Ultimate Frisbee Goes Pro

As daylight escapes Brooklyn’s Prospect Park one mid-September evening, six men, all in their 20s and early 30s, do some stretches, slap a few high-fives and zip around a field throwing Frisbees. One of them lofts a white disc into the sky. It sails some 50 yards, slowly, like a flying saucer, while one of his buddies tries to chase it down. The overthrown Frisbee glides to the ground, beyond his friend’s outstretched arms. “Sorry, dude.”

It’s exactly what you’d expect a Frisbee guy to say, except these Frisbee guys may soon show up on ESPN. On SportsCenter, where they might finally attain status as genuine athletes, not a bunch of toked-up hippies tossing saucers. Want proof? Over the course of an hour workout, dude was uttered just three times. They’re kind of a big deal.

After all, they’re members of Pride of New York, an elite Ultimate Frisbee team shooting to qualify for the national championships, which will be broadcast live on ESPN3, the network’s streaming service, in October. SportsCenter’s Top 10 Plays segment, indeed, has started featuring Ultimate highlights, no doubt to help promote the program.

You may remember Ultimate–a team game that combines elements of soccer and football with a Frisbee–from your college days. Grad students hogging the quad, treating an intramural game like it was the World Cup. Eager-beaver freshmen going out for the club squad, then incessantly talking about it. “Yeah, Ultimate is cultlike,” says Octavia Payne, 24, who works in PR, played at the University of Pennsylvania and now plays for the Washington (D.C.) Scandal, a team shooting to qualify for the women’s championship, also on ESPN3. “In as good a light as you can say cult. “

Ultimate–and it’s officially called Ultimate to avoid any trademark conflicts with Wham-O, maker of the Frisbee-brand disc–is having a moment. In March, USA Ultimate, the sport’s governing body, announced a two-year agreement with ESPN, which aired the college championships on ESPNU in May and the elite U.S. Open tournament on ESPN3 in July and will stream October’s national championships. In May the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gave the sport’s global governing body, the World Flying Disc Federation, “provisional recognition”–IOC-speak for “your zany sport could be in the Games someday.”

Frisbee has even gone pro. Investors have launched two leagues: the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL), which just wrapped up its second season, and Major League Ultimate (MLU), which debuted this year. (MLU said it ran its first year on a budget of about $1.5 million.) Players aren’t giving up their day jobs; many get as little as $25 per game. “Whenever I talk about it, I put ‘pro’ in quotes,” says Jack Marsh, who played for the New York Empire of the AUDL. Still, people are betting that Ultimate can reach a broader audience.

The game is growing. According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, participation in Ultimate is up 27%, to 5.1 million, over the past six years. (More than one-third of Ultimate players are women; some top competitions have mixed teams.) In 2008, 319 high school teams played in tournaments sanctioned by USA Ultimate. Last year 530 teams played–a 66% spike. The demographics are ideal for advertisers. More than half the Ultimate players fall in the key 18-to-34 age category, and 27% of them earn more than $100,000. Which makes sense, since so many players pick up the game at elite universities. “In college, you have time to slack off and work hours and hours and hours to develop these skills,” says Marsh, 29, a Harvard alum.

Ultimate is easy to play–and follow. At the top amateur levels, the field is 110 yd. long, including 20-yd. end zones, and 40 yd. wide. The game is seven vs. seven; you try to advance the Frisbee up the field by throwing it to a teammate. The defense attempts to deflect or intercept it and gain possession. Once you catch the Frisbee, you must stop as quickly as possible, then pivot and make the next pass.

Reach the end zone, you get a point. First to 15 wins. “I just think it’s so similar to other sports–it’s played on a football field–that sports fans can relate,” says Todd Myers, director of programming and acquisitions at ESPN, explaining his attraction to Ultimate. “It’s amazing that these guys and gals can chuck the Frisbee 50 yards down the field, right on the money, and somebody makes a spectacular catch. There’s just a wow factor.” Myers won’t reveal specific usage numbers for ESPN3’s first two Ultimate events, but “we’re happy,” he says. “It’s certainly a passionate fan base.”

Ultimate Challenge

The sport’s future, though promising, is also uncertain, thanks in part to a philosophical divide within Ultimate. At issue: How fiercely should the game be contested? Throughout its 40-plus-year history, Ultimate has eschewed referees, relying instead on a “spirit of the game” mantra by which players make their own calls. “This is what separates Ultimate from other sports,” says USA Ultimate CEO Tom Crawford. If Ultimate has any hope of getting into the Olympics, says Crawford, the sport must stick to its roots. “The whole idea of athletes getting along well and negotiating calls and practicing fair play aligns with the Olympic values,” says Crawford.

To the two new pro leagues, however, such la-di-da thinking is dopey. “The reason Ultimate hasn’t caught on, by and large, is because it has a rules problem,” says Nic Darling, executive vice president for MLU, which has teams in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, Ore. “They haven’t been designed with the fan in mind.” No one wants to watch two players, cordially or otherwise, discussing a call. It slows the game down. This isn’t a peace summit.

For its top events like the U.S. Open and National Championships, USA Ultimate has come up with a compromise. Players still make their own calls. But if they can’t resolve the dispute, third-party observers step in to rule. So far, ESPN doesn’t mind the observers. And the network’s opinion is all that really matters right now. ESPN likes the pace of play. “We’ve only done two events, so I can’t see the future,” says Myers. “But we’ve had no issues whatsoever.”

Ultimate’s bigger challenge is losing the stoner stereotype. “We’re battling against preconceived notions that it’s a hippie pastime,” says Beau Kittredge, 31, a top player for the San Francisco Dogfish of the MLU (day job: children’s-book author). “That you’re supposed to play with your border collie and whatnot.”

The game’s name just feeds this perception. According to journalist Adam Zagoria, who co-wrote a 2005 book on the history of Ultimate, a New Jersey high school student thought the game was the “ultimate in Frisbee sports” and christened it Ultimate Frisbee in 1970. “It sounds like a guy was sitting around smoking weed and goes, ‘Ahhhh, we’re the coolest!'” says Andrew Wilkes, 24, a computer programmer who plays for Pride of New York. “We’re the ultimate! It’s so goofy.”

The Pride guys toss out their favorite alternative: flatball. Kinda fun. But dull somehow too. Which means Ultimate will have to sell itself. “We just need people to give us a chance,” says Wilkes after the team’s evening workout. “It’s just such a great sport … It’s cheap–all you need is a Frisbee and a field. The spirit of the game encourages accountability. It’s great exercise. It just has a little bit of everything.”

On the subway ride home, a few players start talking about all the nice golf courses they’ve played while traveling to tournaments. It’s the kind of conversation you’d expect in an NBA or NFL locker room. Except these were Frisbee-golf courses.