Thursday, July 29, 2010

Ultimate on ESPN

 If you haven't already seen this sweet catch by Andrew Fleming of Seattle Sockeye from the World Ultimate Club Championships 2010 in Prague, do yourself a favor and watch it in HD (be sure to full-screen it).

Now, go watch it again and marvel at what website you are watching it on. That's right baby, this was the NUMBER ONE play on Tuesday's SportCenter Top 10.

Sweet huh? Personally, I would like more general acceptance of Ultimate in the mainstream and stuff like this can only help the cause. Long throw, huge layout, great crowd noise, intense spike and pretty pan-out shot to see a packed stadium. Perfect!

One of the real problems with Ultimate in the mainstream is its watchability. The highlights, like this Fleming one or this And-1 Mix Tape or this one, are great, but whole games are hard to watch if you are not a lover of the sport.

But imagine ESPN going to the USAU and saying, 
"We want to show a game of Ultimate but we have seen whole games before and we don't like players arguing between each other about calls, less stoppages, no players wandering the entire sideline, less time between pulls, and it must be in a stadium. Do that, and we've put it on in its entirety"
This is not inconceivable considering the response the Fleming video has garnered. The USAU would jump at this chance and the finals of Labor Day or E.C.C. would be filmed exactly to ESPN's specifications.For as much as people talk about how to get this sport on TV, all we really need is a ESPN producer to tell the USAU what it want and we'd be good to go.




One last thing, it could be me on the Top10 next - Ultivillage is going to be at Colorado Cup, ECC and Labor Day, all of which Streetgang is attending. I'm excited for this upcoming club season!

2 comments:

Torre said...

Rob also gave NBC permission to use the footage. Haven't heard of it being used anywhere though.

Torre said...

"the catch" will be on this show Saturday afternoon: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/03/29/winners-bracket-to-debut-saturday-on-abc-as-part-of-new-espn-sports-saturday-block/46481