Future AUDL expansion

[Tygers09]

The AUDL (American Ultimate Disc League) is expanding in 2014 with 5 teams in the west, those teams are the San Jose Spiders, San Francisco Flamethrowers, Seattle Raptors, Vancouver Riptide anfd Montreal Royal in the east.

Ultiworld.com is also mentioned in their article, that there are already plans in place for teams in Charlotte, Jacksonville, Boston, and Austin, later on, as well. Also in the article it said that the league commissioner would like to have 34 to 37 teams by 2017, which I find somewhat ridiculous, trying too expand the league so big in such a short time.

But my question is, where are the hotbed areas for Ultimate? I know that southern California, Northwest, and in the east (Middle Altantic) are prime areas. Does anyone else have suggestions?

My suggestions are:

Omaha

Wichita

Norlfolk

Orlando

Memphis

Reno

So Cal (Anaheim, Pasadena, San Diego,etc)

Raleigh/Durham

In Canada:

Halifax

Quebec

Edmonton

Calgary

Winnipeg

Moncton

Kamloops/Kelowna

[Beluga4]

What about Portland, OR

[Brass]

Absolutely no to any expansion for the AUDL. If you're running a league and your biggest source of revenue is expansion fees, you're not doing a good job.

[Tygers09]

Absolutely no to any expansion for the AUDL. If you're running a league and your biggest source of revenue is expansion fees, you're not doing a good job.

BZZZ...off topic, finanical/legality boards down the hall!!

[Brass]

Absolutely no to any expansion for the AUDL. If you're running a league and your biggest source of revenue is expansion fees, you're not doing a good job.

BZZZ...off topic, finanical/legality boards down the hall!!

It still is relevant to your proposal; expansion is a stupid idea.

However, if that's not good enough for you, why put teams in Omaha, Wichita, Norfolk, Orlando, Memphis or Reno? There is essentially no market for ultimate if any of those places right now and the talent level would be extremely thin. Not only are there no top-tier college teams to feed those programs, but their club teams aren't competitive, either. Bonehorn out of Omaha went 0-4 at Regionals after barely even qualifying for it. Omen, based in Orlando is good, but not at the level of teams within their region like Chain Lightning or Ring of Fire.

You're putting teams in places that have no scene for ultimate right now. It's like putting an NHL team in Mexico City.

[Tygers09]

Ok so I did some surfing and found out that yes I did suggest some cities that had no college level experience..like Omaha and Wichita. But Memphis, Virgiina Beach (not Norfolk), Orlando and Memphis do have ultimate programs in their cities. I also noticed Austin has teams in the USA Ultimate, so would Austin be a good fit? Atlanta has a bunch of colleges and universities that play Ultimate....

[wonderbread]

This is a stupid idea, who watches ultimate frisbee.

[Brass]

Ok so I did some surfing and found out that yes I did suggest some cities that had no college level experience..like Omaha and Wichita. But Memphis, Virgiina Beach (not Norfolk), Orlando and Memphis do have ultimate programs in their cities. I also noticed Austin has teams in the USA Ultimate, so would Austin be a good fit? Atlanta has a bunch of colleges and universities that play Ultimate....

Ultimate programs =/= strong ultimate presence. Also, most colleges and universities have an ultimate team these days, again though, it doesn't mean that city is fit to host a pro ultimate team. Austin could work and both the MLU and AUDL plan to expand into Texas, mainly because of the success of teams like Doublewide.

This is a stupid idea, who watches ultimate frisbee.

I do and I'm sure others would too if they understood it a bit better. It's an exciting sport to watch. Here's just one highlight from the AUDL's inaugural season

[Virtual Appliance]

Travel method is important to know.

If you have a team in Vancouver, and are deciding between expansion in Kamloops or Spokane, you should choose Spokane if clubs have to travel by bus.

With more and more opportunities in online media and live fan interaction, why is having such a geographically-diverse league so important? I'd imagine it costs less to have a "league tour" (think HSBC Sevens World Series rugby, NASCAR Sprint Cup, and auto racing league formats) than it would to force the Spokane team to drive to suburban Omaha.

Just have the teams represent different areas or whatever (companies, colleges, countries, etc...) and have them tour around the world with some purpose...you could tour with NASCAR, Rugby Sevens World Series, or Bruce Springsteen if you wanted!

didn't frisbee start on the Grateful Dead Tour?

[Soarindude]

Actually, Ultimate Frisbee is a great sport. I'd love to see it take-off down here. My dad played college ultimate frisbee at Ohio University way back in the 70's. The sport has grown so much since then. When I told him that there was a professional league, he was shocked. He never thought Ultimate evolved past the "somewhat hip thing to do in college when you can't play any other real college sport so you play that and get drunk afterwards" kinda game.

Expanding so rapidly would be the down-fall to the league. What a bizarre goal. I don't think any of the big 4 leagues have any desire to expand to that many teams, it's just not realistic.

The league needs to be exposed at the youth and college level before it can take off professionally. This league needs to begin promoting the hell out of this sport to those two target audiences before they even think about expanding.

I couldn't tell you how good of a job they have done at doing this, but I can tell you that interest with this sport is actually quite high amongst teens. Unfortunately, the sport isn't being taught or exposed to them on a wide enough level, to where messing around with the disk on the beach is how far they actually expose themselves to the sport.

[Jer15]

I have to say, I went to check out the Toronto Rush last year just to see what the league was all about.
This team almost sold out Varsity stadium (seats about 5,000) and they had a great atmosphere. I really enjoyed it.

I think anyone that give ultimate a chance will find it's a fun sport to watch (and play...I've since joined a local rec league) and although people may be writing it off as a joke from too much expansion I think that it might have some success if they just do a slow build.