying to get teams in the midwest, in towns that had no
sizable Ultimate community to speak of. He speculated that,
in addition to sponsorships and TV revenue, profits could
come from a "conservative" estimate of 2000 paid fans at
each game.
In subsequent email conversations with him, when I kindly
pointed out the lack of rational thinking, he stated that
even 500 fans could generate $25,000 in profit per game.
LMAO!
---obviously....we'd be thrilled beyond belief to help out!
i want to officiate games....
and i know jason and i would train the heck out officials in the areas
where the teams will be located!
How many fans were there for nexgen?
I think they said there were something like 500 for Seattle, paying (I
think) $5 each. Which is $2500.
At Philly I would estimate there were about 300, paying nothing.
For those that have offered positive feedback - we will
consider putting more information up around our rules. Our
rulebook is pretty long and we did not want to overwhelm
somebody new to the sport, but rather, hit the highlights on
the website. We will work to make sure the full rules are
out there for the hardcore players and fans. Additionally,
we are currently working to update and standardize our team
websites, which should look very nice when it is all done.
If anybody is interested in learning about a team's plans
for player compensation, tryouts/training camps, etc. please
feel free to reach out to the respective owner, as these
will vary between teams. Finally, if anybody has any
questions, concerns, comments about the league, I invite you
to e-mail me and discuss any time. I would much rather have
a conversation rather than see wrong assumptions being
posted on a public forum.
Thanks!
j mac
http://www.columbuscranes.com/
1. I wonder what Ultivillage thinks of this.
2. If I was a player in one of the videos (sadly I'm not
good enough), I'd be against someone trying to profit off of
my team's hard work. AUDL is trying to sell a new brand of
ultimate, but they have a team using video of a team
playing USAU rules.
3. I'm all for a professional league, and while I wish these
guys the best, I would rather see the established club teams
be a part of it.
I think people really want to support this idea. Most of us
who have been involved with Ultimate for a long time have
often dreamed of either seeing or playing professional
Ultimate. Most of us clamor for the sport to have legitimate
recognition and growth. I told you the same when we first
spoke and met a couple years back.
Kudos to you for the vision. I'm actually impressed that you
found anyone to buy into your plan at all, so perhaps there
is some hope. But you have yet to provide any credible
information or answers about this, either on this forum or
in personal emails (although it has been some time since our
last conversation).
The Ultimate community is used to being marginalized, being
seen as a joke, or not taken seriously by other sports,
schools, media outlets, businesses, parks departments, talk
shows, and even our own families. What are doing to improve
this? The criticisms in this thread and others are not
unfounded, they are based upon observations of what you've
shown so far.
What are the wrong assumptions? What are we getting wrong?
What are we missing? What can you offer to the Ultimate
community that we have yet to see?
I want this to succeed. I will gladly eat crow if it
happens. Feel free to prove us wrong. Give us some
information. Give us something. But until then, we will
continue to opine about our observations, which are based
upon a working knowledge of the sport.
You have my email. You also have this forum. And your
website. And Facebook. And Twitter. You have lots of
opportunity to spark interest and provide information about
the AUDL and Ultimate in general. Go for it. And good luck.
:: next post ::
"Putting aside for now the fact that the league is destined
for failure..."
Hahahahaha. I loved this exchange. The guy makes an
empassioned plea for everyone to stop bashing his league,
and then the very next post, J-mac just drops the hammer
with "Putting aside for now the fact that the league is
destined for failure." That was awesome.
To me, this seems very similar to Vince McMahon starting the
XFL, which included a number of silly rule changes, and went
up against the much stronger NFL. Right now, there is
already an established body that governs Ultimate in this
country, the USAU, and while we here often spend many hours
discussing how it can be improved, we certainly have backed
this organization. The best teams and best players in the
country (world?) are found here in the USA and they compete
in the USAU Club Championships.
I think what is entirely unclear, and in many ways
offensive, to the Ultimate community is that you have
started up a completely independent venture, which, while
you say is no competition to the USAU (and I agree with
that), is built in competition and ignorance to the
overriding body that governs Ultimate in this country.
What you, Josh, and we the Ultimate community have in
common, is that we would want to see the very best Ultimate,
and therby best Ultimate players, compete in such a league.
Anything less and the credibility of this sport, instead of
being realized and furthered, will only be hurt.
Unfortunately, the majority of the great players are real
people with full-time jobs, who make a lot of sacrifices to
play at the top level. It looks like what you're building
(and I have to assume this because of the lack of
information you've provided) will not allow players to have
normal lives and jobs, but will also not offer any sort of
meaningful compensation. You've also scheduled events for
dates that conflict with event where the best players
participate. This could be avoided if you had actually
decided to consult with the USAU, instead of having us as
one place to publicize. In the end, I fear, your biggest
problem will not be a business model, or rule changes, but
rather that you have no legitimate connection, or attempt to
connect with, the best players and the Ultimate body as a
whole.
Like Baer, I'd be happy to see this succeed and eat crow,
but you just haven't set this up properly.
I could go on.
-School
darkcrusader48 <at> verizon <dot> net
pmor <at> mail <dot> med <dot> upenn <dot> edu
It is possible they don't want current, elite level ultimate players.
Perhaps they're more interested in recruiting elite level athletes,
regardless of athletic background ( although a background in team
sports is probably preferrable), figuring that athletic ability is the
premium requirement and they can worry about teaching the sport later.
I'm not endorsing this, simply raising it as an alternative
possibility.
I will be the first to admit that the owners who are
financially backing the teams don't have the prior expertise
in the sport that those on this board do. However, they
have surrounded themselves with managers, coaches, players,
etc. who are and can provide that aspect of it. There are
some modifications to the rules to accomodate a
spectator-first event, such as the use of officials, timed
game, etc. but other than those changes, it is essentially
the same game. It is still 7 vs. 7 trying to get the disc
down the field to the endzone. Rule variations are a part
of different sports played at different levels. Do we have
the perfect mix? Maybe not, and we will continually
evaluate our set of rules and will modify as needed. It is
a challenge to balance the rules the players want versus
what may make more sense for the spectator. It's a process
that we take seriously and appreciate feedback on the
gameplay.
Just kinda feels that way, doesn't it?
fish
Also, the AUDL logo is pretty cool.
There's definitely a lot of interest in competitive ultimate
during the offseason (at least, for people who aren't too
burnt out from the club season). And out west, the weather
is pretty decent during the winter too.
I know you're being funny, but he really couldn't have
Canadians playing. If they are being paid to play, they
would require a work visa, which is not easy to acquire.
Granted, it would be quite easy to just not admit that you
being paid to play, and treat like your usual foray into the
US for a tournament, but to be on the up and up, the AUDL
would need to secure visas for Canadian players.
Also, as mentioned before, it's unlikely they're being
paid...which really isn't professional ultimate to begin
with.
The rich get richer and the poor get Gnarwhal. Why isn't there an
Iowa team based on amphibious whales?
The Indy AlleyCats FB page indicates some pretty stubborn
insistence on the tryouts being on 10/30, with no mention of
multiple tryout dates:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/River-City-Revolution/251545874876266?ref=pb#!/pages/Indianapolis-AlleyCats/148165401941101
The Buffalo team had tryouts scheduled for October but later
rescheduled for November after realizing that teams would
still be playing in their season.
Seems like mistakes that would be made by organizers who
have no involvement with, knowledge of, or connection to
Ultimate.
He keeps asking for your support, except when it's solid
advice grounded in reality.
what about all the further hurt that the upa/usau has put on the sport
by clinging to archic ideals and madating anti ref policies and
propaganda?
----------------------------------------------
This could be avoided if you had actually
> decided to consult with the USAU,
i dont think nexgen consulted, or even networked, with usau......and
their shit went off pretty damn good. this dosent mean this guys plan
will work if he dosent either.......just dont go touting the people at
usau as "experts" in the field of promoting a sport when the truth is
that they are a bunch of inept fucks themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------
instead of having us as
> one place to publicize. In the end, I fear, your biggest
> problem will not be a business model, or rule changes, but
> rather that you have no legitimate connection, or attempt to
> connect with, the best players and the Ultimate body as a
> whole.
which is exactly why a guy like brody should be ploting such a
venture. not saying he would want to but he'd probably be pretty damn
good at it. and if it was HIS attempt that stuck and was the
foundation for future pro ultimate think of the stake he'd have in
it.
hey josh......as anybody with an ounce of sports knowledge will tell
you, its the statrs that really sell sports. so who are the audl's
stars?