After controversial snub, the Philadelphia Surge will host the finals of Ultimate — and chase the title

Before undefeated Florida State was left out of the College Football Playoff in favor of one-loss Alabama, there was another seemingly unjust committee deciding a team’s championship fate.

In 2023, the Philadelphia Surge, in their first year in the Premier Ultimate League, the top league for disc throwing, were left out of championship weekend after a committee voted to send the rival New York Gridlock instead, even though the Surge had more wins and a head-to-head victory over New York.

But for 2024, the Ultimate league scheduled its championship weekend in Philadelphia — this weekend, June 22-23, at Drexel’s Vidas Field — and the Surge made it for the first time. They’ll face the D.C. Shadow on Saturday at 7 p.m. The winner of that game will face the winner of the other semifinal (Gridlock vs. Austin Torch, 4 p.m.) in the championship game on Sunday at 2 p.m.

So while they missed out last year, the Surge now get a chance to win in front of their home fans.

“We were like, we can’t read into this too much because we got it done on the field,” Surge general manager and player Andrea DeSabato said. “This year, the league changed the rules because I think they realized this is ridiculous. We were like, let’s prove it every game that we belong in the top teams in this league. We definitely had a little bit of a chip on our shoulder, a little bit of fire, but we’re also over that at the same time. This is a new year and we’re ready to just crush it with the team we have now and with the opportunity we have now.”

The Premier Ultimate League is a women’s and gender-expansive professional Ultimate league, one of the only women’s pro teams in the Philadelphia area.

During a politically fraught time in women’s sports, with states across the U.S. banning participation by trans athletes, the PUL is unapologetic about being gender-expansive, explicitly including transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, and genderfluid people in their mission statement.

With championship weekend falling during Pride month, Lily Ponitz, treasurer of the PUL and general manager of the Atlanta Soul, said she expects to see many fans supporting the LGBTQ+ community in the stands.

“We’ve always been striving to be a home for athletes who identify as women and nonbinary,” Ponitz said. “We really care about growing the sport, the women’s side of the sport, at the most elite level. We’re always thinking about breaking down barriers that help players move up to that next level, and unfortunately, gender identity is one of those barriers in like girls’ and women’s sports.

“We just really worked to make it clear across every level from the league down to every team that these players are welcome, and I feel like our fans follow our lead which is just great to see.”

The league started in 2019, and expanded to Philadelphia in 2023 to great success. In their inaugural season, the Surge lost just one match and drew as many as 800 fans to their games. DeSabato said the team led the PUL in jersey sales during the league’s jersey challenge in each of their two seasons.

Philadelphia already had a growing Ultimate Frisbee scene thanks to the Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance, which organizes recreational Ultimate leagues across Philadelphia, South Jersey, and Delaware. The Philadelphia Phoenix, a men’s professional Ultimate team, have played in the Ultimate Frisbee Association since 2012.

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“The organizations in Philly are strong, so there’s a lot of great club teams that filter into pro teams,” DeSabato said. “There’s a lot of good college teams, and then the league level is really strong and really well done. … The Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance, they have their own great community and league, so there’s just a lot of player buy-in, [and] a lot of fan buy-in. The community is just really into it and they show up and they’re really willing to support in-person and financially.”

That community buy-in is why, just two years in, the PUL is hosting its championship weekend in Philadelphia at Drexel.

“They’re one of the biggest and rowdiest fan bases of all the teams in the Premier Ultimate League, so I think it’s exciting to bring the championship event to a city that brings that kind of crowd energy,” Ponitz said.

The PUL strives to make the sport accessible both online and in-person, Ponitz said. The league plays games in accessible city destinations, as opposed to out in the suburbs, and the Surge have food trucks and kids’ entertainment at games. Off the field, the PUL offers live streams of almost all of their games for free, and uses multiple cameras and replay angles for a better quality stream. The league also makes an effort to hire woman commentators, Ponitz said.

With no WNBA or NWSL team in Philadelphia, the PUL hopes to fill the gap, offering an outlet for those looking to support women’s sports in the city.

“We’ve already been able to showcase and highlight women’s sports and women athletes in Philly, which is great, so any chance to do that is important to us,” DeSabato said. “Until we get other teams in the city, it’s cool to be that, and I wish there were more opportunities to highlight women athletes and women’s sports. We want to keep growing the community. We want to keep getting new people involved.

“We would love to expand. … If you’re an athlete that played another sport and you heard about Surge and you want to come to a tryout, come check it out. We would love to have more new faces, but it’s kind of hard to do because the game is relatively still considered fringe. But there’s another outlet for people to play, for people to spectate, for women’s sports to be consumed and to watch how good the players are.”