They have a mascot. They travel the country and get paid to play a professional sport. They even have cheerleaders. But chances are you have never heard of the
Detroit Mechanix.
The Mechanix are an ultimate disc (you probably know it as ultimate frisbee) team based in Pontiac. They compete in the Midwest Division of the American Ultimate Disc League, one of two professional ultimate disc leagues in the United States.
Players spend their days working in jobs like automotive design engineer, clinical pharmacist and chemical management site technician while spending their weekends traveling to Cincinnati and Chicago and Madison to play ultimate.
Community outreach
The Mechanix draw players from around Michigan and the rest of the country. They've got players from New York, North Carolina and Kansas (they've even got a guy from Denmark), but only a handful are from Metro Detroit.
One of the few homegrown players is Andrew Lucarotti, a pharmacist and a veteran of Mechanix squads, who grew up in Royal Oak. He explained that Metro Detroit has some catching up to do in the world of ultimate.
"Metro Detroit, unlike other big city communities like San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and so on, is a little behind the times in the ultimate frisbee scene," said Lucarotti. "Many of those cities offer youth programs and organized high school leagues. Our organization wants to help grow youth ultimate and increase the awareness of our sport in the Metro Detroit community."
That local lack of awareness of the sport is why Mechanix owner Brent Steepe is sending his players out into local schools. Players meet with kids during visits and teach them the game while serving as positive role models.
The guys on the Mechanix roster aren't highly paid pro athletes. These are guys who love the game and have a deep desire to help grow the game. Each of the players I spoke to for this article referenced their desire to help bring greater opportunities to the next generation of ultimate players.
Growing the fan base
You might expect a team operating in a relatively obscure sport like ultimate disc based nearly an hour outside of the nearest major city to have a tough time building a fan following. But the Mechanix have more than 22,000 Facebook fans, rivaling the social media following of more mainstream sports franchises like Michigan's three minor league baseball teams, which regularly draw thousands of fans to home games.
Yet, to date, the Mechanix largest home game attendance draw has been 770 fans, with average game day crowds in the hundreds.
Steepe described his marketing approach as "organic". No TV. No radio. No billboards or print or online ads. He focuses his efforts on community outreach and word of mouth.
Last year the Mechanix played most of their home games at
Ultimate Soccer Arena in Pontiac. This year, Steepe plans to continue building a fan base by taking the show on the road around Metro Detroit with home games at Oxford High School in northern Oakland County and Lakeview High School in St. Claire Shores.
"The team right now is concerned with one thing and one thing only," said Steepe. "Spreading ultimate to the youth of Michigan and the surrounding areas."
An opportunity for national exposure for the Mechanix is on the horizon. The AUDL sign a deal with ESPN to broadcast one AUDL game each week on
ESPN3. The Mechanix didn't make it on the schedule this regular season, but a playoff trip could put them on national television later this summer.
The Mechanix opened their season April 12 with a 30-21 home loss to Minnesota. Their next home games are April 19 against Madison and April 26 against Indianapolis.
When asked if he considered the Mechanix to be a Detroit team, a Metro Detroit team or a Michigan team, Steepe joked (or maybe he was serious) that they are "the world's team, located in Detroit."
They've got a ways to go, but soon enough, that may actually be true.
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