The Breakside 5/1
I'm a hater and hot take merchant
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Like any good unemployed journalist, I have a Substack. And like any good unemployed journalist on Substack, I have been ATTACKED by big media seeking to hold me down and keep me here. No, I’m not talking about the public radio station from my childhood ghosting my job application. Instead, a couple of nights ago, I observed that I’m not a fan of the Ultimate being played in clips posted to Twitter. I was purposely a little vague, but I was still pretty clearly referencing the Ultimate being played in the AUDL.
Then, the fake news media attempted to ASSASINATE my character using this slightly confusing metaphor without linking to my original tweet.
Now the person who responded to me is deeply involved in the content creation and curation of the AUDL’s social feeds, so I can see how my tweet might have hit a little close to home. However, I am nothing if not principled, and as an unemployed journalist on Substack, that means it's time to respond in a way that makes you’re readers question if you’ve gone too far.
The AUDL: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Many of you may have gotten this email and thought, “Wow, I’m still subscribed? I thought this died off.” And I would reply, “Well, you have a point.”
In all seriousness, I’ve thought about the AUDL a lot, and I want to expand some thoughts on its role in the Ultimate Community as a whole. To do that, here’s a three-part list covering some broader aspects and contributions of the AUDL to Ultimate. These are my opinions, but I will provide some data-driven analysis (I calculated the area of a rectangle) to back it up.
The Good:
Engages the community
Provides some mainstream exposure for players and the game
Provides a more affordable path to play the sport for some
The Bad:
The defense being played in games
Gimmick-heavy rule set
Dubious support of pro leagues not aimed at Men and Open Div players
Questionable harmony with local disc orgs
The Ugly:
History of rostering bigots over the concerns teammates
Whatever the hell is happening with the video game
That nice platform built for certain players has been used for evil
For the good, anecdotally, I have heard great things about the AUDL. It has international connections and recognition to fans not present elsewhere in the sport. It’s the most cohesive Frisbee competition out there, and the league has mastered the aesthetic of the modern sports league. Additionally, the fact that teams can eliminate out-of-pocket costs for their players would be a huge step towards a more inclusive sports infrastructure if exported out of the AUDL and other professional leagues and into youth and college divisions.
With that said, I obviously have some bones to pick. First, the bad: I don’t like the AUDL field size. In fact, I hate it. It’s ten yards longer and 13.5 wider than a standard USAU field. That may not sound like a lot, but an AUDL field is almost 50% larger than a USAU field (6420 yds² vs 4400 yds²). The much larger field makes playing defense with the same seven players per team much harder. To counter the bigger field, the AUDL uses a seven-second stall count instead of ten seconds, and double-teaming on the mark is allowed. I don’t think that does nearly enough to offset the impact of a massive field. In my opinion, the product of the AUDL is worse than what it could and should be. I don’t think it’s the players’ fault, but the rules incentivize some lame Ultimate. Of course, this is subjective, but I don’t want the biggest mainstream export of Ultimate to be a game where defense is essentially impossible.
For example, this is one of the first plays of last year’s AUDL Championship game.
This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen on an Ultimate field. And it was probably the right throw for that situation. This was a 40-yard backward hammer off the sideline double-team to someone uncovered. I hate it. I’m sorry, but I do. If I wanted to see this throw, I’d toss with someone’s dad in a park and throw thumbers for an hour. Chicago (white) is incentivized to play this defense, though, because the field is so fucking big. On a USAU field, you’d never do this because the defense doesn’t have to give up free backward throws to cover the upfield spaces, and you can play reasonably effective person defense across the entire field. Everything about this play drives me nuts. That play is a bit of an outlier, though, but the way the double-teaming and general defensive strategy exists within the confines of this offense-friendly environment is depressing. Here’s another example.
This clip is approaching do-or-die time for Chicago. They need a stop. So what do we get? A zone look to force New York (black) into a lot of throws? A poachy defense that will force their throwers out of rhythm? Baiting a deep look to try and cause a turn? All of this could have raised the tension and slowly (or quickly) asked questions of the opposing offense that are more meaningful than “Can you step through a mark while being fouled?” But no, Chicago sends the pull short and rolled out of bounds guaranteeing the sideline double-team mark. However, as soon as the disc leaves the space of the two marks, it is never within reach of a defender and ends up being a two-throw hold without a meaningful defensive presence on any throw. This point was as close as Chicago would come to tying the game in the fourth quarter.
Maybe I should be mad at Chicago for being bad at defense and offense this game and not making a more compelling case for the league. But on a USAU field, if you’re down three approaching the end of the game, you’re not incentivized to do this double-team BS because the field is too big to cover normally. You’re incentivized to play a different defense than what you’ve been doing because there is more than one way to be successful (also, I know double-teams aren’t allowed in USAU). Anyways. I don’t like the Ultimate played in the AUDL. I don’t know if that was clear.
But among the rest of the complaints I have in my bad and ugly sections of this list sit many of the themes and ideas discussed in previous editions of The Breakside. They all come back to community building. Each team in the AUDL has its own place in the local disc ecosystems. Given the decentralized nature of the team ownership freeing the AUDL from financial responsibility, there is also some freedom from oversight. For example, Austin recently had an issue involving its local disc org, the community, and the AUDL. And certain teams have been more supportive than others have when it comes to supporting teams in leagues centered on Women and Non-binary players.
I’ll give the benefit of the doubt for these things thought, and we can chalk these up to miscommunication in a challenging environment to get everyone involved with Ultimate in an area on the same page.
However, some things are going on that I’d argue are insidious. First, without going into too much more detail, Shredfest. Two well-known players who certainly had their audience increase through their association with the AUDL were involved in promoting it. The league and its teams need to take some semblance of responsibility for the people representing them.
Secondly, the AUDL does not have a good track record protecting non-white players. I’ve had ex-players recount a story where one team made the decision to keep someone rostered who was explicitly saying and doing things that were racist and uncomfortable over the objections of teammates.
And finally, there is the video game. I do want to make one thing clear. I love video games—a lot. So a fully functional Ultimate video game would be a dream come true. However, it is a massive waste of resources to dedicate thousands of dollars to making one when the sport itself is so cash poor. Especially when considering the enormous undertaking creating even a semi-realistic sports game would be under the current game design climate. And even more, especially when you’re clearly not dedicating enough resources to make the product you said you would make.
As far as I can tell there have five months of silence on this project. I don’t want to be cynical for the sake of sparking outrage but this feels so unnecessary when investing in youth ultimate with even half of the resources going into this game would do a lot of good.
About The Breakside
The goal of this newsletter is to tackle what I see as a gap in the present coverage of Ultimate as a sport. I hope that this newsletter will provide an outlet for important, yet overlooked people and stories to receive the coverage and perspectives they deserve.
About the Author
My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him), and I am a senior at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and am currently studying Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University. I am one of the current captains of Brandeis TRON, our open division team. My claim to fame within the Ultimate community is running the @being_ulti account during the week of the 2022 WUCC tournament. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions and more on Twitter at @noamgum, or via email at ngumerman@brandeis.edu.
I definitely agree that the AUDL is really not the best product ultimate can put together. I think most of us agree the best highlights are big layouts and skys and the like, especially when those are blocks. All of that is a product of close, tight, hard defense which the AUDL just does not have. Also that Empire 40 yd backward hammer is really not that even much of a nitpick that’s like their go to throw when they get double teamed which is like fun to watch the first couple times because of how bizarre it looks and then you realize that that’s the safest, best play and it just sours the AUDL some more.