Writer/Editor: Hazard
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article talking about how UXIR has seen a drop in both the number of teams and the number of unique universities sending teams since 2016.
That inspired a fair bit of discussion - including a podcast discussion (out soon). And, well, I had an hour before the podcast to dive into the numbers a bit more.
So, now, here are the numbers for UWIR and UMIR. They also have both had drops.
However, it is useful to dive into what types of drop and how big they are.
I think we can now say that indoor University Ultimate attendance is down. These numbers don't tell us about outdoor University Ultimate or UK Ultimate on a wider scale. I'd love to see someone look at those numbers - I especially think Junior Ultimate would also be an interesting look for anyone with access to those numbers (simply because it's had a more consistent format and is an easier question to answer - and if anyone has the spreadsheets and would like me to do the stats just drop me a line).
Again, the main point of this article is to look into the "what", rather than the "why". I want to look at where we are, so we can figure out how to move forwards. It's very easy to come up with excuses. Please don't just take the easy route because it's easy.
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Methodology:
- I looked at UMIR and UWIR from 2014-2024 (the regions changed in 2014 so comparison before this is tough). Be aware that no regional tournament occurred in 2020.
- I recorded both the number of universities and the number of individual teams entered each year.
- I also broke everything down by individual region.
Here's what to consider before I show the tables:
- In any data analysis, showing a single number to represent a lot of things means you are simplifying the truth.
- This data looks at net changes - it doesn't look at the story happening in any individual University
- It does not show the size of the teams, nor anything about the level of competitiveness
- The 2018/19 season was the first in which there were 2 divisions at UWIN.
- UWIR only has 4 regions - Scotland, North (North + Yorkshire & East Midlands), West (West Midlands & Wales + South West), and East (South-East + East & London). The fact that the regions are different leads to a few factors (e.g. average travel time is longer) which make 1 to 1 comparison with UMIR/UXIR regions a little more nuanced.
Similar to last time, please take a second. There are a lot of stories here. Do be careful to not jump to conclusions, but if you think you have a hypothesis do the following: stop looking at the data, take a moment to think about what numbers would support or contradict that idea, and then look at the data a second time.
Graphs showing the data going to zero are included again at the end of the article - these graphs (except the first) are designed to most clearly display change, rather than absolute values.
Some things I noticed from this data with regard to *overall trends*:
UWIR has lower numbers than UMIR and UXIR - this makes it harder to see changes as just a couple of teams joining/leaving can have a proportionally bigger effect on the data.
Overall, 2015-17 were the "peak" seasons in terms of Ultimate participation across all divisions.
Interestingly, UWIR has an earlier peak (with 86 teams across 53 universities in 2015) compared to UMIR (154 teams in 2016, 67 Unis in 2017 & 18) and UXIR (133 teams in 2016, 63 Unis 2014 & 15 & 17 & 18 & 19).
However, while UWIR was fairly constant for 2014-2019 in terms of teams, UMIR had a big drop from 2015-17 (~152 teams each year) to 2018 & 19 (~140 teams).
While there is certainly variation in which Universities attended, overall the number of Universities sending teams to each of the divisions was approximately constant from 2014-2019. The decline in Universities appears to be a 2020 and post-2020 phenomenon.
Similar to UXIR, 2020 saw a lot of universities vanish from University Ultimate (UMIR: 66->55; UWIR: 52->43). It would be interesting to see how many have not returned.
The 2020 UMIR drop in teams (139->116) is much bigger than the drop in unis, but the UWIR drop (76->64) is not too dissimilar, indicating that either UMIR lost whole Universities that were previously entering "second teams", or that some clubs also shrunk in size.
UMIR and UWIR both had a strong 2022 season in terms of teams, although the overall trend is still downwards. This stands opposed to UXIR, which had seemed to be increasing steadily until this year.
2024 was the lowest attended regionals (in terms of both teams and Universities) since the regional changes in 2014. UMIR and UWIR are down roughly a third since their peaks (154->105 teams; 86 -> 58), UXIR is down around a quarter (133 -> 97).
Some things I noticed from this data with regard to *regional trends*:
Scotland (UWIR): In UWIR, Scotland was originally as big (or bigger) than other regions. However, it has steadily declined since 2014 (even as all other regions were actually growing), and has been the smallest region every year since 2015 (sharing the title in 2023). Unlike in UXIR and (most of) UMIR, it hasn't quite maintained all 8 main universities entering a team every year.
North (UWIR): A big part of 2022's UWIR mini-peak was due to the North growing 5 teams that year. It is the only UWIR region where 2021 was a low it has not returned to. Pre-COVID it did have some slow losses from 2015-2019, losing approximately a team a year since that time.
West (UWIR): The least-affected region by COVID, the West had a mini-boom in 2017 (reaching 23 teams) but has had around 17 teams across 12 Universities in most other years.
East (UWIR): The most-affected region by COVID. It lost 5 teams in 2021, and another 5 in 2023 (23->18->13). Notably, it also lost a lot of Universities in the same time period (18 -> 13 -> 10). This seems to indicate a lot of smaller Universities being unable to field teams, rather than bigger Universities losing "second-teams" over this time. They were the biggest region (by +2 teams) in 2019, now they're third smallest (-6 teams from the top).
Overall, the lower numbers make it slightly harder to see a clear story. Outside of the 2022 Northern boom, Scotland, the North, and the West seem fairly stable in recent years - with the East being the most affected region since 2020.
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Scotland (UMIR): Similar to UXIR, UMIR attendance has declined since 2016. However, it isn't as clean a slope, and a certain perspective could see the region as stable from 2017-2020. Similar to UWIR though, it is now 50% smaller than it was at its peak (UMIR: 24 -> 12; UWIR 20 -> 10 teams). Also, Dundee's absence this year marks the first time the 8 Scottish Universities haven't all attended UMIR since at least 2014.
North (UMIR): Honestly, a fairly stable region overall both in terms of Universities and teams. 2023 actually saw the joint-second biggest number of teams (18) in the region's history. The number of Universities has been 7 or 8 every year without exception. As far as I can see, any rises and falls are within fairly expected ranges.
Yorkshire and East Midlands (UMIR): By far the biggest region in terms of teams, the region fluctuated before 2019, dropped into 2021 (29->20 teams), but is the only region to consistently grow since then (20->21->22->23). However, the number of Universities has been dropping since 2019, implying this change is due to the growth of existing clubs.
West Midlands and Wales (UMIR): Fairly consistent growth pre-2020 has been followed by quite significant shrinkage since then. In fact, the past three UMIRs have seen the region sink by six teams (17->14->11), taking the title of smallest region this year and biggest relative drop from the region's peak (23 teams, 2017 & 18).
South West (UMIR): Similar to the UWIR West region (and W&WM UMIR), South-West UMIR had a peak in 2017, - later than all other regions. I can read this data in two ways. Leaving aside the peak, you can view pre-2020 and post 2020 as stable with a big COVID drop, or see a downward trend from 2017-2022 in which COVID doesn't really factor and stable since then.
South East (UMIR): Another region with a huge teams drop since its peak (25 in 2015 -> 12 in 2024 ), although that peak seems like more of a one-off year. Fairly consistent outside of that peak pre-COVID and fairly consistent after, although it dropped from 17 teams average -> 12 teams average around 2020.
East and London (UMIR): One of the more heavily fluctuating regions overall in terms of teams, it has been dropping Universities consistently since 2014 (13->7 Universities overall), and approximately declining in number of teams since 2016, although the odd weak/strong years make it a little harder to see. The 2022 bump in overall UMIR teams can be fairly confidently attributed to this region having a stronger year.
Overall thoughts:
After doing the UXIR stats, I was hoping someone else might be inspired to do UMIR and UWIR - indeed I was also really keen to find out what they would find. However, due to some of the old schedules being very, very hard to find I realised it would be comparatively less effort for me to compile these numbers. I'm happy to share the stats and sources if people wish. Shout out to Jamie R and Johnny T for inadvertently motivating me to put together these numbers.
Again though, I am one person looking at this data and compiling it. I might have added or removed a team accidentally here or there. Don't read too much into small rises and falls - try to look at bigger picture effects where you can.
For me, across the regions, the main summary is this. Uni Ultimate hit a peak (in terms of teams) somewhere between 2015-2017. It has been roughly declining since then. COVID seems to have fully eliminated a lot of Universities, but many that survived that have been stable since (although have been reducing in size). 2024 was the worst year since the region changes, seemingly above and beyond any expected trend.
This analysis likely isn't finished - if people remind me, I'll update it next year to see if 2025 can reverse the trend. You might be able to help that by seeing if your local Uni team would like help with trainings or admin advice for how to enter tournaments - particular smaller University teams or ones that vanished during COVID (although the key word here is "ask" - I strongly believe in letting those in the club decide).
Finally, thank you for reading. I wasn't sure whether to publish the first article - it's never fun to hear news like this, nor to be the bearer. I did a lot of coverage of Uni Ultimate back in the day and I promise that normally covering Ultimate is a lot more fun.
I'm going to use these final sentences as a small reflection - even though there are fewer teams, what I have seen is teams working just as hard, and putting just as much of themselves into being the best they can be. I'd love to see all that work rewarded with more preview articles and post-tournament analysis (outside of the excellent work being done in Scotland). If you're keen, I'd encourage you to give it a go, and drop me a line if you have any questions. It's not as scary as you think.
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Bonus figures showing the same data above, but on a wider range:
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