A few random thoughts triggered by recent posts and comments.
BPL Future: We talked to Jon about the future of the BPL, and he was looking forward to the day when players really compete to get onto the six teams. But an alternative to keeps Open Ultimate growing in Brisbane, is, when the number of players are there for around eight teams, it might be time for two divisions, with four squads each with an A and B team. So we'd have a BPLFirsts Division with something like BuggersA, UQ1, DojoA and Rawhide1, and a BPLReserves Division with BuggersB, UQ2, DojoB and Rawhide2. There would be rules to limit but allow for a bit of movement between an A and B team - something like squads would need to nominate a number of players to be their A team at the start of each season (say 15), and they must field most of these for an Division A game (say 11), while only a few (say 3) of them may ever play a Division B game. This allows players to drop down or go up, depending on form, injury, development, etc.
In summary, having two divisions rather than limiting teams would let Open Ultimate keep growing while keeping the standard competitive.
Professional Ultimate: I posted about how if you had the money, you could spend it on enabling 'professional Ultimate', but discussion (as below and elsewhere) often turns to 'where does the money come from?', and people seem to always assume 'sponsorship'. This is crazy, really. For most professional sports, sponsorship is a minor 'top up' in terms of their income sources. I guess its because sponsorship is so tied into profile that we think of it first. But really, (leaving aside income from media sales, which only the top sports generate money from) most sports clubs generate income via general fundraising, memberships and local fees and commercial enterprises (like owning a Leagues Club or leasing your fields).
If you ever wanted to take the first steps towards professional Ultimate in Australia (primarily with the aim of generating a product that can increase the profile of the sport), I reckon your first bet would be to get local associations to put some money into the Clubs. So QUDA buys Firestorm and Sultry its jerseys and provides training fields and maybe one day subsidises airfares each year, and recoups the costs via government grants and increased QUDA fees. And one day QUDA gets some fields and builds a clubhouse and gets a liquor license and we all drink there and money is raised that way. But I suspect Ultimate players like to dream of sponsorship because it means someone else can go and work hard on something, and everyone can reap the benefits.
Edit: New Layout: Well, the addition of comments to the front page seems to have provoked some comment! Jangleicious ... if that's your real name indeed. We'll see how civil you can all be anyways.
Ramble out!
4 comments:
Is it true that it's Pottsy's brother who's currently sitting in the brig of a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctica? Is this some sort of effort by the Buzz Bullets to slow Australia down at WUGC2008? And do you know if Corey Delany is taking up Ultimate any time soon?
Yay - I get to post a comment. Anonymously!
I personally think YUFL is in much greater need of second division than BPL, and I think the fact that YUFL doesn't have two divisions also makes it tough for girls looking for some higher level competition, thus the big uproar about women in BPL.
Anyway, in my honest opinion even if BPL did have 8 teams by the end of the year splitting up into two divisions probably wouldn't be ideal for the development of the Open division considering that many of the second division teams would be full of players that would have less than 12 months experience, and Ultimate isn't one of those sports that flows well when everyone on the field is inexperienced.
The only way I could see it working is if you had a couple of stronger players playing in the second division and/or the second division teams having proper coaches on the sidelines was well as having all the players participating in other leagues or training sessions.
As it stands BPL is carrying a lot of "up and comers" which is really just a nice way of saying "male beginners". Many of them fit, athletic and co-ordinated, but if have a team that can't throw a flick that will hit it's target 90% of the time with a tough mark on then I think the learning experience and development isn't going to be ideal.
I personally think that maybe with 10 teams in the competition you might be able to justify having a top division with 4 teams and a second division with 6 teams. I'd also like to think that at least initially player restrictions should be set such that teams were only allowed 12 or 13 players in the top division. That way you will probably have a lot more intermediate players spread throughout the second division.
That's my opinion.
Now with that rant out of the way - in regards to Ultimate being professional...
I think having all your tournament fees, uniforms, travel, and accommodation expenses paid for would be a MASSIVE step for Ultimate.
I just returned from Beach Worlds in Brazil - a trip that cost in excess of $8,000, not to mention the amount of time, money and energy that went to training for it. It's just too much!
As a result I decided to pull out of selections for Worlds in Vancouver due to expense, time and energy required to train/compete as well knowing that I'd have to give up other opportunities. Whether I would have made it or not is a debate in itself, but I know that there have been other high level players that have pulled out for similar reasons, which is sad for the sport, but unavoidable at the amateur level.
And I think at some point all top level athletes would be asking themselves, does the effort justify the reward? And what are you foregoing to represent your city/state/country?
I honestly think that the level of ultimate would sky rocket if you covered the basic expenses - uniforms, league/tournament fees, training (gym memberships, coaches, physios) plus had a small weekly payments (maybe $50) for outside expenses. The club would also have to make it possible to train 4 - 5 times a week.
As for how much you need to receive to call yourself a professional Ultimate player - I'd be leaning towards $30,000+.
Also you touched on the idea of developing to a point where a "club" has a clubhouse and fields. I definitely think this is the way to go at some point (though I'm not expect QUDA to make a bid for the Annerly facilities anytime soon). Though for pure speculation sake it would be really interesting to know what it would cost to purchase a club like that (assuming it is a private organization).
With that said, there is definitely one thing that has bugged me a little in the few years that I have been playing Ultimate. It seems that so many of the leagues and clubs are currently setup to run at cost rather than run at a profit. Now I know the ultimate community is small and no one wants to be seen as exploiting people but at some point if you want to grow and expand you need the funds to facilitate that - and they have to come from somewhere.
Personally I think BPL should up its prices a little bit - I mean I'm quietly confident that the vast majority of players have been playing for at least 3+ seasons and aren't at risk of leaving for a $10 price rise which would probably equate to a 50% profit increase (rough guess). I'm not suggesting that BPL run at a profit for the sake of it, but rather so that it the ability invest in its own growth and development.
I know I have ranted and raved few times to a select few members of the UQ exec in the past about UQ's great participation but terrible profit situation, and I'm happy to see that the UQ exec have made moves to cut costs and jack up the price of the league - hopefully resulting in an eventual profit, which I'm hoping in turn will allow the league the ability to hire more fields, hire coaches, spend some money on actual marketing and maybe one day subsides players representing the club at Uni Games and Mixed Nationals.
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