Why ultimate will not become an Olympic sport

In my life before spouse and child, your humble blogger was a halfway-decent ultimate frisbee player — good enough to play for the Williams College men’s team in the late eighties and Stanford men’s ultimate team back in the early nineties. I loved the sport, loved the people who played the sport, and counted myself lucky that my only ultimate-related injury was a broken collarbone. Ultimate has its own national organization and its own world organization as well; according to this census, over 38,000 people actively participate in the sport across the globe. It was always on the cusp of achieving greater mainstream success when I played. So it’s with a slight twinge of sadness that I read Barry Newman’s Wall Street Journal story explaining why ultimate is unlikely to ever become an Olympic sport. The key sections:

Frisbee, meantime, has blossomed from a lazy game of catch on the frat-house lawn into the sport of “ultimate,” a high-voltage cross between soccer and American football. It was known early on as ultimate Frisbee, but Wham-O Inc., which owns the Frisbee trademark, wouldn’t get behind it. So it’s just plain ultimate now. That causes branding issues: Ultimate? Ultimate what? But as far as its fans are aware, the truly ultimate championships aren’t the ones taking place here. They rolled out two weeks ago up in Turku, Finland, where 1,500 athletes joined in, playing on 76 teams from 23 countries. How come the Frisbee is on the outs in Athens while the discus, after 2,700 years, remains so unbendably in? For those who think the Olympics are slightly behind the times — members of the International Olympic Committee included — that’s the ultimate question. As soon as Athens shuts down, the IOC will begin a rethink of the games people play at future Olympics. “It’s going to happen from now on — a revision and checkup of the program,” says Ron Froehlich, head of USA Gymnastics and a member of the IOC’s program commission. “It’s a matter of what appeals to the audience.” ….How about Frisbee? Perhaps like skateboarding, which seems content for now with the X Games, ultimate is happy with gathering in places like Finland for its own World Games. But as for the Olympics, ultimate’s organizers just don’t think it’s worth the hassle. “A sport with Olympic aspirations needs to be a political organization,” says Nob Rauch, a Bostonian who has checked this out for the World Flying Disc Federation. “It takes too much energy.” So Athens 2004 is a one-flying-disc town. In Olympic lore, the discus is secure.

Full disclosure: I know Nob Rauch, as he also attended Williams and played ultimate there. UPDATE: Zach Braff — who’s clearly hooked on the blogging — has some really amusing thoughts on how to spiece up the Olympics. Surprisingly, my favorite idea of Braff’s was not “Olympic Pole Dancing,” but rather adding hedge-clippers to the synchonized diving competition!!