... (As much as people want it to)
The American Ultimate Disc League just got off of another season of expansion, expanding into a Southern division adding teams from Atlanta, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Nashville, Raleigh and adding a few other teams to their existing divisions. This rapid expansion for such a young sports league might signal either the league has been making a lot of money from existing teams or that the league is willing to take a hit financially to get into markets that can provide returns in the coming years.
However besides the rapid expansion there are two other flaws with the league that might force the AUDL to ultimately collapse. The first problem with the AUDL is that there is no centralized marketing for all teams we will dive into this a bit deeper below about what this really is and what it will mean for the league. The second problem is the lack of prominent game footage for fans to watch this is a slightly smaller problem that many people tend to gloss over but is a vital part of making a sport go mainstream in this day and age.
The first problem that I mentioned above is the lack of a league marketing team that oversees all teams in all divisions. When looking at other sports leagues in the United States and across the world for that matter, most if not all have a centralized marketing team. This team develops a brand strategy that teams conform to so that no matter the team or city the league should be advertized the same way. This expands beyond just basic advertising on team websites but also apparel and associated swag. Currently the league sells products such as mugs, shirts, hoodies, and other basic merchandise, but there are a few teams that have their own stores with more products than what are available on the AUDL's shop.
This lack of cohesive brand management and marketing leads to issues where some teams might not be perceived as part of the league and leads to different and confused experiences for many fans that go to games for different teams.
The second flaw I introduced above was the lack of game footage available to fans. I happen to be from Seattle and go to school in New York, so when I am in New York I am unable to attend any of Seattle's games and therefore since the team doesn't provide live streams for all games, nor provides the game's full footage online via video anywhere I end up missing a lot of the action. This is not an isolated case, the only games that were freely available for fans this last season in the AUDL were the championship games and that was it. So there was no way for people who have just heard of the sport to go and watch game footage from the AUDL teams without paying for a subscription through ESPN/TSN or using some third party streaming website for the few teams that offered those streams.
This lack of free content from games severely limits the publicity and rate of growth of the league because it limits viewership to only fans that pay for streaming services or even worse limits viewership to only those who are going to the games.
These two problems with the AUDL will, in my opinion, severely limit the growth of the league in regards to fans and spectators and might just doom the league from ever reaching the heights of leagues such as the NFL, MLS, MLB or the NBA within the United States.
Think what I said above is wrong, or believe that the AUDL has what it takes to grow to a large recognized sports league? Let me know in the comments below or via email: sagediscussions@outlook.com.
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