Colorado Springs, Colo. (August 26, 2024)—Ahead of implementing a new youth club competition structure in the fall of 2025, USA Ultimate announced today a revamped set of guidelines that will take effect in January. These guidelines, which will run from January through August of 2025, also marks a new timeline for the publication of youth competition guidelines.
Youth Competition Guidelines will now mirror the timing of a typical school year (September through August) instead of a traditional calendar year. As a result, guidelines will now be published in August. (With 2024 guidelines currently in effect through December 31, the initial set of new guidelines won’t begin until January 1, 2025. Once USA Ultimate fully completes its youth club restructuring process, its guidelines will last from September 1 2025 through August 31, 2026 and continue with that timing.)
Additionally, the youth guidelines will now be issued as three separate documents: General Youth Competition (applies to all levels and types of youth play), School-based Competition (High School and Middle School State Championships) and Youth Club Competition (Youth Club Championships and Regional events.)
For more information, review each set of 2025 guidelines via the links below:
Youth Division – Updates and Deadlines
With the Youth Competition Guidelines now published for the first half of 2025, players, coaches, organizers, parents and other stakeholders in the community should be aware of some of the key updates and deadlines listed below:
- The 2025 Youth Division Guidelines (January – August) are now available.
- High School and Middle School State Championships
- New teams competing at High School State Championship and all teams competing at Middle School State Championship events will no longer be required to have a youth-certified coach.
- Coaches of those teams will still be required to meet USA Ultimate’s Foundational Coach Requirements.
- Youth coach certification clinics are now offered fully online and are available through your USA Ultimate membership account. Coaches may register for, and complete, the certification process at their leisure.
The application process and key deadlines for the 2025 Youth Club Championships are as follows:
- Week of January 8: Applications open.
- February 5: Phase 1 application deadline.
- USA Ultimate will begin assigning bids based on completed applications and in accordance with the bid priority chart. Applications will continue to be accepted after this date, which will be added to a waitlist (Phase 2).
- February 10: Publication of Phase 1 applications with corresponding priorities and qualifying criteria.
- February 17: Phase 1 bids are awarded.
- March 3: Deadline for Phase 1 teams to accept their bids.
- March 17: Deadline for Phase 1 teams to roster at least on USA Ultimate youth-certified coach on their YCC event roster.
- April 16: Phase 2 application deadline.
- April 28: Phase 2 bids are awarded.
- May 12: Deadline for Phase 2 applicants to accept their bids.
- May 26: Deadline for Phase 2 teams to roster at least on USA Ultimate youth-certified coach on their YCC event roster.
- June 6: Final bids awarded.
- February 5: Phase 1 application deadline.
YCC Bid Priority Chart
