"Squat down again. Is there anyone who wants to transfer today's ticket?"
"I also squat down."
"Squat together."
In the Beijing Partner Frisbee Club group, those who did not get the number of seats for the Frisbee event on that day went around asking for tickets. There is no way. More and more people join the group, and the group is also growing. Now the group of this club has expanded according to the expansion of A, B and C, and has expanded into a "D" group. Once the weekly activity registration program is launched, it is doomed to be "slow". The Dragon Boat Festival holiday activity released at 10:11 p.m. on May 31 was sold out when it opened at 10:12 p.m.
An activity organized by Beijing Partner Frisbee Club. Figure/Provided by respondents This is a microcosm of the hot phenomenon of frisbee movement in the past six months. I don't know since when, small squares in the community, parks, football fields... whenever there is a space, there are people jumping up and down and throwing frisbees. According to incomplete statistics, similar Frisbee communities have increased from single digits to more than 100 in the past year. Affected by the epidemic, the number of Frisbee activities organized by many communities is limited to 25-30 people each time, and only about 200 people can participate in activities a week. It is often difficult to get a ticket in community Frisbee Bureau. It is said that scalpers have appeared in some places. Fans are more enthusiastic about Frisbee than ever before.
Zhang Kun, the manager of the Beijing Partner Frisbee Club, did not expect such popularity. As the first group of people to play Frisbee in China, Zhang Kun told China News Weekly that Frisbee was brought to China by some foreign employees at the beginning of the 21st century. In the past 20 years, it has been a small minority movement. The real popularity began in the second half of 2021.
Zhang Kun. Figure/Provided by respondents Because of the huge impact of the epidemic on life, the new cultural system, aesthetic fashion and living standards have been redefined, such as containment, living at home and keeping social distance. In the Report on Ten Trends in Life in 2022 released by Diaoyin, 42.4% of users regard outdoor leisure sports as an important way of entertainment and relaxation. Among the people who participate in outdoor activities every year, 63.9% choose parks. Undoubtedly, parks are the most user-friendly outdoor places with the lowest cost and the easiest realization in the current epidemic situation. In the data of Xiaohongshu's "Ten Life Trends in 2022", the mountain life of "going outdoors after being held indoors for too long" has become popular. Among the frisbee, camping and paddle board, the number of frisbee releases ranked the top three, with a year-on-year increase of 6 times.
Zhao Ran, the general manager of Mafengwo Marketing Center, told China News Weekly that as China has entered into the normalization of epidemic prevention, young people have transferred their travel needs to local play, and people also have great enthusiasm for a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, a number of fashionable sports that are both fun and can be perfectly integrated with daily life have been born, which has become a new territory for young people to build for themselves, Frisbee, flag football, grass skiing, land surfboard, paddle board, spike ball, etc. are all listed here. Frisbee is the undisputed top stream due to its low threshold, safety, strong social interaction, being suitable for taking pictures, being equipped for people and easy to realize.
Flag football. Figure/Wasp Nest In the eyes of Dong Da, the founder of YONSEED who has promoted the Frisbee culture for eight years, these characteristics are just the reason why Frisbee brings people into the field. What really leaves people is the cultural core of the game of Frisbee, which has been embedded in its birth date. That's why these young people who came to the Frisbee field more than ten years ago have not left until they are middle-aged. In the hearts of those who love frisbee, frisbee is not only a sport, but also the ultimate of people ideal It is a two hour utopia beyond real life.
"Better be a dog than a dog"
"The sport of Frisbee makes me understand that it's better to be a dog than to play with a dog." At the Talk Show in October 2021, actor Xiao Bei told a story about the sport of Frisbee, which made many people suddenly find the sport that seems to be popular overnight.
This image of the stem reveals the most common misunderstanding about Frisbee, which is also an embarrassing problem that Zhang Kun and his novices often encounter. When they mention Frisbee, many people "have dogs in their minds immediately". In fact, there are many ways to play Frisbee, such as Ultimate Frisbee, Avoidance Frisbee, Frisbee Golf, etc. At present, most people are playing Ultimate Frisbee, also called Frisbee Competition. This is a team sport that combines football, football and basketball. Players on the field are divided into two teams, usually 5 to 5 or 7 to 7. The two ends are divided into zones, passing and receiving in the middle of the competition area, and scoring in the designated area through the conduction of frisbee. Because the introduction is simple and physical contact is not allowed, it provides a new outdoor option for urban people in the post epidemic period. At the same time, Ultimate Frisbee is a mixed team of men and women, giving it a strong social attribute.
After appearing on the talk show, stars from all walks of life began to experience Frisbee in a series of variety shows such as "Nice to Meet You", "I'm Going to Live This Way", "Send 100 Girls Home" and so on. In these shows, the coach who played Frisbee with Zhou Xun, Zhang Junning, Yan Rujing and other stars is Xu Mengkai, who used to be the head coach of the National Frisbee Youth Team and now runs the Gravity sports community. He believes that the opportunity for the rise of Frisbee is based on the development of refined camping culture in China in recent two years. In the camp with heavy equipment, Frisbee is very easy to carry. "It's OK to hang a bag, and it's OK to find a crack in the car." The light and fashionable temperament of Frisbee also naturally matches with camping, providing many campers with a new choice of outdoor scene entertainment. Since last year or even the year before last, Frisbee has become the first popular in the camping circle.
Xu Mengkai. Figure/Provided by respondents In the middle of 2021, Xu Mengkai began to clearly feel that the Frisbee was breaking the circle. In June, he was invited to participate in three creative market activities in Shanghai and promote the Frisbee culture. At the same time, he also introduced new people to the Frisbee Club of Shanghai Wings where he was at that time. Unexpectedly, there were a lot of people adding to the group. Xu Mengkai remembered that on the "Angoro Sports Fair", 200 people entered the group that day. Within a week, the group was full of 500 people, and grew to more than 5000 people in half a year. Originally, it was the Gravity community launched by Shanghai Wings to recruit new talents, which grew into its own vitality.
Since Shanghai, the frisbee craze has gradually spread to northern cities. In August and September 2021, Zhang Kun, who has been organizing ultimate Frisbee competitions among clubs in Beijing, began to feel obvious: "Previously, only 30 or 40 people participated in a single game. From August to September, he obviously felt the increase in the number of people. By September, 80 or 90 people could come to a game, and the number of teams increased from two or three to seven or eight." Since then, these "old Frisbee people" who have played Frisbee for more than ten years It was predicted that "Frisbee will be on fire", but no one expected that it would become like this.
After Frisbee came into the public's view, as a new way of life, social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Diaoyin keenly captured the traffic of emerging trend sports. Like the development path of skiing and camping, social platforms became the main traffic gathering place of Frisbee. Fans spread Frisbee culture and trendy lifestyle on the platform, and the platform's grass planting logic also allows the public to find access to the Frisbee community faster. At the broader public level, stars' experience of Frisbee in variety shows has played a strong role in publicity. In 2022, "Little Red Book" and other platforms have received a surge in traffic. This year, the number of frisbee related searches during the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday increased by about 24 times over the same period last year, and the number of frisbee related searches during the May Day holiday increased by about 40 times over the same period last year. Open the small red book to search for "Frisbee", and more than 70000 notes can be displayed. Most of the release time shows that within the past six months, Frisbee clubs have spread all over Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
The trend movement represented by Frisbee soon attracted the attention of traditional travel platforms. In July 2021, the Mafengwo, which is dominated by young users, opened a tidal travel experiment project "Please get on the bus at weekends". Zhao Ran, the project leader, told China News Weekly that at the beginning of the project, her eyes were still more on the camping line and art line. Since August, She found that the "appearance rate" of Frisbee among people who like to play has been quite high. Beijing has been slightly slow to respond. Shanghai and Chengdu are pioneers of such trend sports as Frisbee. After the Frisbee went out of the circle, the waist flag football, which is similar to the Frisbee, became popular gradually. In addition, paddle boards, land surfboards, Spike Ball... a number of trend sports emerged.
Compared with traditional sports such as basketball, foot and badminton, these trendy sports are usually safe "non collision" sports with a stronger sense of games and entertainment. In the words of some users of Little Red Book, they are not so "straight men". Moreover, the rules are simple and easy to use, which meet the "greatest common divisor" of the demands of all groups. Men and women eat all together, so it has a stronger social attribute. The distinctive trendy characteristics also greatly meet the expression and sharing desire of young people's personality tags, and the sense of identity of urban youth. To some extent, the emotional value and social value brought by the trend sports are higher than the sports value. As the Mafengwo said in an article, "You have a friend who can't play mahjong, and he has a partner who can't play basketball, so you can get together and play something simple and easy to learn."
In addition to Frisbee, the most fashionable sport today is flag football, which is a simplified version of "non collision" American football. In short, holding and pushing people are not allowed in the game. The defender pulls the flag on the belt of the attacking player holding the ball, and the attack is stopped. It is similar to the game of tearing the name card, and it is also a mixed team.
However, compared with Frisbee, rugby is not easy to throw and catch, and more tactics are needed in the game. When unfamiliar players can not remember the movement clearly, they need to repeat the tactics constantly. The waiting process is long, which easily makes some players lose patience, which to some extent limits the spread rate of flag football. Only Frisbee can successfully break through the minority movement.
According to the statistics of the first domestic Frisbee information and data platform "Frisbee Circle", as of May 3, 2022, there are 157 college Frisbee teams, 206 Frisbee clubs and communities, and 112 competitive teams in China. Regardless of the number of social frisbee teams or the number of people, Shanghai ranks first with overwhelming advantages.
According to the observation of Xu Mengkai and Zhang Kun, since last June, there have been more than 30 new communities in Shanghai, and the increase in Beijing is not much worse. At the beginning of last year, the Frisbee clubs in Shanghai and Beijing together were still in single digits. In March and April this year, Zhang Kun started to build a community. By May, there were nearly 2000 people. During the May Day holiday and the Dragon Boat Festival, Zhang Kun was busy going round and round. Every day, there were 1 or 2 Frisbee games. He noticed that almost all the rented sites were taken by the Frisbee community. Not long ago, a famous sports major V also published an article complaining that the football field was occupied by the Frisbee Party.
If Chinese young people are dominated by camping in 2021, then 2022 must be the year of Frisbee. "Is there anyone with Frisbee?" seems to have become the most popular social way at present.
Unique "Frisbee Spirit"
Miao Er touched Frisbee for the first time in his sophomore year, and "went into the pit" as soon as he flew. At the beginning, he only wanted to find an event that could exercise his body. When he was less than 1.70 meters tall, he instinctively rejected football, basketball, volleyball and other sports with higher requirements for physical quality, while Frisbee was relatively less "body eating". In junior high school, he played table tennis. However, as long as he did not practice table tennis for a period of time, his skills declined sharply, and he could not compete with others. Moreover, table tennis mainly depended on his own strength, and winning was just a personal pleasure.
Shen Shen, who is studying at Tongji University and mocks himself as a "mild social phobia patient", has a deeper sense of community brought by Frisbee. Before she came into contact with Frisbee, she was a lonely runner. Her only favorite sport was running that she could do alone. At most, she played badminton with friends. Frisbee was an extremely inclusive sport form in terms of rules and community atmosphere. Only Frisbee made Shen realize the attraction of group sports for the first time. As a result, she got to know a group of friends. "Disk Circle" is a frisbee content and data platform jointly founded by Shen Shen, Miao Er, Jing Lin and other college students who met with frisbee. Unexpectedly, it has become the first such platform in China.
All of this is inseparable from the unique charm of Frisbee, which is also the unique spirit of Frisbee advocated by the people of these Frisbees.
There is no referee for Frisbee, which is the biggest feature of Frisbee that is different from other sports. When there is a dispute on the court, the player who believes that the foul has occurred puts forward the foul according to the rules, and the player who has been put forward the foul chooses to agree or disagree under the premise of fair competition, which is discussed and resolved by two parties. It is undeniable that the principle of athletes' self judgment is a challenge to the core of competition. Jing Lin, a teammate of Shen Shen's school team, told China News Weekly that in the fierce competition, he sometimes violated the Frisbee spirit a little. "A call that is beneficial to his own side can gain decisive advantage and win the game. This is a test of players' adherence to the spirit of Frisbee in Frisbee competitions without referees, and this' dilemma 'is not found in other competitive sports with referees. " Behind it is the character of a person who truly faces himself and respects his opponents and rules.
In Dong Da's opinion, people have lived in an authoritative world since childhood. Teachers are the authority when they go to school, and leaders are the authority after they go to work. Wherever they go, authority is everywhere. However, in the Frisbee field, authority has disappeared. Because of this, people will cherish this short game field without authority more, and will more consciously adhere to the spirit of the Frisbee and restrain their own behavior.
Dong Da. Figure/Provided by respondents Of course, not every dispute can reach a consensus. Therefore, some Frisbee competitions have introduced the role of observer to help negotiate disputes, but the observer participates in the judgment passively, and the players still decide whether to call it a foul. If no consensus can be reached after the point of view is stated, the game will be played again according to the rules back to the position before the foul is raised.
The key to the discussion on the Frisbee field is to discuss the fact itself on the basis of the rules that are mutually agreed. Shen Shen found that the negotiations on the Frisbee field had a positive impact on her social life. In the face of disputes in life, she began to dare to express herself. This expression is to say her own ideas, listen to and accept the other party's different opinions, and solve problems, rather than having to fight for right or wrong, let alone vent her emotions.
Such equality permeates almost every aspect of Frisbee movement. The biggest difference between Frisbee and basketball, football and other sports is that it emphasizes the role of the team, and can not score by one person. The Frisbee is not allowed to run with the disc. The player cannot run again when he receives the disc. He can only rotate the disc with one foot as the axis and pass the Frisbee to other teammates within 10 seconds. Therefore, it is difficult to create so-called superstars in Frisbee competitions. Individuals can only play a role in attack and defense. Only a strong team can win the game, which enables everyone on the field to find their own positions. Because there is no physical contact, it also relatively weakens the difference in physical quality between male and female players.
Those players who have left the field or have not yet come to the field to watch the game will not be idle. They are called "Sideline". The rules encourage Sideline to give hints loudly through language to help people on the field better complete attack or defense. Therefore, there is an interesting phenomenon in the Frisbee game. Sideline, who has left the field, usually follows the Frisbee's advancing position and moves on the sidelines. They can see the overall situation outside the field and often give key suggestions. They are another pair of ears and eyes of teammates on the field. In this sense, Frisbee is probably the only sport that breaks the concept of "main force" and "bench". People on and off the court are equal, playing their own roles, and all people are a whole.
WFDF World Frisbee Federation condenses the spirit of Ultimate Frisbee into the "SOTG" icon, that is, to know the rules, avoid physical contact, compete fairly, enjoy the game, and communicate sincerely. The unique spiritual core has been contained since the birth of this sport.
Frisbee was first originated in the United States in the 19th century. A group of college students threw the disc shaped packing box of Fisbie Pie Company as a toy in the air, and found that the disc could fly very far in the air smoothly. Later, in order to avoid the danger of metal plates, plastic frisbees were invented. Later, they became popular in Europe and America, and developed more than a dozen playing methods. In 1968, Columbia High School in New Jersey, the United States, formulated the rules of Ultimate Frisbee competition. At that time, the American civil rights movement reached its climax, and the rights of minorities such as blacks and women were increasingly valued. Ultimate Frisbee rules and the spirit of Frisbee were born in such a social atmosphere of pursuing fairness and equality, and gradually improved in the 1970s.
Frisbee sports in a stadium in Nanning, Guangxi on April 24. Figure/Zhongxin At the beginning of the reform and opening up, Frisbee was briefly popular in China. At that time, China introduced a phenomenal American TV series "People from the Bottom of the Atlantic", which made Toad Mirror, jeans and Frisbee popular. Xu Mengkai told China News Weekly that sometimes when they practice Frisbee in the park, some elders passing by would say, "Oh, Frisbee." At that time, Frisbee was once called a UFO, a game of mutual transmission, more like a toy in nature, so it fell silent again after a gust of wind.
In the 21st century, Ultimate Frisbee has become a common team sport in western university campuses. In 2001, the World Games listed Ultimate Frisbee as an official event. It was around 2000 that Ultimate Frisbee was first introduced to China as a formal sport by a group of foreigners working in foreign companies. They set up the "Shanghai Frog" Ultimate Frisbee Club in Shanghai and the "Big Brother" Ultimate Frisbee Club in Beijing. Xu Mengkai, Zhang Kun and others followed these foreigners to get their first exposure to Ultimate Frisbee. In their view, Frisbee is not a purely physical project but a project full of wisdom and courage. Outdoor, social and low threshold are just the external attraction of Frisbee. The real charm that keeps people on the field and makes this sport eventually popular around the world is the spiritual connotation of freedom, equality and respect for each other contained in it.
Ma Fengwo and some clubs have made statistics. Most of the participants in the Frisbee activity are young people aged 25 to 35. After a week of wandering in 996, they urgently need a piece of pure land, another land, even if it is short, even if it is only 2 hours. The moment when the frisbee slowly glides in the air is an unspeakable unique aesthetic. Time seems to stagnate, which is freedom extracted from all "have to". Dong Da has always believed that the translation of Ultimate Frisbee into Ultimate Frisbee is not accurate, and the accurate translation should be the ultimate Frisbee, because it pursues the ultimate form of competitive sports, even the ultimate ideal of human society.
What kind of business is this
As a trend sport, the low threshold of Frisbee is also reflected in the equipment. Unlike camping, skiing, surfing, etc., which often cost thousands of yuan to purchase various professional equipment and even professional training, frisbee enthusiasts' basic equipment is enough in one plate JD.COM On online shopping platforms, the price of Ultimate Frisbee is between 50 yuan and 150 yuan, and a high-quality Frisbee can be used for more than one year. If only as a way of life, Frisbee sport only needs a plate of dozens of dollars and a pair of shoes that are convenient for running. If you want to go to a professional venue to experience formal Frisbee training, you can only add a pair of Frisbee gloves worth dozens of yuan and pay the club about 100 yuan for 2 hours.
"Light equipment, heavy experience" is the characteristic of Frisbee movement. For players, Frisbee can be said to be very cost-effective. However, compared with the current situation of the Frisbee movement, the track of the Frisbee industry is still slightly deserted. At present, the only professional frisbee brands in China are Yikun and Aike.
Xu Yingfeng, the founder of Yikun Frisbee, was a student at the Business School of Nottingham University in Ningbo when he started his business in 2008. At that time, he and several classmates fell in love with Frisbee with the help of foreign teachers, established the Frisbee Club, and was once one of the only Chinese frisbee teams, I have participated in the Shanghai Open, the most historic club Frisbee event in China. At that time, the domestic frisbee market was still "zero". There was no limit frisbee manufacturing company. Most of the domestic frisbees on the market were made by toy manufacturers. The frisbees used by Xu Yingfeng and his teammates needed to be purchased and sold from the United States. Seeing this market gap, Xu Yingfeng and several classmates decided to research and develop their own domestic frisbee brand when they were in their fourth year of college.
Xu Yingfeng introduced to China News Weekly that Frisbee looks ordinary, but from a professional point of view, its production involves aerodynamics, materials science and other disciplines, and professional sports Frisbee needs to pass international standards. The World Frisbee Federation has formulated a standard for a frisbee with a weight of 175g and a diameter of 27cm. In addition to material and size standards, it also needs sports ability tests.
In 2015, Winkun Frisbee passed the certification of all international frisbee associations in seven years, becoming the first Asian frisbee brand to obtain championship level certification, and can be used in the international top frisbee league, breaking the situation that North American frisbee brands monopolize international top frisbee events. At present, more than 70% of the product revenue comes from overseas. In 2016, Ike Frisbee also passed the championship level competition disc certification of the World Frisbee Federation (WFDF) and the American Frisbee Association (USAU), and its products are exported to the world.
Since last year, Frisbee, one of the annual keywords of fashion life, has begun to attract sports fashion brands and even luxury brands other than professional frisbee manufacturers because of its "fashion attribute". They have launched frisbees with their own logos to attract young consumers. For example, Chaopai Supreme cooperated with Wham-o, the originator of frisbee, to launch the design frisbee of gradient pattern+gradient logo, the record frisbee of Neighborhood, and even some new consumer brands, such as Seesaw Coffee and Three and a Half Coffee, also began to sell frisbees. This spring, Chanel launched a carbon fiber frisbee with a price of up to $11000. Prada also displayed the frisbee with the brand logo in the Prada Outdoor "Fun Garden" in Shanghai Rongzhai in 2021. In the circle of consumer brand communication, everything can be a Frisbee.
Some luxury brands have launched frisbees with their own logos. Yikun and Aike are also looking for more brand co branding opportunities to improve product premium, and starting from product companies, they are gradually distributing training, teaching, event hosting and other midstream and downstream businesses to enter the whole industry chain. Xu Yingfeng said that Yi Kun positioned himself as the overall service provider of industrial frisbee movement. From the business form, if we describe it as a pyramid, frisbee and accessories and other products are the cornerstone business, the middle of the pyramid is teaching and training, and the head of the business is the event end.
When brand enterprises are looking for more business models, clubs and communities springing up like mushrooms are still in the initial stage of development. The standard Frisbee Club activities are mainly divided into new players' game, advanced game, club fixed team training and Pick Up field. Pick Up field is also called "pickup", which can be understood as an informal Frisbee game. Players on the field are randomly divided into two teams. No matter what kind of bureau, the profit of the club is only limited to the activity fees.
In Beijing, the per capita charge for organizing a Frisbee event is 100~120 yuan for 2 hours, and the number of participants is limited to about 25. According to the number of participants, the income of an event is about 3000 yuan. Because Frisbee sport is restricted by the site conditions, clubs often rent football fields as venues. The outdoor football field is divided according to the area, and the rent for 2 hours is generally about 1000 yuan. Since players are involved in fashion sports, they will definitely "shine" when they go back. The Frisbee Club needs to be equipped with professional photographers to take photos and send them to the community after the event. In addition to the service fees for equipment and coaches, the net profit of a Frisbee event is about 1000 yuan, which can be said to be a meager profit operation.
However, due to the simple operation mode, easy replication and strong demand, the number of Frisbee communities has increased rapidly, which has also led to some confusion. Xu Mengkai told China News Weekly that he had met some players who had stayed in a standardized club for three or four months and knew what was going on. He went out to save for the community himself. He dared to be a coach only after learning a little technical skills. He gathered 40 or 50 people or more for an event, and did it as a business. He could earn some money in a short time, but he was completely irresponsible, It's cutting leeks.
When collecting data to make a national Frisbee map, the "Frisbee Circle" team also found a similar problem. Some clubs are completely profit-making, and there is no qualified coach teaching in them. They not only have a low understanding of the spirit of Frisbee, but also are not familiar with the rules, so they set a threshold for the map they made, Screen out sports communities that do everything and Frisbee clubs that just follow suit.
The community of leek cutting can also have a market. One of the most important reasons is that when Frisbee becomes a movement on the tuyere, some players' goals are not so pure. On the Little Red Book, a random search for "Frisbee" shows that a large number of young girls share their blog posts on Frisbee sports. Those who are recommended have similarities, long stature and good looks. Quite a few bloggers love this sport, devote themselves to it and show their own bravely, but there are also some, such as tight low corsets, stockings, exquisite makeup, beauty filters... Without sports, it is more like the online distribution of beauty photos, harvesting traffic and small hearts. As a result, some people directly put forward the label of "Frisbee Yuan", and the sports attribute of Frisbee has been eliminated, forcing it to become an ambiguous social tool dressed in fashionable sports. There was a Frisbee Bureau that required participants to meet one of the following conditions: Beijing House, 110 ID cards, 50w+, 178 boys+/165 girls+... It was like a large-scale blind date. A woman who has just learned about Frisbee told China News Weekly that she added a Frisbee community out of curiosity. After only two or three minutes in the group, she came out with several friends to apply. All of them were members of the opposite sex who came to chat. Although she could not speculate about the other party's purpose at will, her strong desire to make friends still made her feel uncomfortable.
A high proportion of women participated. They obtained traffic on social networking sites, highlighting the social attributes of Frisbee. Some people are doing less "Frisbee" business under the name of Frisbee, which is accompanied by questions and banter against the sport itself and all fans of the sport. Yoga pants, superior figure and sexual participation have become "original sin" in front of a sport, and Frisbee spirit has disappeared in misunderstanding and ambiguous gaze. This hurts people who really love Frisbee. A girl who participated in a Frisbee competition left a message on the social platform saying: "You can say that some people want to use Frisbee to get beautiful photos, attract the opposite sex and traffic, but you can't say that Frisbee is like this... Don't confuse the clown behavior of sensationalism with Ultimate Frisbee."
In this sense, Frisbee has a threshold. The threshold does not lie in economy, technology, physical strength, but in spirit. Dong Da sighed with China News Weekly that some people think that men and women only exercise together because of social interaction, but the equal rights rule created by Frisbee has even changed the life trajectory of many people in some places. "In the sport of Ultimate Frisbee, there is only one relationship between men and women - 'teammate'. It's very ordinary, but we believe it has far-reaching significance," said Dong Da.
These people who really love Frisbee hope that Frisbee can be popularized, but they also worry that it will be difficult to maintain the "purity" of the competition after Frisbee is labeled as "trendy" and "popular". Xu Yingfeng, who has been deeply involved in the sport industry for more than ten years, believes that the sport of Frisbee is in the stage of transition from "enlightenment" to "primary" development in China, with some brutal growth. However, the "online celebrity" label cannot take the sport of Frisbee further. As a sport, the ultimate commercial value of Frisbee will still return to the playing field, The "iron triangle" model of "event+training+equipment" based on the event is the "most ideal business model" in the future.
Looking forward to joining the Olympic Games
Those who do not know about Ultimate Frisbee can easily confuse it with leisure games. In fact, in the ultimate Frisbee game, the players need to run constantly to "pass the disc" and score. The competition is very fierce. In a real game, the running distance of the players is usually about 10km, which is comparable to a high-level football game. Although Frisbee is relatively quick to master, it also takes time to practice basic skills if you want to improve your skills.
As early as 2001, Frisbee has been an official event in the World Games (the first non Olympic event held in 1981), followed by the World University Games, which was rated by Time magazine as the fastest developing team sport in the 21st century. Before Frisbee came into the domestic public's view, 2019 was an important year in the development of Chinese Frisbee. This year, the Social Sports Guidance Center of the General Administration of Sport of the People's Republic of China set up the National Frisbee Sports Promotion Committee, which included the Frisbee events in the annual competition plan, including the National Frisbee Championship, the National Youth Frisbee Championship, and the Urban Frisbee Championship. In the same year, Shanghai successfully held the 2019 Asia Oceania Frisbee Championship of the World Frisbee Federation, which was the first time that an international Frisbee event landed in China. Since then, the Frisbee Championship has been included in the annual foreign affairs plan and international Class A events by the General Administration of Sport of China.
Xue Zhixing, Deputy Secretary General of the National Commission for the Promotion of Frisbee Sports, told China Newsweek that in 2019, the event system of Frisbee as an official event had been initially established, but due to the sudden epidemic, the promotion and landing were interrupted, and these events will be gradually carried out after the epidemic gradually stabilized and the society further opened up.
It was also in 2019 that China established the National Youth Team and the National Team of Frisbee, which participated in the World Youth Championships in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Asian Oceania Frisbee Championships in Shanghai. However, unlike the traditional national team, these team members are recruited, selected and trained from the society. The members are composed of students from sports colleges, overseas students and senior Pan friends.
For a sport, only by cultivating a professional event IP with market influence can it gain the momentum of evergreen industry. At the end of 1979, the USA Ultimate was founded in the United States. It holds regional and national competitions every year. In the same year, the Discart Frisbee Company, which was founded in Michigan, grew up with more and more rich and regular Frisbee competitions in the United States. Now, it is the world's top frisbee manufacturer. In 2012, the United States established two professional Ultimate Frisbee leagues, the American Ultimate Frisbee League (AUDL) and the Ultimate Frisbee Major League (MLU). Today, although the influence of AUDL in the United States is far less than that of the four famous leagues in North America (NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL), it has increased media coverage and business value year by year, attracting many sponsors, The main sponsors are Discaft Frisbee and American beer brand Deschuttes Bre we ry。
Amazon On the other hand, there are many businesses selling Frisbee, and the sales volume is considerable. Many products have high scores and evaluations. The overall price is comparable to that in China, which is concentrated at 10-20 dollars. With the booming development of frisbee movement, large sports brands have also targeted this cake. For example, Decathlon has opened its own product line of frisbee brands, including not only standard limit frisbee, but also children's frisbee toys, beach soft frisbee and other products. Since the second half of 2021, frisbee has become increasingly popular in China, and Decathlon has set up a display area for frisbee in many stores in China.
In Xu Yingfeng's eyes, all sports are "nurturance" projects. Unlike the Internet and finance, they can break out quickly. The industrialization and promotion of sports is a cumulative process over many years. Professional event system, competitive training system, athlete promotion channel, mass base and market recognition of the commercial value of this sport... Only a complete chain can create a mature sports industry. He believes that China's Frisbee movement has completed the development and transformation process from folk initiation to official recognition, and from professional movement to trend movement. In the future, it is possible to return from trend movement to professional movement, and complete the spiral rise. "The growth is expected." They are all looking forward to influential events to take Frisbee to another level.
The top class event IP is undoubtedly the Olympic Games. The World Frisbee Federation, founded in 1985, was officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of 2015, and is qualified to become an Olympic sport. However, before the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the two applications for Frisbee to enter the Olympic Games ended in failure. This time, people are looking to 2028, six years from now.
In 2028, Los Angeles, the birthplace of Frisbee, will host the Olympic Games. According to the rules of the International Olympic Committee, the host has the right to apply for additional Olympic events according to its own advantages. For example, the Tokyo Olympic Games held last year added five major events, including skateboarding, surfing, rock climbing, baseball and softball, and karate. The Paris Olympic Games in 2024 will add break dancing. In the eyes of frisbee fans all over the world, Los Angeles has sufficient reasons and conditions to promote Ultimate Frisbee as an Olympic event. After all, it is the city that bred the birth of frisbee and has a deep mass base, competitive level and frisbee field facilities. The world's first commercially sold frisbee also appeared in Los Angeles. After two unsuccessful applications for the Olympic Games, the World Frisbee Federation is also making some changes, including adjusting the competition rules, making the event more enjoyable and competitive, reducing the venue and the number of competitors. The road for Frisbee to enter the Olympic Games is being paved.
In 2023, the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee will confirm the list of events of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. If the Olympic Games can be successfully "entered", it will expand the influence of the Frisbee movement once and for all, provide a basis for industrial development, and will completely tear off the labels and misunderstandings firmly attached to the Frisbee.
Before that, China's National Frisbee Sports Promotion Committee was taking the lead and had formulated the National Frisbee Sports Coach Management Measures. In the future, no matter the PE teachers who teach Frisbee on campus or the coaches in commercial clubs, there will be corresponding management systems and training specifications, and they will be assessed according to their grades. Xue Zhixing, Deputy Secretary General of the Committee, told China Newsweek that the Committee was also looking for opportunities to bring together the principals of major clubs across the country to discuss industry norms and consensus and establish industry alliances.
In April 2022, the Ministry of Education issued the Notice on the Compulsory Education Curriculum Plan and Curriculum Standards (2022 Edition), and Ultimate Frisbee, as a new sports project, was officially included in the compulsory education curriculum. This new and once niche movement is becoming an officially recognized educational resource.
This also seems to mean that there will be a large number of future frisbee players. After all, quite a few of them have loved frisbee since childhood and have loved it all the time. They will be consumers of the future frisbee industry, spectators of frisbee competitions and even high-level professional frisbee players. For those Frisbee missionaries like Xu Mengkai, Zhang Kun and Dong Da, children will have a deeper understanding of both the competitive level and the spirit of Frisbee when they start to contact Frisbee from the stage of compulsory education. The characteristics of self arbitration and equal rights of the Frisbee require people's recognition and persistence from their hearts. Only in this way can the Frisbee not become stale, and can it gain long-term vitality, and let those who hold the Frisbee gain strength and wisdom in daily life.
Published on China Newsweek, Issue 1049, 2022.6.27
Magazine Title: Frisbee: Two Hour "Utopia"
Reporter: Li Jing（ lijing@chinanews.com.cn ）
Edited by: Yang Shiyang
Typesetting: Xiao Ran
