Running tournaments for profit

Unfortunately there's not a lot of money to be made in ultimate, otherwise I'd have quit my cushy IT gig ages ago. But things are changing - AFDA employ people, and QUDA are going to as well. League directors, coordinators, and coaches are getting paid for their services, so there's some opportunity to get some coin. The boys at Cultimate in the States seem to be getting by on running tournaments for profit.

So I've thought why not try it here?

This weekend I'm running the Golden City Classic up here in B-Town. In the past when I've run tournaments, I've always broken even, but the tournament is a very basic setup (there's the fields, you'll get lunch at 12-ish, have fun). This time we're making a profit. Not heaps, but enough to justify the effort. But with that statement being made, players are going to expect a better service. And I'm going to. There'll be shade, spring water at each field, catered lunch, lined fields and other little perks.

The biggest thing at the forefront of my mind is that I'm more likely to get negative feedback than positive. It will take just one thing to fuck up for people to have a negative experience. Management at Disneyland tell their staff about the "1 In 74 Rule", which says that the average Disneyland patron has 74 interactions with staff in a day out, and it would only take one bad experience to ruin their day. But sometimes things aren't always in their control.

Look at Mixed Nats 2006 - the weather was shit and that's all I heard about. Nothing about the fields, the food, the party, the merchandise...just the weather. Now to one degree, if that's the only thing they complained about then everything else must have been alright. But people are far quicker to highlight the bad parts than highlight the good parts.

On RSD this week, Cultimate have been savaged for some bad parts of the Trouble In Vegas tournament. It may only be a couple of people complaining, and the rest had fun, but the ones complaining are the ones speaking out, and those who weren't there are hearing only the negative.

Now this weekend I'm confident I have all bases covered. If I hear positive feedback, then fantastic! If I hear no feedback, then that's also good, because it means that everything was satisfactory.

Wait, where was I going with this?

Ah yes, making a profit. I'm sure that folk out there don't mind we're making a profit, as long as an excellent service is provided. If it's not, then it appears that we've made a grab for cash at the expense of players, and people won't come back next year. If we do a good job, then people will come back. And the positive word of mouth they spread will ensure more teams will come. And when we run other tournaments, teams will be willing to come.

Dammit, now I'm all nervous about Saturday.

Myers-Briggs personality type of ultimate bloggers

Found this on RSD.

Apparently this thing can calculate what Myers-Briggs personality type a writer is by analysing their blog. So I ran a some of my colleagues' work through it...

Ballarat Ultimate (me), SIF (Tiger & Semfel), Canberra Ultimate Blog (Bags & Twat), This Things I Believe (Rueben), Brisbane Ultimate Blog (JdR & Wetnose) - ESTP (The Doers)
"The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time."

Thinkulti (O-Shep) - ISTP (The Mechanics)
"The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters."


First off...I ran all of them through three times to make sure it wasn't some randomiser. I've done the test a few times for different things and I've often come up as ESTP but sometimes ENTJ, ENTP or ESTJ depending on the test (I seem to be very borderline S/N and P/J, but strongly oriented towards E and T). Try it for yourself here. I reckon this says something about the personality types of our bloggers being quite similar.

But I've often had a few thoughts about how it takes a certain personality type to be an ultimate player. They need to be quite trusting and open to be able to self-referee and handle the necessity to rationally communicate with an opponent about it. And for the same reason I think they need some selflessness and patience about them to be able to handle playing alongside new players and welcome them to the game.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who has more qualifications than me (a credit grade in HP501 Introductory Psychology) about this.

Playing smart (as opposed to "playing dumb", I suppose)

I'm all about corporate management buzzwords and cliches. Think outside the square, paradigm shift (personal favourtie - it means "trend"), touching base, taking ownership of the problem, delivering in real-time, etc etc etc. Brilliant to use as filler in 3,000 word essays when you only have 1,900 words of meaningful material, as long as you know what they mean. But the only one that I've actually taken from my Mickey Mouse degree and applied to real life is "work smarter, not harder."

Applied it on the ultimate field, anyway. I still manage to use the phrase 'paradigm shift' in conversation around once a week.

For those of you who haven't met me in person, I'm not exactly a definition of athlete. Despite being quite tall, I'm very slow and unfit, but for every second I'm playing I'm thinking ahead on what to do next. Quite often I'm athletically outmatched by my direct opponent, so I simply need to be smarter in what I'm doing.

A few scenarios for you.

1) Marking the dump. I usually position myself between the dump and the up-the-line cutting path because I see that as the most threatening option. My eyesight will be directed at the ground halfway between the dump and the thrower, so I can keep both in my peripheral vision. Even if the dump is floating around, I typically don't bother "switching on" until the thrower turns to look at the dump.

2) Cutting in. If, for reasons not known to me, I'm playing upfield against a marker that's much faster than me, I'll generally hang about in the stack and not do a lot other than look like I'll cut any second. With any kind of luck, my marker will poach off me. And as soon as they do, or even turn their head to see if it's possible, I take off. If they go in, I go deep. If they go deep, I go in.

3) Positioning on a deep throw. I learned this off Boothy in 2006, but didn't really refine it until late last year after watching this bloke and also seeing how well Amanda did it. When running with the flight of the disc, I always keep myself between the disc and the defender - about six of seven steps behind the disc and about two or three metres to the side the disc is going to fade to. As mentioned previously, I'm not exactly easier for a springy defender to step around with ease - they generally need to take three or four steps, but with one step of mine in the same direction, they often need to add more. If I position myself right, I end up taking an uncontested catch just above head height, out in front of me.

4) Marking a deep cutter. This works quite well at an intermediate level, but it wouldn't fly in advanced level (ie: Regionals/Nationals). Whenever I'm marking someone deepish, I'll always take quick glances back at the disc to check two things - who has the disc, and who is likely to get it next. If I know neither of those people can huck reliably, I'm likely to let the cutter go as deep as they want without me following. It also results in wasted energy for the cutter - they run fifteen metres out and fifteen back in, while I've been doing nothing.

5) Endzone defence. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but if you pay enough attention to the body language of the offence, you can generally tell who is going to be the first option cut. Easiest way - who is making eye contact with the thrower before the disc is in. Other ways - who is turned to face the open side space, who is the most "jittery" (so excited about getting to score that they're struggling to hold back an early cut), and whose name gets called by the coach on the sideline. Poaching off your mark onto the first option, even for a couple of seconds, is enough to shut them down and force teams into a state of improvisation, rather than the drill they've practiced at training repeatedly, and this is where you can generate turns.

6) Endzone offence. I'll let you in on a secret. If I'm in the endzone, I ain't the one planning to catch the goal. I've found it amazing how many teams will instinctively see the tallest person as the biggest threat. I'll always start from the middle of the endzone, a bit towards the back. I never cut first, instead I'll drift towards the breakside back corner and hope that two defenders follow. If they do, someone is poached and there's space in open side. If they don't, I'm open for a hammer.


I always pay a lot of attention to my opponents when I'm on the sideline and pick up on their mannerisms - fakes they fall for, patterns in their cutting, bad habits on defence and favourite throws to use. Then use them to my advantage. Muahahahaha.

Being held accountable for shit calls

"Perth are receiving the pull and have the lead 14-12 after getting the late break. Chappell winds up, and sends it down. The Gold Coast team are running hard to get this one back, with only two minutes until time cap. Taylor catches the pull right on the endzone line and quickly sends it to Morris. Morris swings to Bailey in the power position on the far sideline and he puts it up! Perth are going for the win straight away! It's one on one, Wilson versus Anderson...and it's down! Neither man gets the plastic, and almost immediately Anderson has called the foul. As we look at the replay...inconclusive from that angle, but on the reverse angle...yep, Wilson took out Anderson's arm just before the disc arrived. Back to the players...and Wilson contests! Listen to the crowd, they are livid! Anderson clearly not happy with that one, and neither are the home fans. The disc goes back to Bailey for the restart and we'll do it again..."

I've been watching cricket and tennis again because that's what you do in January and you don't argue about it. Perhaps the biggest change to the television coverage of these sports in the last decade and a bit has been Hawkeye - the ball tracking system used to show line balls and LBW appeals for the viewers at home. Umpires and referees are under intense scrutiny in any sport, and the use of such technology hasn't made it any better. Case in point, run outs in cricket. Back in the 80s and earlier, umpires made the call straight away, and got it right more often than not. But these days, if it's within 2 metres, they'll call for the third umpire to make sure they don't get it wrong.

Just about every sport has specific rules concerning the public criticism of officials. Mostly they amount to "don't do it." In AFL, there is plenty of media pressure to have umpires face press conferences the same way coaches do, but the argument against (and a very convincing one) is that there's enough trouble recruiting and retaining umpires at grassroots levels, and adding more scrutiny wouldn't help.

But here comes ultimate with its "players are the refs" system. If we were to go primetime on Fox Sports 3 and we have situations like the one above, would the player then face the media who ask, "Why did you contest when clearly you were in the wrong?" Would they even face disciplinary action? Or would being labelled a "cheat" by fans be punishment enough?