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UPA Position on Event Postings

Posted 01/22/2005

In September, the National Ultimate Association (NUA) announced that it would hold a refereed tournament on the weekend of May 28, 2005. Recently the NUA submitted its event to be posted on the list of upcoming tournaments on the UPA website. The tournament was posted by a new UPA staff person who was unaware of UPA precedent not to post events that were inconsistent with the UPA’s mission. Upon being made aware of such precedent, UPA staff then removed the tournament from the website. Subsequently, the Executive Director sought guidance from the Board of Directors on this situation. After careful consideration, the UPA Board of Directors decided against posting the tournament on the website for the following reasons.

Although the NUA has stated that its staff are proponents of Spirit of the Game, that concept, as defined in the Official Rules of Ultimate, expressly “places the responsibility for fair play on the player.” The concept of SOTG is at Ultimate’s core. It makes Ultimate unique in the universe of athletic endeavors. The NUA rules, while advocating good sportsmanship, expressly remove the responsibility for fair play from the players and place it on referees. As such, the NUA’s definition of Ultimate falls outside of the UPA’s own (see upa.org/upa/mission).

The UPA has continued to explore the use of officials in the sport of Ultimate. There is, however, a fundamental distinction between the use of observers, which allows players to control the game, and the use of referees, which does not. The use of referees, as defined by the NUA, divests players from some of the most important aspects of the sport of Ultimate. The UPA has stated very clearly its stance on the use of officials in Ultimate (see upa.org/observers).

Currently the UPA does not promote or support goaltimate, disc golf, or other sports that do not fit the organization’s definition of Ultimate or fall under its mission. However the UPA, especially in recent years, has been very supportive of rules experimentation and the evolution of the sport. In 1999, as a result of support from the players, the UPA incorporated a new set of rules for its College Division. This rule system incorporates officials and addresses many of the issues that concern proponents of referees, including game delays and conduct problems. However, it still allows for players to control the game itself, which the UPA membership, through its Board, has determined is a defining element of the sport. The UPA continues to recognize the diverse needs of its membership and works to support those needs by investing its resources in a variety of programs including Outreach, Leagues, Youth, Championships, Rules, and Observers.

The UPA is a membership organization, governed by a Board of Directors that is elected by the membership. The Board makes decisions based on what it believes to be the interests of the membership as a whole. Given the clear differences between the UPA’s definition of Ultimate and that of the NUA, the Board of Directors felt that is was not appropriate to use UPA resources to promote an event that does not fall under the UPA’s mission or vision for the sport.

The UPA as an organization cannot endorse the NUA event. However, the issue of the NUA tournament has brought to light the fact that, despite precedent in which events falling outside of the UPA’s mission were not posted to the UPA website, the UPA had not adopted an official policy regarding the posting of tournaments. The Board of Directors does recognize that UPA members, unaware of precedent in action and in the absence of any formalized policy, should be afforded some consideration. Accordingly, the Board of Directors will allow the NUA tournament to be posted on its website.

However, in releasing this statement, the UPA also announces its policy regarding the posting of events on its website. “It is the policy of the UPA to announce UPA-sanctioned tournaments on its website. Upon request and at its discretion, the UPA will also announce other Ultimate tournaments which it deems consistent with the mission of the organization.”

The UPA will continue to support the work of Ultimate organizers and innovators within the bounds of its mission and relies on the feedback of its members to determine the organization’s priorities and direction.