Why are PUL and WUL games so different?

Also: what would it take to organize a WUL-PUL Championship exhibition or All-Star Game?

PUL vs. WUL Scoring Trends

Behold: every game’s margin of victory and every team’s point differential (absolute value of their point differential, if we’re being accurate and precise) for the 2024 pro ultimate season.

Notice anything? Well, if you noticed that it seems like the games in the WUL are closer than the games in the PUL, then you’re right! The math backs you up, too. Here are some of the basic numbers on each of these groups of data:

This pretty clearly indicates that WUL games are measurably closer than PUL games. In fact, the WUL has only had four games this season (out of 13 played) that finished with a team winning by more than three points. Meanwhile, the PUL has only had five games (out of 16 played) that finished as a three-point game or closer.

Further looking at the point differentials between each team makes it clearer that the talent gap between the top and bottom in the PUL seems much wider than in the WUL. The good teams in the PUL are a lot better than the bad teams, while the good teams in the WUL do not outclass the worse teams as clearly. Why is that?

Honestly, I have no idea. I thought this was an interesting observation about the product of each of the leagues, but I have a couple of hypotheses about what drives that difference.

First, the WUL's fewer teams does mean that talent is more concentrated on each team. And since the WUL has about half as many teams as the PUL does, I imagine that if you took the top half of every roster in the PUL and combined them into six teams, they’d play each other closer than they do now.

Second, the PUL, unlike the WUL (and UFA, too, I guess), has a full ten-second stall count compared with the seven-second stall other pro leagues use. It’s possible that this longer stall count favors better teams. My theory is that better teams can take advantage of having more time to get open and move through progressions on offense, and maybe they’d have to throw more 50-50 balls up on a shorter stall count.

Third, honestly, I don’t know. Weather? Wind? I am actually so confused by this trend, and I don’t know what is behind it. We’re all playing ultimate. I have no idea why the average margin of victory in the PUL is five more than the WUL and the median margin is plus six. And, looking at the standard deviation and the first and third quartiles, it’s clear how much more spread out the PUL data is than the WUL data. Perhaps once the PUL publishes stats officially, we’ll see something interesting in a league-wide trend, but for now, who knows? I’ve got nothing.

What is perhaps most interesting about this entire experiment is that, in large part, despite the games finishing further apart, team scoring per game in each league is still remarkably similar. This chart is the result of sticking every single team score from the last two years into a spreadsheet and using it to see what the average team scores (win or loss) in a PUL or WUL game:

And despite the difference in how close each game is, the average, median, and first and third-quartile teams still resemble each other quite a bit. Yes, the PUL data is a little more spread out than the WUL, but they do not appear that different, even when plotted visually.¹

PUL vs. WUL Super Bowl/All-Star Game

About a week ago, I was bored and thinking about how much fun a real PUL vs. WUL championship game would be. Then I remembered anyone can do anything in this community, there are no rules, and that I actually do have some experience in event organizing. So, I sent out this poll out of curiosity to see how much time and energy people had to make this happen.

And behold! Almost thirty people said they’d donate time and/or money, yet only one person DM’ed me, saying they’d be interested in helping after I asked for people to reach out. Curious. So, I figured I’d make my pitch to y’all directly instead.

First, why should this happen? Well, it would be fun. Do we need any other reason? Showcase events in the sport are so much fun and are a proven model for generating hype and support locally and nationwide in our community. And people seemingly want to make this event happen!

Here’s my conservative estimate for what it’d take to put on this event. I based my estimates on this Austin Torch tweet and a conversation with someone from Ultiworld about how much it costs to have them produce a game.

In my ideal world, every single thing on this list would be at any version of this event that takes place. But for the sake of planning for unexpected things to happen, I’ve separated them into things that need to be there and things that would be nice to have as well.

Event needs

• Venue - $1,200

• High quality stream - $1,400

• Travel expenses for all team-affiliated people - $10,000

• Observers

• Intense marketing campaign

Event nice to haves

• Concessions service

• PA announcer

• Stream announcers

• Fan Zone area

• Photographer(s)

• Travel subsidies for fans of the teams (Super Bowl Model)

Ways to reduce cost

• Sponsors

• Fundraising

• Merch

• Ticket sales

• Virtual tickets/donations on the live stream

I only provided cost estimates for what I think are the most important/biggest things. If we are being conservative for everything else, too, I'd budget an extra $5,000 in expenses, so for argument’s sake, let’s say that with no fundraising or sponsors, this event would be about $17,600. This is using an admittedly expensive quote from Ultiworld and a $200 per person 50-person travel budget, which I think could be improved as well.

Now, while this seems like a lot, I think it’s well within reason to think that this is an attainable fundraising goal, even at the high-end estimate of $17,600. Finding three to four sponsors willing to contribute a couple thousand dollars would be challenging but very doable. My strategy to do this would be to rely on the existing sponsors of the teams closest to the ultimate location where the event is held. Additionally, I’d work with existing companies in the community that sponsor these types of events (thinking of many of our fave ultimate merch brands here) and finally hunt for one or two more sponsors who are typically active in non-male sports spaces, too.

Given that there is a lot of excitement (in theory at least) to help make this happen, I think that a community fundraising effort, player sponsorship program (all-star game model especially), and community commitments to volunteer and put time and energy into making this happen could drastically reduce the cost as well. And none of this is taking into account what ticket, merch, and concession sales could do for this event as well.

This feels very daunting and, at the same time, very doable. I’ve planned events with similar budgets before and worked on fundraising before, so how hard could putting it all together be? In all seriousness, I think this could be a really special event to put together. Tagging it along to an existing big ultimate event could further reduce costs, potentially at the expense of convenience for the players involved. And, of course, getting both leagues to endorse this event, at the very least, would also go a long way toward drumming up excitement and marketing it.

I know this is possible, and I know a lot of people want to see it happen. So again, if you are interested in helping make this happen, please let me know. If the drive and motivation are there from people who are not just me, I’d love to see how far we can take this idea.

---

About The Breakside

If you enjoyed my writing, please consider leaving a like or comment, subscribing, or sharing it with a friend.

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).

---

1. P.S. if any of you are good at data visualization, I’d love to learn how to present some charts in a way that goes beyond screenshotting them from desmos. So if you have any of those skills and resources please reach out, I’d appreciate it.