AFDA's Statement on Streaming

Gus Macdonald

At 10 a.m. AEST this morning, the Australian Flying Disc Association released the following statement on their lesser known and followed AFDA Facebook page, where comments are disabled. 

For those members of our community hoping to watch live Ultimate Frisbee over the next two weeks, this news is disappointing. The statement only makes a brief mention of what I see to be the main issue in this saga—the poor (and, in fact, total lack of) communication around live streaming at Nationals.

The statement does, however, talk about the new strategic plan, Flight Path, that was released to the public via a post on the AFDA website on the 5th of April. This document is a great resource, with a lot of valuable information and initiatives about the national body’s plans to grow the sport. I personally had not heard of Flight Path before this morning, and I would be interested to know how many people commenting on IOU’s Facebook post, among other Facebook posts, had read or even knew about the existence of this plan. 

It seems pretty obvious that there has been a breakdown in the relationship between the AFDA and Ulti.TV. Probably anyone who spent any time in a comments thread in the last week or so could have told you that. I presume that the details of this are sensitive and that is why they have not been included in the statement, but I had at least hoped that more light would be shed on the reasons why a different streaming/filming provider wasn’t sought, or why players were not going to be told about the lack of streaming. As you can read for yourself, it does not. 

When I first heard about this story, my immediate reaction was that the lack of streaming is a huge step backwards for the growth and visibility of the sport. I’m sure that a lot of people felt the same. I’ve now heard from multiple sources that the stats show people who watch games of frisbee are, by and large, the same people who participated in them. I’d believe that. This streaming debacle is less about growth and visibility then, and more about the joy our community gets from watching itself play an amazing sport. It’s about sharing iconic moments, reliving triumphs and defeats. It’s about what we, as a community of players, want to get out of this entirely self-funded amateur sport. 

Despite the necessary beige-ness of this statement from the AFDA, I believe that there are really good people working there, doing really good things for our sport. It’s hard work that we don’t always see. This whole issue has exposed how the parts of the player base that feel outraged right now—which may well be a vocal minority, I haven’t seen the poll/survey data—don’t fully understand the work that the AFDA is doing right now. I understand this frustration, I am also frustrated, but please remember that our community is small, and that there are human beings on the other end of your comments on Facebook. 

Hopefully, the community’s response is enough to widen our communication with the national body. IOU is happy to do interviews, profiles, and whatever else is needed to connect the AFDA’s hard work with our readers. If you don’t think this would be an important service, spend twenty minutes in our comments section.

Nonetheless, I am sad about the outcome of this statement. I am also sad about the broader miscommunication this statement barely scratches the surface of.

I think it’s important to try, as much as possible, not to let this overshadow Nationals in any way. It is a tournament that so many people have worked hard to get to, both players and teams, and AFDA’s organisers. Just because it won’t be streamed, it doesn’t mean it’s not still important.

Updates to follow.