UKU Competition Structure

The UKU competition structure varies a little depending on the division. All of our divisions hold a UKU National Championships. Additionally, the outdoor season in the Open, Women and Mixed divisions also have the UKU Tour; and in the Open and Women divisions there is also the annual European Ultimate Championship Series.

In 2009 we have been reviewing the objectives of these various competitions to help guide decision-making when it becomes necessary to make changes to how the competitions work.

We have started this process with the Open and Women divisions, although some aspects also apply to Mixed.

The following statements attempt to describe the high level goals of each competition:

UKU National Championships (All divisions)

Competition to crown the UK National Champions
Should be open and available to all, and only, UK clubs. "Open to all" should be achieved through a minimal number of qualification rounds (*1) - i.e. it is expected that there would be a National Finals with only a limited number of places available
Does not necessarily need to rank teams other than as required to decide the winners and any positions being used as qualification for later events (e.g. international events)
The UKU's primary “showcase event” – we will aim to build a spectator base and spend more effort on publicising this event outside the ultimate community

UKU Tour (Outdoor Open, Women, Mixed only)

Multiple-event competition structure - at least three events - that aims to produce an annual UK Ranking list across all teams that compete in it.
Tournament formats will be constrained to ensure there will be a high proportion of competitive games.
Focused towards teams/clubs that have reasonable level of stability: likely to enter more than one of the events, with stable club rosters regardless of event location
Aims to ensure tournaments meet minimum standards, and should help to push for those minimum standards to be raised year on year
Will adapt structurally in order to grow capacity in response to clear evidence of higher demand but will not necessarily attempt to be provide places to all teams

European Ultimate Championship Series (Outdoor Open and Women only)

Annual elite European club competition - should be the pinnacle of club competition in most years
Provide an agreed structure in terms of dates to the climax of the club ultimate season in Europe
Push the top European teams to higher level to help meet the demands of competing against the top teams from the rest of the World - esp. North America
The structure of the series - with Regional qualifiers (EUCR) - aims to provide strong European competition for clubs that fall just outside the qualification places for the Finals

(*1) This has not been the case for a number of years in Open, Women and Mixed divisions, but is a requirement that will be met by the 2010 structure for Open and Women. It will not necessarily be delivered by the structure in the Mixed division for 2010.

Competition Structure 2010

Outdoor Season 2010

Senior Divisions

We will continue to run a "split season": i.e. the Mixed Tour & Nationals will be held during the Spring, with Open/Women season running over the summer. (For specifics on dates, please refer to the events calendar.)

Open/Women divisions will in 2010 see Nationals split away from the Tour.

In the Open division we plan to introduce Regional championships as a qualification round for teams wanting to play at Nationals (*1).

In the Women division all teams will be able to enter directly to National Finals.

In 2010, the number of regions may be subject to the number of teams entering and is still to be finalised (as of Sept 2009), but the medium term plan is to establish a number of fixed geographical regions and for the Regional championships to build up their own identity.

UK-Nationals will act as a qualification round (the so-called EUCQ) for the European Ultimate Championship Series. If that competition retains its current structure then UK-Nationals will be a qualification tournament for the West-Region qualifier (EUCR-W). UKU has appealed to the European Championship Series Committee to review the structure of these regional competitions for 2010 following the results of the EUCR-W 2009.

Teams will NOT be required to retain the same roster from the UKU Tour into UK-Regionals and Nationals. It is intended that the Tour tournaments will maintain a relatively strict set of roster rules, but only for the purposes of that competition. Teams will be free to make unlimited roster changes prior to the start of UK-Regionals as that competition will be governed by the roster rules from the European Series.

(*1) In 2010 it is intended that a number of the top teams from The Tour will be offered the chance to skip UK-Regionals provided they only make very limited changes to their roster (precise details will be published soon).

The UKU Mixed season will, as in 2009, consist of three Tour events where the UKU Nationals will be used as "Tour 3". This means that qualification and seeding at Nationals will be taken from the results of Tour 1 and Tour 2.

University Divisions will continue to have the same structure as 2009.

Outdoor National Championships will be held in Open, Women and Mixed divisions. There are Regional qualifiers in Open and Mixed divisions. Open division is part of the BUCS championships, and National Finals will (as in 2009) be co-located with the National BUCS Championships in Sheffield.

Junior Divisions will hold U19 and U17 Outdoor Nationals in Open and Women divisions. There are no plans to introduce regional qualifiers at this time as it is expeceted that there is enough space for all the teams that want to enter.

Indoor Season 2010

The indoor season is planned to run with the same structure as 2009 across all divisions. It is worth noting that Club Indoor Nationals has a qualification round, but that those qualifiers are not tied to any geographic region. There are no current plans to change this.

Beach Ultimate 2010

UK Ultimate intends to introduce a formal National Beach ultimate championships during 2010. Initial plans are that we will identify a number of existing tournaments as qualifiers - in agreement with the organisers of course - with National Finals being run towards the end of the Summer.

Further information

Article looking at some key areas of the changes for 2010 by Si Hill

Outdoor Season 2010 Provisional Dates for Tour and Nationals

The dates shown below are the intended dates for UKU Mixed, Open and Women tournaments in 2010.

There is also a PDF provisional calendar below that contains many other tournaments as well as the UKU events (thanks Felix).

Please be aware that it is not possible to guarantee that we will receive bids for the dates outlined below. We will be favouring bids for these dates of course.

UKU Mixed Tour:
MT1 = 26-27 MARCH (*1)
MT2 = 17-18 APRIL
MT-NATS (MT3) = 15-16 MAY

UKU Open/Women Tour:
OWT1 = 29-30 MAY (*2)
OWT2 = 19-20 JUNE
OWT3 = 17-18 JULY (*1)

UKU National Championships
UK-Regionals = 31 JULY/1 AUG(*3)
UK-Nationals = 21/22 AUG

European Ultimate Championship Series
EUCR-W (Assume that this is likely to be 4/5 SEPT)
Expect EUCF to be end of Sept / beginning October (no bids received as yet)

Also note:
World Ultimate Club Championships is 3-10 JULY in Prague, Czech Rep.
World Junior Ultimate Championships is 3-7 AUGUST in Heilbron, Germany

(*1) These dates are certainly not ideal when seen in isolation. The Competition Committee they were the better than the alternatives when considering the bigger picture of the whole calendar.

(*2) As of 11 Sept, there is an outstanding question about whether to plan OWT1 as a 3-day event and make use of the bank holiday. Decision to be finalised asap.

(*3) Competition Committee still needs to announce how many regions will be used in 2010. For now bidders should assume there will be four: North, Midlands, South-West, South-East but this is still subject to change.

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