Five and Ultimate

Attending the UPA Revolution summit here in Seattle a bunch of weeks ago, an unexpected theme caught my fancy - the relationship between "Elite" (we aren't pro, so we have to make ourselves feel good somehow) Ultimate's desires and goals, and the desires and goals of the average player. There are some things that every Ultimate player wants: more opportunities to play, better recognition of the sport, etc. And there are places where one group has goals that are not mutually exclusive of the other party's goals, yet still lend to an either-or decision for the UPA. Luckily, the reigning sentiment at the Revolution summit was to build Ultimate bottom-up from the grassroots and casual competitive level as opposed to top-down from the Elite circuit. Not only is this a smarter choice for growing and supporting Ultimate, but I believe the -right- choice. The UPA should support every player equally.

The Elite/non-Elite topic stuck with me, though, as I turned my thoughts to our company. Does Five Ultimate want to build our company brand name starting with famous Elite teams and advertising down to the casual player, or target the casual player and allow our brand name to travel in to the higher echelons of Ultimate as players progress upwards in the competitive-ultimate food chain? What is the profit-maximizing strategy? What is best for Ultimate?

If there's one thing I dislike, it's gimmicky sales. I hate it when things cost $X.99 instead of $X+1. It's too bad we fall for that crap just enough to allow stores to continue their attempt to trick you in to thinking you are -saving- money by spending money at their store. I like simple, honest prices that allow the consumer to focus on the value she is getting as opposed to the money she is spending*.

Yet, when you buy a product, it's unfortunately very hard to understand exactly what you are paying for. When you buy a can of Coca-Cola, part of the money you spend goes towards funding their TV and online advertisements. Buying a can of Coke also means buying commercials collectively with every other putz out there that made the same purchase. If you drink Coke, every time you see a Coke commercial - guess what, you paid for it. Now apply the same critique to an apparel company. Every time you see a team sponsored by that company, if you purchased any gear from that company, well then you paid for part of that sponsored team's gear. At least that's one way to look at it.

Though, to an extent I think the sponsorship-as-advertisement approach is more than ok. I just hate to see that style of business pushed too far. I want Five Ultimate to succeed because of our personal connection with the Ultimate community, because of the relationships we've built, because we offer a great product at a great value. I don't want us to fall in to a position where we're constantly feeding the top of the social pyramid and reaping the sales from the bottom. I believe that because I think Ultimate should be built from the bottom up, and I want to contribute to that one relationship at a time.

I think the topic is deeper than one blog post or even one conversation. My hope is that some of the ideas I write about help people understand or even just infer what goes on behind the scenes and why we do things the way we do.

In any case, keep on huckin'.
Vehro

*feels funny with a 'she' instead of a 'he', doesn't it? I don't think it should.

Voodoo trucker hat

Here's the trucker hat pic as a follow-up.

Sooooo, about that team unity thing...

Pushing 11pm here in the office, we just got in a little argument about team identities. X and V play for (/co-captain) Voodoo, the second open team in Seattle, and we are working on trucker hats for them. The basis for the disagreement was wether or not to add the text "Seattle Ultimate" on the hats, or just print the silly (/totally awesome) crazy banana eating monkey picture on them.

From there we led each other down the path of defining the value of team unity based on gear, on the field as well as off the field. I am a big supporter of adding the "Seattle Ultimate" to the hats because I think it strengthens each individual player's allegiance to their team in the bigger picture, and though the inside joke or personal knowledge of the simple monkey logo is cool, I think spreading the concept of the Voodoo team as a very important part of a greater entity that is Seattle Ultimate, is cooler (/better/smarter/way cooler).

I really want their team to do well this year, and I think they will. I want them to look sweet, too, and I know they will (I made their jerseys). I think adding the text to the hat will encourage the team and whoever decides to pick up one of the extra hats, to sport it proudly even when around non ultimate players. I happen to be the oldest brother, so I'm always right (/duh), but we'll see what gets decided. I'll try to post the final image when X is done dinking around with it.

=Zahlen