History of Ultimate Frisbee Disc

In the 20th Century, the Yale campus' students played 'tossing the disc' with metal pie tins. These metal tins were used by Connecticut's Frisbie Pie Company to hold pies and would hold a flight when thrown over a short distance.

When Walter Frederick Morrison was on a beach in Santa Monica in 1938, he and his family were tossing the pie pan back and forth. The game interested onlookers, and one of them, even offered Morrison 25 cents for the tin that the family was playing with. Thus the idea of developing a cheap, durable disc came to Morrison's mind.

Taking this idea forward, Morrison and his wife started purchasing pie pans in bulk and started selling them for 25 cents on the beach, to earn good profits on each pan sale. After a decade of selling discs, Morrison sold his idea to Wham-O toy company.

In 1951, the Wham-O toy company mass produced these flying discs and named them 'Pluto Platter'.

In 1958, a year after the Frisbee Pie Company was shut down, the Wham-O toy company registered the name 'Frisbee' for their flying discs.

In 1968, a year after Joel Silver shared his idea of the sport, the first Ultimate game was played between the student council and the staff of the college newspaper. The newspaper staff won the match. This match was played with just two boundaries - goal lines and other natural boundaries such as fence, walls, etc.

In 1975, Yale University hosted the first Ultimate Tournament where 8 college teams participated in the event. The Rutgers University team won the tournament. In the same year, Ultimate was also added to the Second World Frisbee Championships at the Rose Bowl. With this addition, the sport became popular in the West Coast of the USA.

The Swedish Frisbee Foundation (1974), Japanese Frisbee Disc Association (1975), Australian FDA (1976), Belgium and Austria FDA (1977), Finland FDA and Danish Frisbee Sport Union in 1978 were formed. In 1985, the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) was formed and the first World Ultimate Club Championships was held in 1989 at Cologne.

Today, the Ultimate sport is played by 700,000+ players across 80 countries. Memberships at the Ultimate Players Association (UPA) are increasing every year. The modern version of the game has similarities to the original version of the game, however, these games are more regulated and polished.