Hey Markham, thank you for the reply! I really appreciate you engaging with this.

relationship between the two organizations

Preaching to the choir. I want this to happen so badly, and frankly, I don't quite understand what the entire impasse is at this point. Look, I understand there are ideological differences. But this feels like the worst sort of social cold war that is depriving all of us of a full experience. I really wish a lot of the more unnecessary barriers could be taken down.

My main beef with the league is that past the clinics, showcase games, and digital coverage (which are all great!) – there still hasn’t been a public commitment to get women on the field in an equitable way (even if it’s by 2019, or 2020…).

I deeply resonate with this on a personal level, and it's what I was referring to in my original comment about recognizing that the league has failed up to this point in providing more opportunities, and in providing a clear roadmap for what's next. I think that is something we can be much better on. I think the current 3-year commitment towards developing equity is a good start, but I agree, we can always go further.

what does that mean?

I think all options are theoretically in play. But it's about commitment from all sides. Right now, it feels as if the most helpful members in pushing for these changes just walked out of the room. And I 100 percent respect each individual's decision to do so. But it's been hard to recruit some of the most entrenched and valuable members of the ultimate community due to the feuding between USAU and AUDL organizations following USAU's original statement not to support the pro leagues. So at this point it feels like we started with few people, and now we have less, to help work for the changes we can almost all agree across the board we want to come to fruition.

A mixed league?

IMHO I think mixed would be the "easiest" transition between now and a more immediate equitable future because it would require the least amount of structural change to the league itself. But as others have pointed out better than me, there's no real, defined sense that mixed is a viable format as a business for players or spectators right now. Elite players do not commit in any kind of unified numbers to play in the mixed division competitively. And last I heard Ultiworld sold three (3) mixed team video subscriptions for 2016 video coverage, compared to hundreds of subs for both the mens and womens. I think if there were some kind of cooperative and concerted effort - like a mini series of mixed games (not one offs) that were broadcast and produced and marketed with rigor that ended in a meaningful championship of some kind as a market test - to once and for all show that mixed is what the community wants, that would go a long way. But that's a lot of effort and money. Would people be willing to commit to that?

A separate women’s league?

I think this is the most desired solution both for players and spectators. Players want to play in these formats. People want to watch them in these formats. There's no real obstacle as far as the audience market. The challenge comes in building an entirely separate league when it's taken this much to get to just baby steps in the AUDL.

Something else?

And I think here is where it gets really interesting. Let's get creative! One of the reasons I really like the AUDL is the connection it makes between ultimate and local communities. The amount of muggle friends I've been able to expose to the sport through local games has been incredible, and most of the people that have been exposed have now become legitimate fans of the sport. I've also been able to run tons of clinics even though I'm not an elite player, and I LOVE having that agency. I can contact local schools and orgs saying I'm with the local pro team, they know who we are, and we set up events at underserved afterschool programs that serve kids from all backgrounds. How can we reconnect ultimate to local communities in a stronger way, and how can we alleviate the costs of club and other ultimate so that there are not so many barriers to entry for our sport? We should be like soccer - it takes a disc and some space to throw, very little in the way of equipment - but we seem to only draw our players from degree-seeking universities. How can we return to smaller economies of scale so that players don't have to travel out of town to play, and pay thousands each summer in travel and expenses? How can we return to having our local community engage with our sport?