Pun in the title courtesy of Owen "Dad" Shepherd.
In Sydney, the largest Ultimate league is the Northern Suburbs League, with four divisions of roughly ten teams each. It is mixed, as are most leagues in Sydney.
The Dingoes aren't playing League this season because they have a crazy amount of other trainings to do. Thunder and Terra are discouraged from playing 'social league' and it doesn't count as a run as far as our training requirements go.
I often wonder why attempts at opens and womens leagues haven't really taken off. NUFL aside, afdastalking tells me that apart from the Brisbane Women's League and the proposed Premier League in WA, there aren't any Opens/Women's leagues this year, and the Brisbane league only had 20 players, about as much as were playing the pick up in Geelong (I will post about why Geelong excites me later on).
Now, I can understand why a mixed league is so popular during the mixed/uni season, where tournament formats are mixed - the Mundi's have a sort of rep team in division one this season, which makes sense in this, a worlds year - but it seems odd to me that there aren't even any efforts to have an open or women's league operating during Nationals season.
I was trying to think of reasons why this is so: is it just a case of (understandable) administrative fatigue? I remember some folk trying to run a women's league last year sometime (I registered as a beginner as a joke) in Sydney but it didn't take off, due to, I think, lack of players. So I can see why the powers that be would be hesitant to try again. That isn't the only sort of fatigue at play here - teams like Fakulti are training 2-3 times a week during the season, so perhaps asking folk to shell out another weeknight away from HSC/uni work/actual work/relationships with people is a bit much.
Or maybe there are larger forces at work here. Australian ultimate may still be experiencing 'growing pains' at a Worlds level, but when it comes to the schism between Mixed and Open/Womens ultimate... er, there is none? Roughly half the players at Mixed Nats last year were Nationals players, and with the exception of JD I can't think of a single person who prefers to play mixed, and even then I may have just made that up. Why is this relevant to Sydney league?
To use a scientific term, aussie ultimate is too squished. Trying to fit a proper opens season (complete with league) as well as a mixed season for the same group of players in one year is too much. There is not enough time, there are not enough people, and those people don't have enough money to make it work. What we have at the moment is viable - regionals, the odd Share the Love/April Fools tourney that are mostly neglected, followed by mass convergence at Nationals - and will probably be our best option until either people start getting paid to disc, or the numbers reach breaking point.
T.
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8 comments:
The BPL that JdR is always so nicely updating us on(http://brisbaneultimatedisc.blogspot.com/2008/04/bpl-round-10.html) is an Open league and has been successfully running for several years now and pretty much runs all year.
I hope to be able to bring in a split gender league season down in Melbourne one day.
But why aren't there more? I have no idea!
Yep, can't believe you don't follow BPL, have a BPL poster on your wall, and dream of moving to Brisbane so you can play in a full-on Open league every single frickin' week.
Its worth saying that what's now BPL grew slowly, starting off with a single 14 week (?) season of three teams in its first year (yes, every third week was a bye) before growing to four teams, then five and now six.
I guess the issue in Sydney is always fields.
Most people start playing ultimate in mixed and stick with playing mixed because open/women's feels like a huge leap up. Many players aren't comfortable taking that step unless an open/women's player specifically approaches them.
Juniors, however, spend the bulk of their time in their development playing single gender ultimate, so it makes much more sense to them to continue playing single gender.
There you go, problem solved.
No, wait. Problem identified.
This Nationals season was the first time apart from training camps playing Open/Womens for me and my junior friends.
Not exactly sure if this is across the board the trend for juniors, most of Thunder either got into it through league (mixed) or uni (mixed).
T.
The women's league last year didn't run because it rained (and thus the fields were closed) 5 of the 6 weeks. The first (and only night) was a great success! I have had plenty of people ask for another league which I plan on running when I'm done with Wildcard admin, UFNSW accounts, finalising the Nationals accounts, doing the women's team website....
Fantastic Rach! Can I play on your team?
In response to your squishy comment. From a non worlds player perspective Australian ultimate is not at all "squished". Nationals season is a lot less tournament intensive these days than it was a few years ago. In 2003 there five club tournaments in NSW in the lead-up to Nats. Same in 2004. In 2008 there were two including Regionals, and neither of those were interstate.
When it comes to leagues however, it might be a little squished. NSL is only so big because a lot of players play multiple divisions. The interest for an open league would probably come from the higher level players, and there just aren't enough around to sustain more leagues without some people putting in a lot of playing hours.
Wally's worth listening too.
As I've said elsewhere, the growth of clubs and of coaching has shrunk the tournament season.
People used to go to tournaments (and host) to build up to Nationals. Now they train.
This is all cool and a natural step.
Of course, the next step will come when Clubs decide they want to become financial entities - ie look to spend money on stuff. Then they'll want to fundraise. And a great way to do this is by hosting tournaments and leagues.
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