So for a few years there, Australia had a thing called 'NUFL', the National Ultimate Frisbee League, which was in some ways a success and some ways less so.
NUFL was a success in helping solidify some key Clubs around Australia, and in providing high level Ultimate between Nationals and international competition. The challenges that NUFL seemed to face related to timetabling and costs - elite players often faced conflicting and overwhelming demands for their money and time (both in terms of their weekly Ultimate game and training and the various teams and tournaments they may be involved in), and NUFL as a series of events was conceived as involving Clubs training hard.
A big goal that arguably was never really pursued, was to make NUFL a high profile spectator event, both within the Ultimate community and as something that could be promoted to the wider community.
With all this in mind, here's a set of connected points on how I would redo NUFL for 2011 onwards:
- AFDA commit to three years and then review (so 2011-2013) to give clear direction.
- One two day weekend tournament (although a Friday night opening game may be considered, featuring at least one local team, as would a Saturday night feature game - one night game would be Open, the other Women). AFDA and our community is better able to give one event its support, both in terms of administration and promotional support for a single event.
- Open and Women's divisions.
- Rename it to reflect this (its not a League any more). Maybe 'AFDA Presidents Cup' or 'National Ultimate Frisbee Cup'.
- Have it around four to six weeks after Nationals (but commit to a number). Putting it in May/June makes it a good continuation for elite players between the Australian National season (Jan-April) and the international season (July-August). Put the dates for all three years down as early as possible (just as Nationals each year is locked in well ahead).
- The top four (or five) teams from Nationals qualify and are invited to compete. Basically, if your Club does well at Nationals, then you keep training after that (and several top Clubs will plan for that option). Clubs will be strongly motivated to back up or improve on their performance at Nationals.
- That said, there's a maximum two Clubs per division from a single State, so as to maximise promotion ability as a 'national' event.
- Keep the number of teams low, so that only a few fields are needed, to enable access to higher profile venues and maximise the spectator experience (everyone is kept together rather than spread out over a larger venue as at Nats). Indeed, if the draw can be done such that there's only one-two-three games on at a time, all the better.
- We want to support Clubs being autonomous, but also our elite players who may not be members of the very best Clubs for various good reasons. So, either: current members of the Australian National Open and Women's teams who are not members of Clubs that qualify via Nationals are able to drafted via some mechanism onto those Clubs (I haven't done the modelling here - if the model suggests there are a LOT of these people, then consider instead entering them as an 'Aussie All-Stars' Club/team.
- If Youth Nationals is anywhere around this period, then prevent under 18 players from playing, unless they are members of the Australian Open and Women's teams (this model is all about reducing event-conflict so we need to give a clear direction to such players. We presently need our strong young players to lead other youth, and young players have years to get their chance at this event).
- AFDA invests and pays for the tournament. In making it a showcase, AFDA provides the fields, gear, amenities and meals. This motivates AFDA to ensure the event is a showcase with quality, accessible fields, and invest time, effort and money in promotion. It also motivates AFDA to ensure the wider membership is engaged with the event. AFDA may generate income via spectator drinks and food sales, as well as asking the local State association to contribute (its local Ultimate players who get the free show, although interstate spectators are also strongly encouraged).
- Clubs and players pay for their own travel and use their Nationals uniforms.
- Clubs and players commit to any marketing activities AFDA comes up with to promote the event (eg the Friday night game, wearing their uniform on the plane, signing discs for raffle, anything reasonable really). This may include AFDA providing promo packs to players (a shirt, flyers etc) and Clubs (press releases, posters) - these could even be presented back when the team accepts qualification at Nationals.
- The event is held in the same city all three years, so as to gain benefit from continuity of both administration and promotion. AFDA would make this decision based on the availability of a venue that offers the best possible *national* exposure for the sport (I'd prefer Sydney as our largest city, but if a good venue can't be found, then consider Melbourne (second largest city) or Brisbane (third largest and better weather at that time of year, although sadly less likely to have a team qualify, so maybe not)).
If its not obvious, consider this similar to the World Games model. It might also be worth considering the above as a Mixed event, slotted into November, six weeks after Mixed Nationals (mixed Ultimate is more interesting to the media, and November has less football on, although we don't get the 'international preparation' element).
