Ben: No contested fouls. I don’t want to watch players talking to each other for sixty seconds just to replay what already happened. If there’s a contested foul, the observer immediately makes a ruling, and the game proceeds.
Ange: Spirit of the Game. Ok, I know I'm coming in hot here, but I can't drink the spirit Kool-Aid served on every ultimate frisbee field. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a game in which athletes feel supported, celebrated, and safe. I just think there is a spectrum of sports-person-ship and games-person-ship, and there is no way the thousands of us who play this sport are on the same spot on that spectrum. A clear set of rules, and appropriate repercussions for violating those rules, hold us all to the same standard...instead of relying on a bunch of different interpretations of intentionality, respect, and moral codes. It would certainly be harder for observers (who I'd prefer to be referees) to manage games, but it's something I hope we continue to explore - especially as the professional and semi-professional arms of our sport continue to grow and have access to more resources.
Bryce: I hate to be the tsar that brings a problem without a proposed solution, but too many possessions resulted in contested stalls. With player-counted stalls to the S of seven, a lot of possessions (especially catches where players left their feet, ran out of bounds post catch, etc) seemed unfairly rushed. Do you turn over stall counting to active observerees? Do referservers automatically weigh in on contested stall outs? I dunno. But the frequency of contested stalls ought to encourage some experimenting with other solutions.
Nicole: The field size rules. I'd just get rid of all lines, like Goalty. There are no out-of-bounds. The end zones are just random boxes placed on opposite sides of each other. Make the stadium seats playable. The world field is your oyster.
Megan: If I *had* to eliminate one rule, I’d eliminate the coin flip. Let’s get back to basics and decide who picks O or D to start with a double-disc flip.
Pawel: Eliminate the outdoors. Move the game online to the Metaverse. Physical sports are OUT, e-sports are IN. Have you seen the money rolling into League of Legends?
Group 2: Rules we would modify (carry)
Ben: The biggest hinderance to watchable ultimate is the wind. It just sucks. And without weather-controlled stadiums available, there’s nothing to do about it, except for a very simple edit to the rules that definitely won’t completely change the entire structure of how the game is played: use a ball. Also, we will need a more appropriate name for a sport in which you pass and catch a ball but can’t move when you have the ball. Maybe… handball? Introducing the WUBHWIWL - the Western Ultimate (But Handball When It’s Windy) League!
Angela (Ange): Double teams. Right now, the WUL rulebook precludes double-teaming. I'd change this rule to allow double teams on the thrower in the last two minutes of each quarter. Throwers across the league are getting better and better - and I, for one, would love to see them be more challenged as the stakes get high during the end of quarters and games.
Bryce: Five timeouts per half. 30 seconds. Keep the full subs and the resetting of the stall. I think we'd see some great redzone packages and teams rostering some really role-specific players with these additional timeouts.
Nicole: I would add an addendum to the stalling rule: if a player calls a stall that the observer determines is not a stall, the player with the disc gets a free unmarked throw, and the defender is not allowed to poach off and defend another player. They just have to lay back until the throw goes off.
Megan: If I *had* to slightly alter a rule, I would add a floater timeout. Having the ability to substitute players during a timeout can give your team such a unique advantage that I’d love to add the wrinkle of another timeout, but you have to be judicious about when in the game you play that card.
Pawel: Modify nothing - keep a rule intact or burn it to the ground. Bad question posed by the noobie editor.
Group 3: Rules we would birth (puck)
Ben: When a team is up by a few scores as the game winds down, they generally play a loose zone defense and force the other team to throw a hundred throws to score while killing the rest of the clock. That’s boring to watch and stifles comeback opportunities. If I’m in charge, no zone defense is allowed in the fourth quarter. If you want to win, earn it by matching up person to person.
Ange: Two points for a first-possession break score. I'll come clean before expanding on this one: defensive line players who can effectively convert a breakpoint are my favorite kinds of frisbee players. That shift from super intense, gritty defense to smooth, clean, and calm offense is beautiful to witness. It's also demoralizing for your opponent. I'd create a new WUL rule to award two points to a defensive line that converts a breakpoint in one "d'offensive" possession. I think it would incentivize better play on both sides of the disc...the original D-line players would be more methodical in their first attempt to score a break, and the original O-line would be desperate to stop a two-point break conversion after turning it over.
Bryce: Mandatory statisticians/athlete trackers. Give the coaches the tools to level up. Give the talking heads all the data points we could ever handle. I need yards per game. I need # of sprints per quarter. Help us quantify the greatness we're seeing on the field beyond the box score.
Nicole: Catching a Callahan (a defensive score) adds 100 points to the team that scores the Callahan. Similar to the golden snitch rule in Quidditch, except it doesn't end the game completely, just makes it very hard for the other team to catch up. Last season, there were no Callahan scores between all 7 WUL teams. This rule would incentivize teams and players to play tough defense and encourage Callahan attempts to pad teams with high point differentials. Also, it'd just make Callahans 10x more exciting than they already are.
Megan: If I *had* to create a rule from scratch, I’d add a shot clock (an idea I’m shamelessly stealing from Bryan Jones, PoNY coach in the club men’s division). Having to fire into the endzone within a specific amount of time would encourage faster offensive flow and likely lead to a lot of thrilling shots.
Pawel: Nicole did not go far enough with her free throw idea, so I will: every pick, foul, bad stall call is awarded a free throw. It would go something like this: a foul is called, everyone stops, the thrower gets to chuck it to anyone without pivoting, the defense cannot bat it down, the offense cannot move. If an offender is already in the endzone, the thrower can chuck it for a goal (hey, maybe next time, don’t foul close to the endzone?). If it’s complete, play on. If the thrower turfs it, turnover. On the other hand, every travel is a 10-year penalty and a mandatory “Shame! Shame! Shame!” from the crowd.
Bonus: Kenny’s rant
Kenny went on a rant this week about Observers. Didn’t really answer the question, but this is better anyway. I imagine he got wronged at some point. Don’t get me started.
Kenny rant:
I like empowering Observers in the pro leagues. In this case, I would want to empower them to get involved more on foul calls. A lot of time goes into making the sport a viable entertainment option for fans and viewers. We put a greater emphasis on things like venue and broadcast setup with the appropriate view that a pro league is meant to serve fans. The hope is, of course, that those fans will bankroll the costs of running a league.
So here's my hot take that might go against what some consider the spirit of the game: Private conversations between players on the field that stop the flow of a game have no place in a professional broadcast.
We've all been there. We finally convince a family member or friend to sit and give Ultimate a chance. There's a pro league, now! Tune in to watch from the comfort of your home. I'm having some people over. We've got guac. You explain the rules. The game is exciting. They're finally seeing what you see, starting to understand why you've traveled on your own dime so many weekends for tournaments, slept on so many strangers' floors, played for ten hours fueled only by half a banana and the two bottles of Gatorade you paid too much for at the closest gas station...
Then comes a foul call. They ask you what happened. You explain that they're going to talk it out. You sit. Everyone twiddles their thumbs. The broadcast announcers speculate over the arguments the players may or may not be making. If we're lucky we get a close-up, silent view of the discussion (if that's in the wheelhouse of the broadcast crew), and we watch a static wide shot of two players saying discussing the contact they felt or thought they felt and how that contact violates their understanding of the rules and was that rule standard USAU and in the WUL changes and they pause and ask the observers for the rule clarification so they can continue discussing and then get back to their point and--
Have you tuned out yet? (editor voice from above: yes, Kenny, I have. Get to your point, man.)
So has everyone else. They're on their phones now. Or they're grabbing a snack. Or rethinking why they're so invested in this game, anyway.
I know it's harsh. I know there are a lot of ways to address this problem. Other pro sports have media packages that they use to fill in gaps like this. They have commercial breaks all lined up and ready to go. They have contingency plans. They know every second of the show counts. When I was cutting film for broadcast, I'd get segments rejected if they were off by a frame or two. A single frame or two. I'm just not sure most people in this community appreciate how much harder a pitch to a broadcast station or any media network is if you have to let them know that there might be up to two minutes of random, dead time in the middle of a broadcast. In the industry, commercials are sold in fifteen, thirty, forty-five, and sixty-second slots. We have to start thinking in that language. A sixty-second discussion about a foul is a big deal. In other sports, some companies pay thousands of dollars for sixty seconds in the middle of a game.
There are other ways to make discussions over player calls exciting. Notice that above I said "private" conversations between players have no place in a broadcast. But until we have the technical capabilities to do that either by bringing viewers into the drama of that on-field conversation, having effective comms between on-field reporters or Observers and the commentators in the broadcast booth, or using the opportunity to showcase other media packages, commercials, etc, the best way to deal with this is simply to empower Observers to step in quickly, make a decision, then let the players use the integrity override if they think the Observer got it wrong. Observers are already involved in pretty much every other call of the game, why have we shut them out of foul calls? For some, it may be a big shift to think that Observers keep the game exciting by providing quick rulings, but to me, that's half the job. In that regard, we're capping their effectiveness by keeping them out of stall counts and foul calls.
