So why are we having two divisions at AUG this year?

Well, a couple of reasons really. Firstly, I'll tell you about the reason there are divisions at AUG.

Back in 2006, Australian University Sport had one of their lowest attendances at Australian University Games ever. Ultimate was the largest sport, with 17 teams competing. Many blamed this on the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism by the Howard government, leading to many campus organisation slashing their sports budgets, increasing the cost for students to attend the event. So AUS decided if their event was to survive, they needed to make some drastic changes. They relaxed the eligibility criteria, removed the qualification element and move the event to the Gold Coast. And boy did that work. Attendance went from 2,000 and something in Adelaide to over 4,500. However AUS wanted to ensure the integrity of AUG and keep the standard of sport high, without alientating the "party teams" that exist in every sport. So they created divisions to seperate the elite teams from the party teams.

That didn't sit well with us ultimate folk, who love to play heaps of games against everyone, and also play hard and party harder. 20 teams were registered for the 2007 event and AUS propsed an 8 team Division 1 and 12 team Division 2, with 2006 results determining who goes where. Interesting to note that going this way would have seen eventual bronze medallists UNSW and 4th place Monash not included in Division 1. So we protested the change, and at the 11th hour we were granted our wish and had a 20 team single division. 2008 saw 19 teams, and again we resisted the change. 2009 saw 23 teams enter, and the resistance was going to be much harder to justify.

Before I go on, I'd like to explain a term I've coined for some teams. I refer to them as WTFAT teams - "Who The Fuck Are They?" Every year there seems to be a token team appearing out of nowhere full of ultimate virgins who see the sport on the AUG registration list and think, "Hey that looks like fun!" 2004 it was BUUF and CSU. 2005 was ACU Brisbane. 2007 was UWS and 2008 was Edith Cowan University and Wollongong. This year however there are 3, with another 3 teams on the radar who weren't expected to go. Hence the 23 teams as opposed to the 17 I was expecting. Back to the main story.

In 2008 the draw and seedings were done in a rather ad-hoc manner. I asked some interstate folk what they thought of the on-paper lineups and did the seedings accordingly. Apart from 8th seed Flinders kicking #1 seed Macquarie in the teeth in the pool round and inheriting their easy run to the final, they worked out okay. But I wanted there to be a policy in place rather than making it up every year. Nationals had a seeding policy, and so did Mixed Nats, so it made sense that AUG did. I couldn't simply adapt an AFDA policy because there was no qualification element, and didn't account for graduations and international students drastically changing teams.

Then it dawned on me much, much later than it should have - AUS have these policies already, so why not just use them?

There was never going to be an easy way to slowly integrate the change, so a "put the foot down" approach had to do. I wish that I could have made that decision months ago, but the 23 team list forced my hand. It's going to mean that UQ will be drastically underseeded this year, but look what happened last year when we did the seedings ourselves. After a fair bit of consideration, I took the Bill O'Reilly approach.

But there was a small other change we would need to make - a divisional split.

We were the only sport to date that hadn't made the change. And personally I thought it was overdue, since last year there was a massive disparity between the top 9 and bottom 10. So I went to AUS and agreed to have the split this year. Once again, I wish I had been able to do it much earlier, but again the 23 team list made that decision for me.

And then the negotiations began. They wanted 8 teams in Division 1 and 15 in Division 2 (as per policy of course). I retorted with 16 teams in Div 1 and 7 in Div 2. I basically got laughed at, because their policy states 10 teams is their max, with considerations given to sports with more than 30 teams registered. Hmm. I countered with their line in the policy stating they want to "maintain the integrity of the [Division 1] competition" and a Nationals-style draw was the way to go.

Then I was asked a very interesting question - "How many teams coming do you think are serious medal contenders?"

I looked through the AFDA registration page and squads, and also went on personal knowledge. I came back with a number that I'm not going to reveal, but it was less than 16. AUS then agreed to a 10 team competition, with any other potential Division 1 entrants to be judged on their merits on a case-by-case basis, as per policy of course. Going by this, I successfully applied on behalf of two teams to have them added to Division 1. So we're left with a 12 team Division 1 and an 11 team Division 2.

There are a lot of reasons I wanted to go with two divisions, but the absolute, numero uno, key reason is retention.

I've long believed that this sport has a massive problem with retention of new players. Just have a look at the AFDA rego system - we're up to 15,000 registered players, but as I write this only 4,108 are active (have played an AFDA-affliated tournament or league in the last 12 months). Granted there are international players, plus probably a few joke regos and probably some spammers, but that's still a pretty glaring statistic, given we don't have the juniors-to-seniors drop off that most other sports have. University clubs have always been a great breeding ground for rookies, but also for new clubs.

And that takes me back to the WTFAT teams. Look at things from their perspective - a group of nine or ten mates come to AUG to play this sport they did in PE once. Other than that, they have absolutely no prior knowledge of what goes on. They then find out they have 11 80-minute long games, giving them little to no free time to go to the beach or hang out with their uni mates. They spend four days getting taken to school and might pick up a lucky win in the playoffs. While the week is fun, they are completely burned out by the end of it and might not want to return.

These are the teams Division 2 is designed for - they might get a 15-0 spanking on Monday or Tuesday, but by mid-week they're playing against their own standard, where the competition is much less intense than it is up around the medal bracket. They will be playing 2 games a day (maybe 3 games on one day with a break in between) which gives them time to do other stuff on the Gold Coast. And I fully believe they will have a hell of a lot of fun. And their desire to come back next year is greater.

This is where it's my job to pounce. Get their contact details and encourage them to go to some hat tournaments over the summer, and some tournaments in April-May. Recruit some more folk and hit up AUG in 2010. Again, they're in Division 2 but they have a bit of experience and know what to expect. They fall just short of a medal. So they start to get more involved and learn some more skills and tactics to have a run at a Div 2 medal in 2011. And there you have a new club established.

Most of the current crop of AUG attendees are thinking of their current campaign and how it affects them. And I don't doubt for a minute that they wouldn't. However it is my role to think long-term and I think a divisional split (when we have large numbers of teams) is the best way forward for us.

Unfortunately there are two teams who have missed out on Division 1 for other reasons when in terms of competition quality they really should be there. While one of those teams gets very little sympathy from me, I feel really bad for the other one. I've exchanged some words with their captain, and while they're not pleased, they understand what's happened. I still think there will be some good competition for the Division 2 medals among the top 5 or 6 teams.


So hopefully that's given a bit of insight as to what has gone on over the last 10 days or so. If you have any questions about any of this, leave a comment or shoot me an email.