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The following post has been written by VC's CEO Adriana Withers. Over the past few months, the VC team has been sporting staff shirts that say "The Future is Female". More than a handful of times, each of us has been asked, "What's with the shirts?"... and so, please let me explain. A Team Canada player Julie Landry with Daniel Bergson, the designer of our staff shirt, at WCBU in Royan, France. Questions/Comments As we've worn our Future is Female shirts, we've heard all sorts of comments and questions, including: What does that even mean? Why does the future have to be either male or female; that's not fair. Isn't that shirt a bit aggressive? The future is MALE! (folding shirt in half, while laughing) The Future Is Female The purpose of wearing these staff shirts at events, such as the World Championships of Beach Ultimate in France, the USA Ultimate Masters Championships in Colorado and the Canadian Ultimate Championships in Ottawa, has been to start a conversation. To get people asking, talking and (hopefully) thinking about equity in ultimate. When I first came to Daniel with the design idea for the shirts, he asked me a question similar those listed above. I was proud that one of my own team members was challenging me on the idea, and, right then, I knew that this was the message I wanted to get out there and engage about with our community. It means that society, including our wonderful ultimate community, needs to be working together to discuss, understand and make progress around the problem of gender equity.  In order for female athletes to catch up in terms of opportunities available to them with comparison to those available to male athletes, there needs to be equitable action, not just equal action. As a community, we need to focus energy and resources on the development of female athletes and their competitive opportunities to make up for so much lost ground. If we only give female athletes the same support as male athletes, female athletes will never close the gap. Aggressive, no. Assertive, yes.  Thank you to the young male for illustrating exactly why we need to have these discussions. For reference, please see almost every history book, ever, and report back on who it was about. The Future is Female because the past has been Male.  The statement "The Future is Female" is one of will and purpose. It's about where we are going, the necessary journey to equality for all athletes, and what is needed to get there - a distinctive investment in supporting female athletes.  What is the story? Unless you've been hiding as of late under a rock far, far away from "mainstream" ultimate media, you know that equity is a topic demanding the attention of players around the world. It's bringing out the best of our community, and also shedding light on situations and perspectives that I believe are detrimental to the positive growth and exceptional potential of our sport. This post isn't about those examples, though... although I'm happy to discuss them with any one directly. This post is simply to explain why I felt it was important for the VC team to put this message across our chests and out in to the world. The explanation is simple: We need to talk about equity, and each and every one of us needs to find a way to spark that conversation with friends and strangers alike if we're ever going to make progress. I want to hear from one of my team members that he doesn't really fully get it. I want to hear from a masters player who wouldn't want their kid wearing this shirt. I want to hear from the female engineer who is the only female engineer in her firm who wants to wear the shirt to work. I want to hear from the boys team coach who overhears sideline stories from his players which indicate that they have a lot to learn about respecting other individuals. I want to ask the junior player who folds the shirt in half and says to his friends, "The future is male!" if he understands where we're coming from with this shirt and how he understands our message. Why If we don't listen, we don't learn. We don't bust out of our own carefully curated bubbles to more fully develop our own beliefs.  If we don't challenge ourselves to take deep breaths and listen and, then, calmly share our own perspectives, how are we to expect others to do the same for us? If we don't challenge the status quo, we won't know our own potential as a sport. Personally, I want more for ultimate. So, like'em or leave'em, I'm proud of our Future is Female shirts, and all I can ask is that you respect that. Or better yet, talk to me about it. Thanks for reading, Adriana Adriana Withersadriana@vcultimate.com Proudly wearing my staff shirt while talking about... you guessed it... women's development with WFDF's Caz Malone on the #UltiShow Interested in VC-supported equity-related organizations or initiatives? Without Limits Ultimate  Ultiworld/Media coverage: VC Ultimate To Sponsor, Help Grow Women’s College Coverage and VC Extends Women’s Coverage Sponsorship To Support Division III Nationals Reporting VC Women's Development Sponsorship WFDF Women in Sport Commission  What's Else? Let's discuss how the Future Is Transgender, The Future Is Gay, The Future is Multicultural, The Future Is (insert any other credible movement that absolutely deserves support). Let's talk about the Future Is Equality For All.

What can we say about this team - this season especially - other than Hook 'em Horns!! UT at Austin's top women's team is rocking it, with another strong performance bringing home the gold at Women's Centex this past weekend, the team's home tournament run in collaboration with Without Limits Ultimate. We admit, we're a bit biased with our love for Melee and their home fields, the Charles Alan Wright Fields at the Berry M. Whitaker Sports Complex at the University of Austin. The sports complex is, simply put, sick... the benefits of being at a school with an athletic's program budget north of $160,000,000 perhaps? Yes, that many zeros. Fun fact: VC's Adriana Withers met her much-later-to-be wife on those fields in 2003 (VC was merchandising the UPA College Championships while her wife was running medical support), and still lives part-time only about 10 minutes away. What's more, VC's Sponsorship Manager and the founder of Without Limits, Michelle Ng, is also a Melee alumni.  Oh, and did we mention, it's usually like 80 degrees, sunny and a short drive from one of the hottest music festivals in the world, South by Southwest, going on at the same time? Read Ultiworld's Women's Centex Preview article here. Enough about Centex... back to Melee.  From Ultiworld's write-up, "There is no question that #2 Texas Melee is having a tremendous season, and they look like a shoe-in to make semis at Nationals this year. In both of their tournaments in 2017, Presidents’ Day & Stanford Invite, Melee has made the final. But both times they came up short." Melee's record took a sharp turn to the winning side this past weekend at Centex, where they beat Ohio State's Fever to win the tournament. From Texas Melee Women's College Centex is one of the highlights of the spring college season.  The University of Texas women's program has been a ong-term partner of both VC and Without Limits.  TD Sydney Overman said, "We love how much Vicious Circle promotes Without Limits- in their gear, banners, and general attitude towards women's ultimate. One of the primary Centex goals each year is to grow college women's ultimate across the United States, and I know that Without Limits does a huge, huge job in helping us achieve that mission."  Captains Laura Gerencser and Julia Schmaltz said, "VC always makes sure we look good! We decided to change our jersey design this year and we were initially worried about not being able to include our old emblem (the circle longhorn), but VC worked with us extensively to come up with a brand new, classic and clean new style jersey. We love them!" Melee is deeply invested in the growth and development of college women's ultimate and that is clearly reflected in their partnerships with Without Limits and VC.  We love working with Melee and we love their clean designs. This year's Centex was extra special because of the nice weather and brand new fields, especially given the challenges over the past couple of seasons.  Overman, who is a senior, said, "When it comes to running Centex, pray for the best but plan for the worst. Seriously. After the past two years, we were thankful for a sunny, minimal-wind Centex at the newly renovated UT IM fields. If that's not the formula for a successful victory-lap Centex then I don't know what is!"  The captains reflected, "Because of years past, we have to say our favorite thing about Centex this year was the beautiful weather and brand new facility. Centex hasn't always had the best conditions, so we were very happy to be able to offer a very smooth, good condition tournament to teams that have been so loyal despite the past conditions."  The challenges of the past two seasons made this year even sweeter. Texas has had a dominant regular season thus far and now they begin preparations for the Series.  The captains said, "The next thing on the horizon for us is regionals and we couldn't be happier that it will be back here in Austin! We are very much looking forward to hosting the south central teams (with a possible 4 bids)!"  Follow the team's journey on twitter at @txmelee

This year, Wash U Women's Ultimate and Without Limits celebrated the 10 year anniversary of Midwest Throwdown, hosting 72 teams in Columbia, MO. Looking across the vast expanse of fields, it was hard to believe that the tournament started with only 13 teams. Purdue won the Open Division of the tournament, while Iowa State won the Women's Division. Congratulations to both teams, who took home Spikeball sets to celebrate their victories! TD Devin Ryan felt that host team Wash U learned a lot from running the tournament. "We learned how much planning goes into running a tournament, and how there’s so much going on behind-the-scenes that the average player doesn’t have to think about. It’s incredible to have this opportunity to have so much control over how the tournament is run and it’s great having that sense of accountability and then reward when the tournament is over." She also had positive comments about VC's presence at the tournament, "VC has been nothing but supportive of our team, and they were especially helpful of us both throughout the merchandise design process and managing the complex logistics of hosting such a big tournament. We loved how they valued our input when making any decision, and worked with our team every step of the way." Host team Wash U has been a valued VC partner team for a number of years. Captains Nora and X had this to say about the partnership, "VC has always been attentive to our needs and supported us in getting all of the gear that we need. VC is responsive, communicative, and a great company to work with because of their attention to detail and desire to make gear that fits our team's needs."The Wash U captains' favorite part about Throwdown was the Skills Clinic at the end of Saturday. The captains said, "It's very fulfilling to be able to give women in ultimate the opportunity to expand their skill sets with talented coaches - and to be able to take part in those opportunities ourselves!" VC is happy to support the Skills Clinic, Throwdown, and Wash U Women's Ultimate. To learn more about this and other Without Limits Ultimate events, please visit their site here!

We love travelling around the world and meeting players from so many different countries at ultimate events, as well as awesome individuals contributing from the sideline! In Poland last summer, we met a photographer so talented that we asked him to join our team for our next WFDF event. Please meet Andraž Kramberger... VC: Hey Andraž! We're really excited to have you as part of the VC Lookfly team heading to WCBU this summer. How did this all come about for you? AB: I met with VC and its crew at WJUC last year, where I was part of the Slovenian team as their photographer. While taking some photos from the finals I got into conversation with Adriana, got her contact and she told me to send her any "good ones" from the matches. So when I got back to Slovenia, I immediately edited the photos, send Adriana an email, she liked them and we remained in touch since. Earlier this year I was invited to be a part of the VC team at WCBU this June.    VC: What was WJUC like for you? AB: It was an incredible experience to be at such a big ultimate event with thousands of people from across the globe. It was very exhausting as well because I was at the fields from morning till late afternoon and then I edited the photos and videos of the day and uploaded them, which was a tiny bit frustrating with the speed and consistency of the internet at the dorm where we stayed. But all in all a really great adventure, 10/10 would go again. VC: What's your Ultimate background? How did you get in to the sport? AB: I played hockey for about 14 years and when I got to college I quit and since we were always playing ultimate at recess at high school, I though I would give it a try. So I joined the local team. I got a lot of new friends and connections over it (as one does in Ultimate) but with going to college in another town, I kind of faded out of actively playing and began to take photos at local tournaments. My former teammates then asked me to take photos of their tryouts and tournaments more often and I still go when I have time. VC: We've been using some of your photos - which are AWESOME - in our social media feeds lately. How does it feel to see your photos out there for more ultimate players to see? AB: It's an incredible feeling whenever I see one of my pics being used anywhere else other than my own social media. I never would've thought that Ultimate would be the one thing in life that propelled my photography out into the world. VC: What would be your dream with regards to ultimate and/or photography? AB: I'm not quite sure yet. Of course it would be incredible if I could do photography full time but it is a hard business to get a grip on and to make a living out of, especially if you don't really want to do wedding photography (not that there is anything wrong with it, it's just not my kind of style). VC: Slovenia is a beautiful country. Any tournaments that we should all keep in mind, or must-do's for visitors? AB: Slovenia is a very special place in the sense that you can cross it in about a 4-hour drive and on the way you can visit some really old cities (from roman times), the mountains and the Mediterranean shore. With its position on the edges of Italy, Austria and the Balcan there was a lot going on here over the centuries. So as a tourist definitely visit Bled with its castle and its lake; Piran, which is a tiny town on the shore; Postojna cave, which is one of one of our biggest tourist attractions, but really anywhere you'll go you could find something to see.  As a Ultimate player you'll hear more and more about our teams in the future because the players here are really working hard on the next generation with a nation wide high school league. As for the tournaments I would say Woodchuck is getting bigger every year. It's an international tournament on high intermediate level. If you're more a fan of an indoor Ultimate maybe take a look at Free As A Bee (FAAB for short). Slovenia is still getting of ground with its Ultimate scene but it is getting there slowly but surely. Follow Andraž Kramberger on social media to continuously be inspired by his beautiful work: https://www.instagram.com/krambergera/    

VC Ultimate is proud to be Without Limits Ultimate's official partner. Learn more about this ultimate and life changing organization here. Commonwealth Cup, hosted at the Smith River Sports Complex in Martinsville, has become a February staple for many teams on the East Coast.  Now in its fifth year of existence, the tournament has doubled in size and is host to a wide range of teams, from Nationals qualifiers to new teams and B teams.  This year's weather was mostly beautiful and definitely beat the snow from some previous years! UNC Pleiades took home the title, edging out Pittsburgh in semis and Virginia in finals.  UNC is looking for the team's first trip to Nationals in its current players' tenure and UNC's strong showing this weekend puts them right in the thick of things. The merchandise tent was lively all weekend long and we raffled off both a Spikeball set and Hucket to players who competed in our puzzle challenge.  Next up, Without Limits heads to Columbia, Missouri for Midwest Throwdown.  Then we'll be back in Martinsville for Mash-Up! Shout out to our co-sponsors of this awesome event: Spin Ultimate, Discraft and Spikeball!    Thanks to Discraft for providing game discs! Stop by Tournament Central to pick one up for your team at Without Limits events! Erica of Columbia University won this awesome Spikeball set, and is clearly jazzed about it. Congrats to UNC on their win!

From Ultiworld: A new partnership will support Ultiworld's college women's coverage. We are pleased to announce that VC Ultimate has partnered with Ultiworld to help support a substantial amount of college women’s coverage in the 2016-2017 season. Featuring tournament reporting, video footage and highlights, coverage of D-I and D-III Nationals, and a monthly profile series, Ultiworld’s coverage of the college Women’s Division will be stronger than ever thanks to VC Ultimate’s generous support. Below is a Q&A with VC CEO Adriana Withers about the company’s decision to commit resources to enhanced media coverage of the Women’s Division. Why is this an important moment for women’s ultimate? There are a lot of important developments happening in ultimate right now. The recognition by the International Olympic Committee, the spreading awareness of the professional leagues, the quasi-regular inclusion of plays on SportsCenter Top 10 – these are all signs that ultimate has started to arrive in the mainstream, if it hasn’t already. As more eyes and interest land on ultimate, it is of paramount importance that our incumbent media outlets commit to presenting our sport at its best, which to VC means providing equal coverage of the women’s division, towards the goal of supporting gender equity. It’s important that female athletes have their stories told and are equally and respectfully covered. It’s important that, when new spectators and media consumers read about and watch ultimate, it is just as likely that they are seeing coverage of women’s competition. Further, it’s crucial that any girl thinking about getting involved in our sport can go on to a site like Ultiworld and find a female role model just as easily as a young boy could find a male one, or vice versa for that matter. VC is proud to support Ultiworld’s 2016-2017 women’s division coverage. When we proposed this idea, it was because it was one way that we can help to level the playing field in terms of what events and stories get covered in the coming year. Yes, it’s an indisputable fact that more people watch men’s athletic events, and therefore those events are better financially supported than women’s ones. Yes, this is true even in ultimate. That doesn’t mean that supporting the coverage of the women’s division is less important to VC; we think it makes it more important to put our financial resources behind it. What’s the motivation behind sponsoring Ultiworld’s women’s coverage? As ultimate continues to expand, it is necessary that ultimate organizations, governing bodies, and for-profit businesses commit to working towards gender equity in our sport. We have a real opportunity to cultivate ultimate in a different way than traditional sports have historically grown. In my opinion, that means that companies like VC need to open our pocket books and truly support equal coverage of women’s ultimate, even knowing that we will have a less traditionally “valuable” return on our investment. The motivation behind our idea to support Ultiworld’s women’s division coverage was simple: it was the right thing to do. Why move beyond your focus on Without Limits to support the full college season coverage? Without Limits Ultimate is an amazing organization that will always have VC in its corner. The work that Michelle Ng and her partners have done to create playing and development opportunities for women (and men) over the last 6+ years is inspiring. Organizations like this build our community up and strengthen the foundation on which we can continue to make progress. However, Without Limits is only one of many organizations doing great work – the All-Star Ultimate Tour, GUM, camps like NUTC that make gender equity a focus among both instructors and players, and the many other tournaments with strong women’s divisions across the country. We didn’t want to pick and choose what coverage we helped to fund simply due to an event’s affiliation with partners we are already work with or tournaments that we are already supporting in some other way. It was important to provide financial support to the entire division’s coverage to help get as many stories out there, from as many far-apart places, and about as many different players, teams, and organizers as possible. How do you see a media-focused partnership helping there? As we say at the VC office, 90% of problems we come across are due to lack of quality communication. What better way to focus on the importance of gender equity in ultimate than by supporting the quality coverage of the women’s division?

The World Junior Ultimate Championships in Poland was a whirlwind World Flying Disc Federation event in the beautiful city of Wrocław! Not all is as it appears however: Polish pronunciation was one of our favorite challenges of the event and by the end of the week we had down the the name of the city (pronounced like "frot-suave") and the word for thank you - dziękuję (pronounced like "jun-koo-ya"...sort of). Wrocław also happened to be the 2016 Capital of Culture which was a well-deserved title judging by the beautiful city, apparently constant events in the main square, and incredible street art all over! We were lucky to merchandise WJUC in such an amazing location! The week-long event certainly kept our staff on our toes. Our problem-solving skills were put to the test when we had to construct racks out of metal pipes that were sturdy enough for all the sweet VC and Lookfly gear! Not to mention weather ranging from hot and humid to chilly and windy to torrential downpour; we had to be ready for anything!   Two of our favorite things from the week: starting a VC Snapchat account (Follow us! "vcultimate") and giving away Trivolle sets all week to all the junior teams. Not only are these young athletes amazing ultimate players - they're also hilarious and very good at Trivolle! Thanks to Trivolle for donating sets to these teams from all over the world, they're definitely going to good homes. Best night of the week: trade night. A crazy downpour cut the night's activities short, but not before we got to run around in these crazy human hamster balls:  Finally, a great week in Poland was capped off with the Canada boys taking home silver and our Canada ladies winning gold in an exciting final against USA! So proud of our juniors teams. Thanks to everyone who helped put on this amazing event - we can't wait for another opportunity to visit Poland!

2015 is coming to a close, but it's been a wild ride! We've had a lot of exciting news and a lot of fun events this year, and while we're thankful for all of that we're even more excited to see what 2016 brings. Check out our 2015 year in review! We started the year with our WFDF announcement - we're the official merchandisers for the World Flying Disc Federation for 2015 and 2016! This year our USA office out of Atlanta went to a whopping 130+ tournaments between the VC and Spin brands! Wow! In February one of the events was Trouble in Vegas where our staff were enchanted to meet this capybara, Romeo; basically a giant guinea pig. #onlyinvegas We also had the pleasure of merchandising the first-ever USAU Beach Nationals. Virginia Beach was a great time, maybe the most fun being all our VC Funzone beach games! In June we had a very exciting announcement: our merger with UK company Lookfly! We now officially have a VC Europe branch and some electric new plans for a Lookfly revamp. June also gave us a fun giveaway day with the Toronto Elites club. We gave away free sublimated samples of some of our favorite designs - earned through Spikeball games and joke-telling. Everyone loves free sub jerseys! U23 in London kicked off our summer European tour. We met a lot of amazing young players from all over the world and saw some really exciting competitive ultimate. EUC in Copenhagen brought more great European ultimate. Since Denmark is known for their bacon, we hosted a memorable night of fun with our Beer, Bacon, and SpikeBall tournament. EYUC was the last of our European summer tour; what a great note to end on! We saw some incredible youth players - the future of ultimate looks bright indeed! Back on our home turf, we wrapped up the Canadian season with CUC in Winnipeg. It was lovely to be among some of our favorite Canadian teams again. Our final destination tournament of the year was PAUC in Cancun, Mexico. Even though it was the rainy season and we had some new obstacles to overcome, these amazing positive teams made it all worthwhile! In this next year, we're looking forward to new product development and our continued contract with WFDF. Keep an eye out for new designs for bigger, better events, like WUGC 2016 back in London. Here's to an exciting new year!    

VC is very excited to support the upcoming 2015 VC Mixed Championships in Japan on December 19-20! Ultimate is huge in Japan, in part because of the efforts of Club Jr, who work tirelessly to organize tournaments for every division of player. The VC team has had the chance to meet with the fine folks from Club Jr - including the always smiling Satoru Ishii - for many international events. We were thrilled when the opportunity arose to partner and create the VC Mixed Championships! There will be 17 amazing teams at the VC Mixed Championships.One of the best parts about merchandising tournaments like this is giving back to some amazing communities and exceptional ultimate players. USA, World, and PAUC champions (and one of our favorite teams) Drag'n Thrust receiving both champion shorts and Spirit of the Game hats at the 2015 Pan American Ultimate Championships.     For the inaugural VC Mix Championships, Club Jr and VC have something special in mind!        We are so excited for this event that our founding director, Adriana Withers, and the tournament organizer, Akihiko Yoshida, each wanted to share a greeting with all the players about to participate in this event: Dear 2015 VC Ultimate Mix Championship players,  VC Ultimate is so proud to be working with Club Jr to bring you this amazing new event. Having 17 teams in our inaugural year shows the strength of your Ultimate community and we are excited to be associated with each and every competitor. I have personally been lucky enough to meet many players from Japan at different tournaments around the world and have enjoyed the spirit, energy and impressive skill that you bring to our sport. Japan is such a beautiful country that it is an honor to be able to draw inspiration from Japanese culture and nature for VC designs. Your friends at VC are all wishing you the best of luck for this event and I hope you enjoy playing in the 2015 VC Ultimate Mix Championships as much as I have enjoyed working on it!  Warm regards,Adriana  Adriana WithersFounding DirectorVC Ultimate Inc. ------------------------------------- We're very excited to host first ever mixed tournament for college/high school players. We're thankful to have about 300 players in this inaugural event.We expect to have 500 players within 5 years and 1,000 players in 10 years.  We appreciate generous support of VC Ultimate.We would like to invite Ms. Adriana to the event in the future.  Thank you very much.Truly Yours, Akihiko YoshidaCLUB Jr. Inc. Founder/Owner --------------------------- Update: Year one was a smashing success! Thanks to all the organizers, volunteers, and players who made our first year so exciting!