Competition Working Group Updates

Colorado Springs, Colo. (Jan. 15, 2025) – USA Ultimate’s Competition Working Group met in Denver, December 7-8 for its annual meeting to discuss multiple topics around the sport’s competition structures for all divisions – youth, college, club, masters and beach. The annual meeting included nine USA Ultimate staff members, two members from the board of directors and roughly 30 key volunteers and player-elected representatives from the ultimate community.

The two-day meeting is followed by a summary of each group’s discussion.

The Beach Working Group consists of USA Ultimate Senior Manager of Events David Raflo and Regional Beach Directors Grant Boyd (Pacific), Sam Broaddus (Atlantic), Max Grove (Gulf Coast), and Hayden Weaver (Great Lakes). 

After a successful 2023 Beach Nationals, USA Ultimate saw continued growth at the 2024 Beach Championships in Virginia Beach. With eight divisions, 75 teams and 1,100+ athletes, the tournament continues to see marked improvement. The group again considered plans for a youth mixed division, looking to bring U-20 teams to the event in 2025. 

With the strategic plan in mind, youth inclusion remains a key focus for the beach group along with growth in the women’s division. 

The group also welcomed several beach tournament organizers from across the U.S. as a way to learn and communicate with key individuals in a breakout session. The larger group discussed topics like resource development, increased competitive opportunities and promotional strategies for beach-specific events. 

The group saw participation from Ocean City Beach Ultimate’s Bryant Dean, Wildwood Beach Ultimate’s Beverly Barnum and Mike Adlis, Throwback Beach Ultimate’s Louis Gosart, former regional director and current WBUC Assistant Coach for Team USA Sean McCall, and Zig Zag Ultimate’s Mike Zaagman.

Last year, the group conducted several surveys in early 2024 to learn more from the community. They intend to focus on organizer feedback with another survey in Q1 2025. 

Note: At Beach Nationals, high school athletes are encouraged to compete. The clock for college eligibility will not begin for such athletes should they compete in the event. 

The Masters Working Group consists of USA Ultimate Senior Manager of Events and Masters Competition Byron Hicks, national directors Kyle Christoph (men), Jolien Munsterhuis (mixed) and Kristi Schmeling (women), at-large masters working group representative Chris Cianfrani, and special guest regional coordinator Jeff Berget (south central). 

A major highlight for the masters working group included the age reclassification for two divisions. In an attempt to create more consistency with WFDF, the group lowered the minimum age for the great grandmasters men’s and women’s divisions. The great grandmasters men’s division’s minimum age will move from 50 to 48. The great grandmasters women’s division’s minimum age will move from 47 to 45. The change was also made with growth in mind for the great grandmasters women’s division. 

The group discussed the 2024 Masters Championships, which hosted 2,600 athletes on 109 teams in eight divisions. The discussions also included how to grow the event with limited field space. 

Bid allocations will remain the same as 2024 although the previously named “super regional” will be renamed as “super qualifiers” with no changes to the format. 

Other topics, including division title names and potential growth strategies were discussed along with other questions posed by the community. 

The Club Working Group consists of USA Ultimate Manager for Competition and National Team Programs Marc Zigterman, national directors Mia Griner (women), Genevieve Leo (mixed), and Adam Goff (men), and player-elected representatives Clare Frantz and Eli Motycka (mixed), Kristin Johnson and Tayara Romero Peña (women) and AJ Merriman (men). 

The group decided on the redrawing of sections to provide quality sectional events and promote fair competition formats given the new restrictions on the number of games per weekend. Sections with more than 16 teams have been reviewed and redrawn. Sections with two or fewer teams may be combined for regionals. The specific redraws will be available in the club guidelines. 

The club group also reworked deadlines for roster flexibility with the goal of improving the women’s division in mind. Woman-matching players will have roster flexibility until July 30, which is the Wednesday before U.S. Open. Man-matching players have roster flexibility until June 25, which is the Wednesday before the Pro-Elite Challenge.

Also on the topic of roster flexibility, the group continued discussions from 2024 on a potential “academy” model. The proposal was suggested by the community as a way to allow increased roster flexibility for teams that have a closely-related developmental team. While no decisions were made, the group will continue to work out the idea in 2025. 

For the TCT, the group discussed using a “Swiss” draw format for earlier, major TCT events. The group reviewed the format for Nationals and is not recommending any changes. 

While the complete TCT calendar will be announced soon, the schedule will look similar to 2024 and again feature an east and west version of the Pro-Elite Challenge and Select Flight Invite, The U.S. Open, Elite-Select Challenge and Pro Championships. Notable elements of the TCT in the soon-to-be-released competition guidelines include: 

• The Pro-Elite Challenge will continue to be split into east and west events to reduce travel costs while continuing to provide meaningful playing opportunities for more teams.
• The Select Flight Invite will again be split into east and west and will include both Select Flight teams as well as high-ranking Classic Flight teams.
• The Elite-Select Challenge will continue to be required for Elite Flight teams with an opportunity for Select Flight teams to be invited. 
• The U.S. Open will again be required for the top-four ranked Pro Flight teams, with invitations being sent to teams ranked 5-8. Invites will again be extended to international teams. Games against international teams will again count towards overall game totals, but results will again not be factored into rankings.
• The Pro Championships will be limited to eight teams per division with initial invites going to Pro Flight teams. The expansion of divisions to 12 teams will be considered, based on interest. 

The club working group met with the college and rankings working groups to discuss the possible implementation of a “probabilistic model” for Nationals bid allocation in 2026. The group will review throughout 2025. 

The group also engaged in discussions regarding growth in the women’s division. The group recommended several improvements to the division including a matching or mentoring program for women’s leaders to discuss important topics and a volunteer role focused on women’s division growth, amongst other ideas. 

Another important topic was signaling each athlete’s gender match on any given point in the mixed division. The group will add a best practice signaling suggestion to the guidelines which will require each player on the line to signal their gender match if requested by the opposing team. 

Other topics included the video review discussion, postseason registration timelines and a larger mixed club nationals format. 

The College Working Group consists of USA Ultimate Manager for Competition and National Team Programs Matthew Bourland, national director (developmental) Trois White, national directors Jeff Kula (men), Beth Nakamura (women), Grace Kiel (D-III women) and Kevin Kula (D-III men). 

While the group didn’t have many changes, the focal point of discussion was the restructuring of the developmental division. The group met with key volunteers across the country and collected feedback to discuss potential key changes to make for 2026 as the system in place isn’t meeting the needs of all and inhibits the growth of the entire division. The group intends to make structural changes to the regular season and postseason for 2026. 

The group also discussed the potential change of the D-III enrollment cutoff number but will want to evaluate further and assess how it could impact teams. 

The Youth Working Group consists of USA Ultimate Director of Youth Programs Dan Raabe, manager for youth competition Josh Murphy and regional youth directors Jack Kennedy (northeast), Joe Strong (west), Antonia Van Twisk (central) and Jamie Wolf (south).

The group’s focal point was to discuss the recent survey that sought perspective from organizers, coaches, parents and players on the future structure of the Youth Club Championships. The group discussed potentials for the improvement of YCC as the event has grown to capacity. 

The results were comprehensive and allowed for several decisions to be made and more discussions to take place. If you are interested in seeing the results of the survey, click here. 

One of the key decisions that was made is related to team participation in 2026. Divisions with more than 24 teams will be split into two different tiers (DI and DII). The two-tiered system will allow for more teams to participate and avoid turning teams away from the event.

The group also discussed other ways to include all teams at the event in addition to improving the experience and will continue to investigate potential solutions. 

One of the other decisions made was to not require summer regional event attendance for YCC teams, while still encouraging participation at such tournaments for YCC warm-up and seeding opportunities. 

More discussions are upcoming for the group as the youth guidelines are released at a different time of year, spanning from September through August.