For the last several years, I've been playing Ultimate Frisbee with friends at Antrim Park in Columbus once a week. It's just a pick-up game, not a league. It's great exercise, and I get to see people more often that I may not otherwise see.
This year, attendance has really taken a dive. And I'm not really sure why. For a few weeks in a row recently it was really hot out. I skipped at least once because of this. On a day like that, it's understandable why attendance would be low. However, last Tuesday was gorgeous. Low 80's and not much humidity for a change. Even so, we still had only 7 people show up. 3 on 4 isn't that much fun. IMO, you need at least 8 (4 on 4) to have a good game, and even that is pushing it. We used to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 on 7 or 8 on 8, and sometimes more!
It's disappointing.
I've been brainstorming a lot about this, and wondering if there are ways to boost attendance.
Of course, as with just about anything, things get old and sometimes an event has run it's course. Maybe that's the case for our Ultimate games at Antrim. But I personally don't want to see it end.
With a lot of things, I know that if my friends are talking about going, then I'm more likely to go. If my friends aren't as excited about something, I may not be as excited either. So we could send emails to people and try to rally interest. (like the "so-and-so is doing it, you should too" advertising technique.) But that could take a lot of effort every week, and who has time for that? And I'm not sure if we should *have* to go that far.
I wondered about posting on something like craigslist? I am not really sure how that works but might be worth looking into. Maybe get some new blood.
I also wondered if maybe going to an every-other-week thing would be better for attendance. Maybe some people just don't want to take the time to go every week. If it was less frequent, maybe we'd get more people per week. i.e. those who don't want to come every week, at least would be there the same week, not scattered across different weeks.
I dunno, I really don't want to see ultimate end. But I'm not sure what we can do. You can't make people do something they don't want to do. But I think there are at least a few of us who want to see it keep going, maybe it's not quite dead yet?
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Update:
I almost didn't go to Ultimate Frisbee last night because it seemed like nobody else was going to go. But it was such a nice day that I went anyway. Including me, there were 6 of us. So we just made the playing field smaller and played anyway. And we still had fun. Although playing 3 on 3 is pretty tiring! But at least it forces me to get more exercise instead of slacking off.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
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6 comments:
I forgot that when the season started it was too cold, then it rained for a few weeks in a row so maybe people got out of the habit of going. We'll have to figure out a plan; advertise it; drum up some business so to speak. I agreed to help with marketing tonight at the group I'm helping out with so maybe I can apply my skills to Ultimate too ; )
I found that playing Ultimate Frisbee last summer wasn't much fun due to the fact that the more experienced players weren't inclined to actually share with others in the activity. It isn't much fun when only 2 guys on the team get to touch the frisbee regularly.
Welcome to my world. Well, I used to feel like I never got to touch the frisbee when I first started playing several years ago. I felt like I would be completely wide open and still nobody would throw it to me. That got better. I used to think it was because I'm a "girl" but I don't think that was the reason so much anymore. I'm not sure if it was because I proved myself somewhat worthy of having the frisbee tossed to me? Or if it was just that I got better at making people notice when I am open? Or noticing that it's not always best to stand still and wait for the frisbee to be thrown to you, but if you're moving in some direction (preferably toward the end zone) that it gets throw to you more? Or that you get the frisbee more often when there are fewer people playing? (we used to have much larger groups) Or some combination of all of the above?
I do remember feeling the way you (anonymous #2) felt last year sometimes, though. I got knocked over a lot last year too, enough that I'm very gun-shy when I hear footsteps of people running full force at me now. So I just duck out of the way now and lose posession of the frisbee, to the dismay of my team but to the preservation of my body :) Actually I get frustrated at myself that I am so gun-shy over that, but it seems to be a reflex reaction that I don't have much control over. And overall it's probably better for my neck injury that is 95% better but I still wonder sometimes. But I digress.
Still, I got knocked over a lot last year (and it seemed like a lot of collisions happened last year) and there were days when I felt like the frisbee didn't get tossed to me much. There were also days that were fine and I didn't notice any problems.
For what it's worth, I have not noticed that so much this year. Again, not sure if it's the smaller group or just the people in general. It's good to see Briley back again since he's not working so many hours a week anymore. And it's good to have the few regulars we have left.
Anonymous #1, let's see what we can do :)
Anonymous one would be me : ) Hmm...maybe all the collisions did cause people to think twice about playing this year...hmmm....I guess not everyone wants to get stitches or a bloody lip from playing a recreational sport!
I get the frisbee more often now too although I attribute that to the much better odds I have now of being one of four vs. one of 6/8/12!
Who knows. I now have two marketing gigs going now so maybe I can tackle frisbee too. I love how in the matter of five days my career has taken a little bit of a turn! Kind of cool. Market a home builder, a church group, frisbee, apartments...what ever will happen next week! ; )
Kaci
Yeah, stitches are bad for sure. It's interesting to hear people's opinions and experiences, and discuss possible reasons for low attendance.
It looks like Ultimate is still alive and kicking! Way to go us on our recruiting efforts ; ) Also, thanks to Jaci and Mark and Rahul for showing up! Maybe they will have friends who want to play too. Expanding the circle...
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