USA Ultimate

USA Ultimate has announced two proposed plans for restructuring its Club Division* in 2013 and beyond. The two competition structure options, the Triple Crown and the Super-Region structure, are the result of more than two years of planning and research, including gathering feedback from across the ultimate community. The goals of the club restructuring process included the following:

• Regular season - The creation of a more formal regular season, which leads into the USA Ultimate Club Championship Series
   
• Tiered play - The introduction of divisional playing opportunities for teams at different levels
   
• Geographic redraw - Thorough evaluation and subsequent changes to the geographic breakdown of the division to address various travel, event and competition related issues
   
• Club Series qualification/bid process - Improvement of the bid allocation process for the Club Series
   
• Showcase the sport - Opportunities to showcase the sport of Ultimate at its highest level

In February, USA Ultimate announced its plan for changes to the 2012 club structure. New elements of the 2012 season serve to immediately incorporate some long-term changes and to lay the groundwork for additional changes to come in the 2013 structure. Specifically, the 2012 season and series will serve as the mechanism for placing teams into the 2013 tiered regular season. 

Two different plan options are being presented for feedback from the community. The two plans approach the various goals of the restructure process in different ways. Some elements of the two plans are shared and some significantly different. The pros and cons of each are open to debate, and each is exciting and viable in its own respect. Feedback from the community of teams, organizers, and fans may lean distinctly towards one structure as a whole, or there may be elements of each that are compelling. Community feedback will be used to inform the final planning and decision-making process this summer.

Below, the timing of the plan rollout is described and links are provided to the various documents and web pages describing and comparing the details of the two plans. 

* Note that these plans apply to the Mixed, Open, and Women’s divisions. More information on proposed plans for the Masters Open, Masters Women’s, and Grand Masters divisions is available here. 

If you have questions about either plan, please send in your questions to theultimatenation@usaultimate.org by the morning of Monday, March 19th and we'll try to answer your question on the show.