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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.

As the discussions around Gender Equity in ultimate continue to be so prevalent in our community, we feel as though it's our responsibility to contribute.  First, it's important that our community knows where VC stands: We respect all people and believe that all people should be treated equally and fairly. We believe that there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done around gender equality in both sport and the world at large.  We will work with you, our community, to help promote the values of equality and equity as best we can, in everything we do. In 2017, we put all of our online advertising partnership dollars in one basket: Exclusively supporting Ultiworld's coverage of the women's division, which allowed for more division-specific coverage than ever before. We checked in with Ultiworld on the effects of more women's coverage: There was a 2% increase in overall female viewers from October 2015-August 2016 to October 2016-August 2017. That's truly great when you are looking at over 2MM pageviews.  For new entrances to the site, we are tracking at 24.71% increase in the female category! This means that of the total females that go to Ultiworld each day, 25% are first time visitors! VC will continue to work with Ultiworld on this initiative for the 2017-2018 season, and share more effects/stats as available. VC Women's Development Sponsorship This past spring, we connected with a number of women's club teams and offered them a no-obligations sponsorship discount on their uniforms. This offer helped us to get to know a number of awesome women's teams that we hadn't worked with in the past and helped the teams get great gear while saving funds to be able to put them in to what matters most - tournament fees, travel, etc. Given the success of our trial run, we want to go bigger with this idea of a Women's Development Sponsorship. So here we go... For the 2017-2018 season, VC will offer all women's college teams a 20% no-obligations sponsorship discount on their team uniform orders, world-wide.  If your team has a coach, VC will also offset a small part of that investment for you and add a no-charge coach jersey to your order. What's more, if you're an open or mixed team actively working towards promoting equity at your school and in your community, we want to hear about what you're doing and help share your success. You will also be eligible to receive a Women's Development Sponsorship if your actions are tangibly making a difference in the support of female athletes in your area. How does it work? It's really quite simple. We'll ask you to tell us a bit about your team in this form and we'll be in touch to follow up within 1-2 business days. You can also drop us a line any time to get more information. Here is our contact info. A 20% discount will be added to any estimates we send you for your team uniforms and we'll walk you through the order process from start to finish. Other benefits: Free professional design help (up to 3 hours per team) if you submit your requests by December 1st. Individual team and player direct online ordering - check out our current system here, with a new and improved version launching by the end of August 2017! That's it, unless you want more... What more can VC do for your team? We are committed to working every day to be the best we can be, and that includes supporting the initiatives and values of our community. Some examples of what else we can do are: Promote your team and its initiatives via our wide-reaching social media channels Share your success stories and the successes of other teams to help learn from each other and inspire our community Offer your team Discs for Development, which allows us to offer Discraft practice discs for as low as US$5.50 / CA$6.91 per disc Most importantly, we'll continue to stand up and speak out for what's right and do our best to support and promote equity in ultimate through our actions, investments and our partnerships.  Here's that "application" form again, or drop us a line to hear more at info@vcultimate.com - Thank you!    

This statement has been modified from it's original version to reflect VC Ultimate's on going position on Gender Equity, as opposed to the situation-specific statement that was originally made July 7, 2017. For the original version, please contact us. Statement on Gender Equity It is essential that our community know where VC Ultimate stands on issues of equity and equality. As VC's leader, it is an issue I am passionate about and work very hard to promote in a positive way.  The voices representing our company must be united. We respect all people and believe that all people should be treated equally and fairly. There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done around gender equality in both sport and the world at large.   Adriana Withers Founding Partner & CEOVC Ultimate Inc. For more of our views on gender equity in ultimate, specifically with regards to media coverage, please visit this Ultiworld article. For any questions, comments or concerns, please contact us at info@vcultimate.com at any time. For more about VC Ultimate, please visit our About VC page.

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?