The growth of ultimate media coverage over the last five years has been great, and last weekend’s action at The World Games was a fantastic example of just how good ultimate can look with 8 HD cameras and a professional media crew (even if the Olympic Channel only showed a handful of the games during their coverage).
Recently, however, this increased coverage has given us several high profile examples of contentious calls which have caused great controversy within the ultimate community. In case you’ve missed them, or want some examples of the kinds of situations I am talking about, here a few links:
The World Games 2017:
- Japan vs Australia (Pool Play)
- Canada vs Australia (Bronze Medal Match)
- Canada vs Colombia (Pool Play)
Windmill 2017:
- Grut vs Poland (Mixed Final)
Of course, there have been — and will be — many more examples as the media coverage of ultimate continues to grow. These cases raise a number of issues surrounding the rules themselves, how we officiate ultimate, the overarching culture at the top level, how we educate players at all levels, and many other important issues. That being said, the topic I will be covering here is:
How should we discuss these incidents?
SOTG As Spectators
Firstly, it is completely counter-productive to call out the player who made the call as a cheater.
The rules (which you can read in the header image) tell us that we must assume the call is being made in good faith. The problem comes when the outcome of the call differs from what we, as spectators, think the outcome should have been.
There is a huge difference between sitting at home watching a zoomed in, slo-mo, HD replay of a play from 4 different angles and being in the play itself (or even just being close and seeing it only once in real time, as a GA or player on the sideline for example).
Which leads me on to my second point…
Differing Views On ‘Fairness’
Is the outcome of the play decided by the players on the field more or less fair than the outcome decided by those of us with replays? The answer to this depends on how you perceive ‘fairness’.
Many would argue that if it requires going through a slo-mo replay frame-by-frame to decide the outcome of a play, then the disc should probably go back. At the same time, if you have that slo-mo replay and can go through it frame-by-frame to see exactly what happened then should we go with that rather than sending the disc back?
But, even with multi-angled coverage, there are a lot of cases where the replays are not even conclusive — just look at any of the discussions regarding the above examples — with plenty of voices on both sides of the debate.
When writing the rules, WFDF have declared that whatever the players decide on the pitch is the fairest outcome. To this extent, there are members of the ultimate community that are calling for replays to be shown to the players (at stadium games with big screens) so they can see the play again and decide for themselves. However, this is not a post about officiating systems…
Progressing The Sport
The main reason, in my opinion, for debating contentious calls is to educate the community.
The examples above serve as excellent resources for players to discuss the finer points of the rules, regarding things like the definition of ‘legally positioned’, what constitutes a ‘dangerous play’, what constitutes ‘non-incidental contact’, etc. with real life examples.
Rather than criticising players for making particular calls, or contesting particular calls, it is far better to ask why that player felt they needed to make or contest that call.
If the outcome is clearly incorrect based upon replay evidence then we should strive to educate the player base about whichever rule was misinterpreted, or about how our own perspective can be misleading in certain situations.
If the replay evidence is unclear, as it often is depending on the angle of the play, then we should recognise that and make sure the community is aware of what constitutes good replay evidence, and good perspective.
Discussing these issues, along with discussions about fairness, will move our sport forward towards unifying rule sets and officiating systems, as well as improving SOTG at all levels.


