It is a widely known fact that Carleton’s campus culture revolves around Ultimate Frisbee. This weekend marked the most important weekend in Ultimate Frisbee this year, as Division I Ultimate teams from around North America competed for the national title in Burlington, WA. Carleton players exemplified their talent as both men’s and women’s teams, Carleton Ultimate team (CUT) and Syzygy, competed in the finals. Carleton students were proud and excited to watch their classmates and friends compete in the tournament.
Many of the championship games were streamed on Ultiworld, the popular Ultimate Frisbee media website, which offers top stories related to Ultimate, player rankings and game reporting. Ultiworld is an exclusive website which requires subscribers to pay an annual fee in order to access stories and streams. Ultiworld subscriptions are a hot commodity and are highly sought after among the Frisbee fan base.
Usually, viewers attempting to stream the games hit a paywall requesting the viewer to pay an all-access or event fee. Some Carleton students, however, reported peculiar compensation requests from Ultiworld. One pop-up requested that sophomore Mama Bird ’27, who just wanted to watch Syzygy face off against Washington Element, “cut off your left arm and mail it to Ultiworld headquarters in order to access this stream.” Another pop-up requested that first-year Zoo Disc ’28 “sell your soul to the devil” in order to watch CUT play Penn State. Slo Core ’25 reported that her pop-up requested her to give up her future first born child in order to watch CUT face off against UMass.
While many of the playoff games were streamed on Ultiworld, the national championship game was streamed on ESPN’s college athletics streaming service, ESPNU. Like Ultiworld, ESPNU requires a complicated process to allow viewers to log in and watch streamed services. Prospective viewers such as Zion Curtain ’26 reported that ESPNU requested a 42-factor verification process using 8 different electronic devices in order to confirm that he was a real human being and allow him to sign in to his account. Sophomore Ursa Major ’27 reported that ESPNU required her to fly home and use multi-factor verification on her 2001 first-gen iPod.
As Ultimate Frisbee gains popularity across the nation, it is imperative that Ultiworld becomes more accessible to Frisbee fans, such as not requiring users to remove their limbs in order to gain access to livestreams.
