We All Should Watch the UFA Championship Together This Weekend

Free ultimate! Free for everyone!

This weekend, we have a wonderful opportunity. In Salt Lake City, the final four remaining UFA teams will compete at Championship Weekend 2024, officially capping off this summer’s pro ultimate season. And the best news: Saturday’s championship game will be free to watch on the UFA’s YouTube channel!

Now, I am not shy in my critiques and opinions of the league. I still think the field is too big. It's way too big. However, it is far more important to recognize when good administrative and marketing decisions are being made in this sport and highlight and promote them since these kinds of wins feel few and far between.

Last year’s championship game has (as of August 2024) over 260,000 views on YouTube. The video was only uploaded ten months ago, but (and though I haven’t been able to confirm this) it appears to be the most-watched ultimate game on the internet. A free broadcast of this year’s championship game promises to have a nice leg up on last year’s game in terms of generating views, and if it’s a close game, it could be a wonderful showcase to have live and free. Not to mention that championship weekend features four storied ultimate markets with passionate fanbases behind each team and three of the four teams in Salt Lake City vying for their first title this weekend. This game will have stakes and drama and will be accessible to all. We should all watch it.

Why should we watch it? Even if you’re like me and not the biggest fan of this brand of ultimate, it is essential to give credit where and when credit is due. An immense frustration of mine that predates The Breakside but has certainly appeared here enough is the increasing inaccessibility of the sport. We have more streamed and filmed games at tournaments than ever, but the cost of watching has never been higher. Between the ESPN+ games, event packs, the UFA’s proprietary streaming service, and more, ultimate has undeniably gone the way of mainstream sports in terms of the various services you need to buy to access all the games.

I will not begrudge organizations for using film and streams to generate revenue. I hope to make some money off my ultimate content one day, too. My concern is that we are losing sight of how much we still need to market to new players and new fans of the game and that if we continue down the path we are on, there will be extremely limited options for people to stumble into ultimate as a fan.

The existing path for getting into ultimate is typically finding it in school via your friends somehow, your child telling you that they play a new sport, or finding it in adulthood, likely through a happy accident or also through friends. The sport is obviously not flush with cash, but it has been my belief for some time there need to be more opportunities like this to promote and market high-stakes, free ultimate for people to share with their friends and family and draw more eyes to the sport.

It’s exciting that for the biggest game in their season, the UFA is removing any financial barriers to access for people to watch the game. In my opinion, those moments that make sports go viral and draw in new interest happen when it is accessible. They happen when people have the space and access to invest in something they didn’t know about beforehand. It’s the reason the Olympics are so special: because the stakes are so high, and so many eyes are on them. (I will admit that nationalism plays a factor, too). The UFA isn’t the Olympics, but share this game with some friends who like sports! Let’s watch this game Saturday night and prove that lowering barriers to access can help generate positive attention for this sport!

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About The Breakside

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This newsletter aims to tackle the gap in present coverage of ultimate as a sport. Commentary, analysis, and community are some of the guiding ideals behind the Breakside.

About the Author

My name is Noam Gumerman (he/him). I am from Chapel Hill, NC, and studied Journalism and American Studies at Brandeis University. I am a journalist by trade and have been playing ultimate for over half my life. I love nothing more than combining those two interests. Contact me for discussions, feedback, story suggestions, and more on Twitter (@noamgum) or email (noamgumerman@gmail.com).

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