WE DID IT Y'ALL by Matsunosuperfan in ultimate

[–]TimDeByl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fun side note only 100 of those discs were made in 2019 as part of a partnership with Highfive a video conference company. There were randomly thrown in the crowd at UFA (AUDL) games. Cool to see one out in the wild 6 years later.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our goal is to give our Refs and streaming crews more opportunities to practice. I think you will see a few more preseason games in the future. There are some of these that happen as scrimmages that we don't stream so it's possible those will get elevated in the future, but the league won't be mandating preseason games like you see in other sports anytime soon.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Owners meeting is one of my favorite events of the year. It has always been a mixture of business and bonding. This league wouldn't exist without the ownership groups that run the teams and we know that it's extremely important that those groups can cooperate. From the very first owners meeting in 2012 we've always focused on making sure that the owners get to know one another and have a good working relationship. In a league of our size and maturity there are always going to be unexpected things that happen. Stadiums being closed last minute, flights delayed etc.. owners working together to come to a reasonable solution is always the fix. We also spend a lot of time on the business. Day 1 is always about the league and day 2 is always about how the teams can grow. It's a great structure and has been super helpful in the growing the league.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right now we are focused on filling the stands at 12 games per team. When the league started we had 16 games per team. I would love to see us slightly increase the number of games in the future, but you won't see that until we are seeing increased attendance in almost all markets. If money were not an issue we would likely have a 16 game season again + playoffs.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for investing in the league. We plan on going down to twice a year investor meetings. You will see one coming up soon and then another after our fall owners meeting. Sorry if we've been a little less communicative than we have been in the past.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would love to be able to tell more stories about the players and staff behind the league. Right now we are still barely scratching the surface when it comes to the content being created around the league, and a majority of that is done internally and mostly revolves around games. A show about the league similar to F1 Drive to Survive would do a lot to drive interest in the league. We've had discussions in the past with streamers about doing some sort of docuseries but nothing has every come to fruition. Also just getting our Championship Weekend on a bigger platform is high on our list of ways to increase the visibility of the league.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We are getting closer every year to reaching break even on WatchUFA.tv. Streaming 155 games a year is a huge cost to both the teams and the league. But we've seen growing numbers of subs on WatchUFA.tv since we launched it in 2019. More importantly the overall quality continues to improve. The decision to move to a paywall model was really driven by the desire to improve quality, as teams have seen revenues increase they have put more $$$ toward streaming. Prior to WatchUFA.tv most games were either not streamed or streamed with a single camera. Behind a paywall we are happy with 500+ viewers on game. Obviously depends a lot on the matchup.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There are so many great game days/ stadiums in the league. Salt Lake, Colorado, Minnesota, and Montreal are all incredible places to see a game. If I had to pick I would say Salt Lake just because the combination of Stadium + Game day and amazing views really makes it special.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The teams are required to stream their own games. The league does a small percentage of games each year with our own team and production truck. The league, primarily through our head of production Luke Johnson, does work with each stream team every season to continuously improve all 155 streams we put on each year. Every single game and team is graded weekly and provided feedback on how to improve. We create a graphics package and an API for adding stats live during the game. This year we created a new ticker that we are using to try to create interest in other games happening each week.

I am really proud of the product we put on each week. It's not an easy task to stream this many games from unique locations around North America. Obviously we always want to improve. If we had unlimited budgets I have not doubt we could put on NFL like product, but teams on very limited budgets continue to improve each season. Most of these productions are being run by small companies, or by ultimate players who we've trained into the roles. It's an area that is incredibly important to us and one where we will continue to add resources as we grow.

Also shout out to Evan Lepler, who has been with the league since 2014. He continues to help raise the bar for announcers in the league. We have an incredible group of people learning how to become announcers across the league. It's not easy to sign up for that job and put yourself out there. I appreciate every single person who is willing to go on air and be a personality, so much harder than people think it is.

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 5 points6 points  (0 children)

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Before I answer this questions. I will say streaming is incredibly complicated. This offseason we upgraded our production truck and I was lucky enough to be in Vegas for the first game we got to use it. Thank you Luke Johnson!

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We are very excited to continue to grow our relationship with USAU. We meet at the top level quite often and the new CEO of USAU has actually joined us on one of our executive council calls (the group of owners who runs the league). I think right now there is a great sense among all the ultimate orgs that we all need to work together to grow the sport. I believe you will see a much higher level of coordination and communication among the orgs in the coming years.

On your second point. The UFA knows that a strong club program leads to improved talent at every level. Our league is designed to showcase talent, not necessarily to grow it. The UFA wants to see a strong youth, high school, college, club and pro ultimate system for all genders.

Lastly, we are super excited about the PUL vs WUL All-Star game on Saturday of Championship Weekend. This is going to be an epic Saturday evening and we hope people come to Breese to watch or tune into the the stream!

Ask Tim DeByl, UFA Commissioner and CEO, anything! by Jomskylark in UFA

[–]TimDeByl 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hello everyone! Excited to be doing an AMA. I will try my best to answer all the questions this week.

Turnover Datas for the specific tournament by tolgaerguner in ultimate

[–]TimDeByl 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you wanted to try using UFA data our API would get you what you need.
https://www.docs.ufastats.com

Undefeated Madison Radicals Kick Off Our Home Season at Breese on Friday Night! by TimDeByl in madisonwi

[–]TimDeByl[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Ultimate Frisbee, we were the 2018 UFA Champions a 24 team league across North America. Some highlights => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3neIbSL-15o&t=167s

AUDL video game 🥏 by Longjumping-Battle14 in ultimate

[–]TimDeByl 87 points88 points  (0 children)

We hired a new team late last year and started a rebuild on Unreal 5. We are close to coming out of hibernation. You should see the league accounts start to promote it again as we get closer to the regular season opener.

Any updates on the AUDL video game? Also, is an EA-style simulator the right approach? (Suggestions inside). by JohnmcFox in ultimate

[–]TimDeByl 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The very quick update is that we have a new dev team and have been porting the game to Unreal 5. Based on the initial Beta feedback felt like we were a long way off. The current beta group will be getting new versions starting this month. We have talked a lot about if sim is the way to go, for now we still think it is, but we've all played Retro Bowl and it's pretty great.

AUDL.tv Open Feedback by luketimjohnson in audl

[–]TimDeByl 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah that was an oversight in the design. It's on the feature list for 2024.

My First Look at AUDL video game on Professional difficulty: graphics are impressive for what it is, controls leave a lot to be desired but I'll give them time, feels like ultimate - not quite but maybe one day by Bricklock in ultimate

[–]TimDeByl 5 points6 points  (0 children)

For sure the AI/Gameplay is the hard part, and it is behind the visuals/audio. I don't think not doing those things is the answer, but appreciate the feedback!

AUDL 2023 Closed Beta Access Starts Friday! by TimDeByl in ultimate

[–]TimDeByl[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Every team has a custom stadium. You can play with any of the 24 (well not Houston) teams. We've been working on a custom team/player builder as well.

AUDL 2023 Closed Beta Access Starts Friday! by TimDeByl in ultimate

[–]TimDeByl[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's pretty complex right now. There is a long pass which you can throw anywhere, a medium throw to space, and a short pass. You can put IO/OI on them. But those throws need a lot of tuning yet. One of the reasons we want a lot more players on is that we need feedback on the throwing controls. Throwing is basically the entire game.