First, can you let me know how the Thunderbirds got started?
We became a professional team late 2014 and had our first season in 2015. The University of Pittsburgh won back-to-back national championships – they had some really good players. A lot of them played for us in 2015 through 2017. Pittsburgh was a hotbed for ultimate frisbee – Pitt was a perennial powerhouse.
Because of that it made sense to put a franchise here. I’m originally from Northeast Ohio – it was hard to move out here at first but I did and assimilated well. I know being from an area close to Cleveland we loved to “hate” Pittsburgh, but the people here are so nice and I adapted to the city. Now I’m a Black & Gold fan and got a job working for the Penguins.
Everyone is nice here and supportive. Franco Harris’ niece sang the national anthem at one game and Phil Bourque has come to support us as well.
How are teams structured – do players get paid?
Legally it’s more like a semi-pro team. Guys can’t quit their full-time jobs to play and make a living. But we pay for all of the players’ travel, jerseys, food – and they get a stipend as well. Typically, before the AUDL league began, people had to pay their own way through the leagues and that could cost them $2,000-to-$3,000. Now, it’s all paid for and you get a stipend. A few star players also get paid more – think 50’s football salaries!
How is fan turnout going?
Out first year we had over 700 fans a game. It started off strong. As we’ve tried to get established we’ve bounced around stadiums. We’re negotiating now to play in Highmark Stadium after playing in Wexford last year. Highmark is a beautiful stadium – we think that will really help.
We’re averaging around 350 fans or so now – we want to get back up to 500 to be sustainable. Colorado averaged over 2,200 last season so we feel good about boosting attendance. We just need to get the word out and turn people on to the sport. People just need to learn about it
What is the fan experience like – the game length and venues…?
Games last about one hour and 45 minutes – maybe over two hours if there’s overtime. It’s not like baseball. There are four 12-minute periods and the clock runs except after scores.
It’s $10 at the gate per person and kids under 12 get in free. We sell alcohol at the games and hot dogs – there’s a DJ, vendors, and a huck-a-buck challenge during the game, where if a fan from the stands can sink a frisbee in a bucket in the field, they win a cash prize. So the venue is a lot of fun, and then as you’re there maybe you see a player rip a 100-yard backhanded toss for a touchdown and say “Wow. That was cool!”
How are games themselves structured for those unfamiliar with the game?
It can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be as a fan. I am a big baseball fan. If I were describing baseball I’d say the object is to hit the ball as hard as you can and if you hit it hard enough over the wall, it’s a run. Whoever gets the most runs wins.
Well, at its core, the idea of Ultimate Frisbee is to advance the disc into the end zone and not turn it over. A turnover is when the disc hits the ground. The winner is the team that does it more.
Now, you can get it more into the weeds. In baseball you have Sabremetrics that goes deep into the analytics and how teams play. Well, in ultimate frisbee you can run various plays and schemes. teams are allowed 20 active players, and normally, teams have three lines of seven – with one person as a floater across the lines. There’s an offensive line, a defensive line one, and a defensive line two. 99% of the teams run things this way.
If your offensive line scores, you have two timeouts a half and you can choose to substitute a defensive line in then to stop the other team. But with only two timeouts your defensive line will need to score and your offensive line will need to be able to stop the other team, if you expect to win.
How has the team performed recently?
I like to joke that a more serious league would have fired me as a GM. We were not great last year – we couldn’t put it together and blew leads late in games that we should not have lost.
The first seven years we made the championship round four times- we can hang our hats on that. We ran into a juggernaut in the Madison Radicals who beat us three times in the finals. We lost to Indianapolis once as well.
We’ve been either really good or really bad. Now we’re in the process of trying to sign a splash guy – maybe from L.A. or Chicago. It’s the free agency period now and we’re dedicated to winning. Pittsburgh expects no less. I get emails asking me why we’re doing this or that – heated emails. I love that – it shows people are engaged and passionate about the team.
What is the free agency period and who on the team now are the guys you really want to lock in? How do you improve?
Well we’ll get Jon Mast back who was out with an MCL tear last season – he is our center-handler and losing him was a big loss. We’re re-signing league All-Star Max Sheppard. And our coach was a rookie coach last season so with a season under his belt we think that should bode well.
We’ll have tryouts in January and will look to uncover some talent there as well.
How do contracts work?
Most are one-year contracts. Sheppard’s was a multi-year contract – the largest multi-year contract was for three years but most are one year. The reason for long-term contracts is really so that teams can be a stickler. Guys move – they get jobs, they get married. Teams could prevent a player from playing on another team over the course of that contract. These are calendar not playing years. But a team could prevent, say, a player from leaving a team to go to a rival team if they moved. I think the only time I know of that happening was when a player moved midseason and wanted to play for a rival team.
And the team and league is sponsored of course.
Sponsorships usually last one year. DraftKings sponsored us last year and Fox Sports has us on one game a week. We’re also partnering with Red – a company that will show our games in China. Going international should be a big help for us. We charge $10 a month to stream our games through our framing service so using that to broadcast in China with that audience could be big.
Locally we’ve had Jersey Mikes, Allegheny Health and other sponsors but we could always use more.
Lastly, any good memories stand out so far as GM?
I just love being with the guys and going on the road trips with them. On the bus and plane we get to hang out. I remember going to Tampa who was having a tough year, like we were. They were kicking our butts early, but in the third quarter it was like someone punched us in our face and we just came out like our asses were on fire and everything just clicked. We won – and that was just as much fun. That’s why we do it as a GM. Jerry Jones once said it. 99% of this is not fun. It’s that 1% when you win – that’s why you do it!