Playing with Fire, Competing with Spirit: Cooperation in the Sport of Ultimate

Blaine G. Robbins
2012 Sociological spectrum  
Prior research shows that third-party agents are necessary to promote cooperation when groups are large and spatially diffuse. I explore whether this proposition holds in the self-governing sport of Ultimate. While the size of the community and spatial diffusion of the sport theoretically suggests limited decentralized control, the widespread implementation of a refereed system has not yet emerged. Instead, I find with qualitative methods that cooperation in Ultimate is the result of the sport
more » ... eing federally controlled and embedded within tiers of organizational constraint that promote informal regulation of competitions through norms, reputations, and self-discipline. for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. I gratefully acknowledge the Ultimate community for making this project possible and the Mallards for not only providing a compelling case to study, but for years of fellowship and camaraderie.
doi:10.1080/02732173.2012.663713 fatcat:sda7chig7jcq7f7e3qgg75z7tm