Why doesn’t USA Ultimate have qualifiers for Easterns and Westerns?
The option of qualifiers for either Nationals or Easterns and Westerns was discussed thoroughly and found to be logistically impossible. In order for teams to make travel plans to the championship tournament the qualifying tournament would have to be held 4-6 weeks prior to the championship. Since most teams would not qualify for the championship the qualifying tournament would be the event that most teams look at as the peak of their season. From here we had two options. First, we could keep the championship event in mid-late May and require the qualifiers to be held in early-mid April. Since there are many regions of the country that do not get on to the fields until the end of March or the beginning of April, holding the qualifiers only a couple of weeks into their season seemed unreasonable and unfair. For most teams in those regions it would effectively reduce their Ultimate season to four weeks or less. Second, we could move the championship to mid June and require the qualifiers
