#2 - Why Do We Play Ultimate?

Why do we play ultimate?

The mystical properties of that flying piece of plastic is undeniably a part of the appeal. WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch recently mused about the “joy of flight” on a recent episode of the podcast Pod Practice: “it doesn’t matter how many throws you’ve had, how many throws you’ve seen, it’s still so cool to see the disc and the wind and how they interact.”* I personally love playing (and reffing) basketball and thus maintain an utmost respect for the sphere, but if forced to choose one, I would submit to the magic of the 175 gram disc. But that narrow preference for frisbee over ball does not nearly explain my appreciation for ultimate.

Growing up as a nerdy band geek in West Virginia, with little varsity sport experience**, much of my athletic validation came from bombing flick hucks and skying people playing ultimate at summer camps. By the time I finished grad school playing two years with the JMU Hellfish, ultimate was foundational to my entire identity. Well before ultimate became my day-to-day job, my sense of belonging in the sport exceeded any competitive impulses I had as a player.

From my 20 year career of organizing different sports, I appreciate how ultimate is different. To be clear, ultimate is not better than other sports. There is nothing morally superior about our sport - it faces all the same issues and challenges of mainstream sports, and our niche status creates hurdles that other sports aren’t forced to jump. But features*** like Spirit of the Game, self-officiation, the Integrity Rule, “sending it back,” can be attractive to players who value them as differences from less pleasant sport experiences. 

Yet as more players (and at younger ages) dedicate themselves to competitive ultimate, the sport faces a growing desperation to copy all the trappings of traditional sports - the sponsorship money, the media coverage, the public recognition and external validation to justify the serious commitment that players, parents, coaches, and volunteers are pouring into the sport.

For better or worse, this niche-versus-mainstream dynamic will decide the future trajectory of ultimate. Some might think we can have it all – we can celebrate and insulate our niche community while promoting a competitive “product”**** to scrounge some miniscule fraction of market share from mainstream sports. But as a small member-funded community with limited resources, our strategic decisions boil quickly down to binary options, and any investments made at the highest level impact sport development at the grassroots level. 

We face the classic chicken-egg scenario – we need money and resources to achieve all our would-be goals, but to GET that money and resources, we risk sacrificing an identity (or parts of it) that attracted folks to this sport and this community in the first place. Copy-pasting the look and feel of mainstream sports risks undercutting the features that we can use to market and differentiate ourselves for future generations of players. And I’m not convinced the allure of a plastic disc is enough by itself to sustain the long-term development of the sport.

As things stand - depending on where you look - participation in the U.S. is shrinking*****, or at least there’s no evidence of recent growth******. Olympics inclusion is out of reach until at least 2032, and likely only through an alternative non-7-on-7 format. The financial sustainability of the semi-pro leagues is uncertain. Our upwind attempts to hurl ultimate into the mainstream have yet to break through. So where do we go from here? 

For me, the answer begins with a question - Why Do We Play Ultimate? The incentives we know from traditional sports don’t apply - virtually no one is gaining transformative wealth or widespread prestige from this sport. This suggests that folks who identify as “ultimate players” play the sport for benefits beyond any pure transactional gain. And inevitably the value that each individual derives from the sport is deeply personal. 

My interest started with athletic validation and evolved into a sense of belonging with this community. For others the value may come from competing at the highest possible level, in playing to support health and wellness, or simply in participating as one’s true self. Whatever each individual formula may be, we value ultimate because it brings us joy.

How and why future players find joy in ultimate will be determined by decisions and priorities we set forth now. This forces us to be honest about issues and challenges facing the sport, while also reckoning with the risks of abandoning our niche. I hope this project can contribute to that dialogue and serve as a reminder that, amidst all the complex issues and nuanced decisions, the fundamental reason we play ultimate is to have fun!…with an awesome plastic disc. 

Footnotes & References:

*Comments at 1:02:25. And Nob was referencing disc golf with this quote but I found it more compelling than his description of the floating disc in ultimate.

**Not counting a single season of varsity swim team where I was shoehorned into the long distance freestyle events because I sucked and still to this day don't know how to kick-turn.

***Flaws maybe, to some?

****Using quotes here because the concept of ultimate as a "product" needs its own separate treatment.

*****According to the 2025 SFIA Topline Participation Report, U.S. participation in ultimate has decreased from 2.4 million players in 2019 to 2.0 million players in 2024.

******The most recently available USA Ultimate Annual Report in 2021 reports national membership totals well below pre-COVID benchmarks.

(Original date of publish = April 24, 2025)