Welcome to the UPA's College Restructuring Forum

Welcome to the UPA's college restructuring forum! As you may know the UPA is looking at making some significant changes to its college competitive structure. This restructuring is one of the components of the UPA's Strategic Plan. In December, 2008 the UPA gathered a committee of various stakeholders together to review data collected from several surveys conducted over the past 24 months and outline potential structures for the future of college Ultimate competition. These structures were narrowed down to two that we are seeking member feedback on: the Super-Regional structure and the Conference structure.

This forum seeks to gather qualitative feedback on these two plans. Through this feedback the UPA will propose additional details to the plans and develop a mechanism for quantitative feedback. If this feedback is positive, the UPA will develop a plan to transition to and implement the more widely accepted structure.

There are four main sections of this blog:
•Common Elements: These are major elements of the competition structure that both plans share
•Plan Feedback: Super-Regionals
•Plan Feedback: Conference Structure
•Plan(s) Comparison to existing college competitive structure

Once you've read through the plans on the UPA website, you can add your comments by heading over to the topics listed on the left side navigation bar or by simply scrolling down on the home page of the blog.

Before commenting, please feel free to re-read the parts of the plans related to the questions and any supporting documents as well as the discussion ground rules listed at the top left of the blog.

A moderator has been assigned to each major discussion topic to help keep the discussion active and on track. The moderator also has the right to remove posts that are in violation of the discussion ground rules. Obviously, the UPA would prefer to "police" the discussion as little as possible so please be respectful of your fellow posters, most of whom you could encounter on an Ultimate field.

The blog will be open for comments until March 31st at which point we will close it and use the comments to help develop the quantitative assessment.

If there are questions that you would like to see added please e-mail Kyle Weisbrod at kyle.weisbrod (at) upa.org. We can not guarantee that we would add your question as we would have to look at the feedback and data gathered so far. Additional questions may be added by the UPA if ongoing discussions warrant separating out new or specific topics.

If you have any comments about the usability of the site please e-mail kyle.weisbrod (at) upa.org

Common Elements: Regular Season Events

Both plans call for UPA sanctioning of "regular season events." These events may be run by independent event organizers and would require UPA sanctioning. In addition, these events would be required to provide minimum event standards in order to continue to be considered a "regular season event" in future seasons. Any team may participate in these events but only results of games played between teams that have submitted a valid roster to the UPA by the set deadline would have a "meaningful" impact on post-season play.

In the Super-Regional Plan, only pre-registered teams (Tier 1) that participate in these events could be awarded selection committee bids to the "Super-Regional" events, and the selection committee would base their decision off of these results. In the Conference Plan, results of games between pre-registered teams (Tier 1 & 2) at these events would directly impact the allocation of championship bids to regions and qualify individual teams to participate at regional events.

What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns about this element of both plans? Would this help to "formalize" the college regular season? Should only "pre-registered" teams be able to participate in these events? If you are a Tournament Director, would you be interested in hosting a sanctioned "regular season" college event? What should the UPA's standards for these events look like? How much should a team be expected to pay for an event to have these event standards?

Common Elements: Early Roster Deadline

Both plans propose an early roster deadline which teams would have to meet in order to play in events where game results have an impact on post-season bids. In both plans teams could still register at a later deadline (similar to the current deadline for sectionals) to participate in the post-season, but teams that miss the early deadline will not be considered part of the official regular season and might not be permitted to play in official current season events. What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns about this element of both plans? What is the earliest approximate date that your team would be able to register for the "regular season" events? Will teams be willing to submit rosters and go through the eligibility proces in January, and be limited to this roster for the regular season?

Common Elements: Size of Post-Season Events

In both plans, the size of post-season events varies considerably from what the current College Series. Super-Regional events and Conference Championships are specifically made smaller, to make them easier to handle logistically and in terms of formatting and showcasing the events. In both plans, not only are there more national events offered, but they are all considerably larger than the single 16-team nationals of the last 10 years (ranging from 20-64 teams, depending on the plan and the division). What are your thoughts about the size of these events? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of the smaller and larger events? What aspects of an event would you prioritize that might influence the optimal size of the various post-season events?

Super-Regional Plan: Open Forum

What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns about the Super-Regional plan? Here you can post about any element of the Super-Regional Plan but please be sure to follow the ground rules listed on the left hand navigation bar.

Super Regional Plan: Div II/III structure

The Super-Regional Plan calls for the top 40 teams to advance to super-regionals while the remaining teams compete in a structure similar to what currently exists. The men's division will also have Div III sectionals, regionals, nationals. What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns on the structure outside of the Div I? Will enough men's and women's teams participate in the Div II structure to make it viable? Will enough men's teams participate in the Div III structure to make it viable?

Super-Regional Plan: Strength Bids To The DI Championships

What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns on the planned allocation of Division I Nationals strength bids (4) to teams based on an algorithm following Super-Regionals?

Super-Regional Plan: Qualification of Teams to "Super-Regionals"

What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns on the selection of teams to the "Super-Regional" events? What is your opinion on half of the teams (24) at these events being chosen by selection committee? Who should make up this selection committee? What is your opinion of half of these teams (24) qualifying as sectional champions? If you disagree with the selection committee and/or sectional qualification elements of the plan, how would you suggest teams qualify for Super-Regionals?

Conference Plan: Open Forum

What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns about the Conference Plan? Here you can post about any element of the Conference Plan, but please be sure to follow the ground rules listed on the left hand navigation bar.

Conference Plan: Conference Bid Allocation

What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns about the allocation of nationals bids to conferences based on the results of regional events? If you disagree with the mechanism described in the plan, how would you suggest conferences be awarded bids to national events? What do you think about how individual teams qualify to participate in Div I and II Regionals?

Conference Plan: Regional Bid Allocation

What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns about the allocation of nationals bids to regions based on regular season results/rankings? If you disagree with the mechanism described in the plan, how would you suggest regions be awarded bids to national events?

Conference Plan: Conference Composition

What are your thoughts, ideas and concerns about the composition of the conferences? What do you like or not like about the idea of conferences as described in the plan (size, team composition, etc.)? What factors should take precedent in terms of assigning teams to conferences? What level of flexibility would make sense in terms of new teams being added to conferences or existing teams being able to change conferences from year to year?

Compare New Plans to Existing College Series Structure

The two new plans represent a compilation of ideas meant to address changes to the college season that players communicated they wanted, including a more formalized regular season, a structure for tiered divisional play in the post-season, and revision of bid allocation methods and geographic boundaries. However, the plans both include significant departures from the existing college competitive structure (including the informal regular season and current UPA College Series).

What elements of the existing college competitive structure (regular season or UPA Series) are you glad to see replaced in either of these plans? What elements of the existing college competitive structure (regular season or UPA Series) do you like that are now specifically missing from these plans? What elements of the existing college competitive structure (regular season or UPA Series) do you like or dislike that still exist in some fashion in either or both of the proposed plans?