What is Gameday? A guide to WAFDA's new registration platform

Recently, you may have seen or registered for events that use Gameday instead of Ultimate Central for sign ups. Gameday is WAFDA's new system for managing membership and competitions, and this post is here to answer some common questions about the platform.

Note that this page is a live FAQ page and will change over time as more common questions emerge. Please be sure to check back here occasionally for updates!

How did we get here?

In recent discussions at a local and national level, there was a lot of dissatisfaction expressed with Ultimate Central. New players and parents coming into the sport found it confusing to use, administrators were frustrated by its poor data handling and restricted setup options, and there were looming concerns about the privacy of the system against a changing legislative landscape. As developing a modern digital support system was a strategic priority for WAFDA, we put our hand up to pilot an alternative solution to see what had developed in the 20 years since AFDA implemented Ultimate Central and the process began. Gameday had the right combination of traits to win from a shortlist of three solutions in mid-2023 and by early 2024 we were ready to begin testing it at selected events. With thanks to Glenn (WAFDA's development officer), Curtis (WAFDA's events officer) and Will at Marlow St Ultimate, Gameday was used at events between May and July 2024, helping to discover areas the development process could improve and show that overall Gameday was ready for wider use. We are now looking to fully transition to Gameday by early 2025.

What benefits does Gameday have?

There are a number of improvements for players and parents of players - registration processes can be streamlined, it is a more flexible system allowing for more event types and registrations, it has a collected knowledge and support base from use in many sports globally, and is much stronger in protecting user privacy. It may also be more familiar to people who play other sports that use Gameday. For administrators, it can produce more reliable reports, simplifies finances and connects directly to number of other systems more seamlessly. We have also found that Gameday's customer service and support through this process has been exemplary, with someone always a quick email or call away to help us. It does all this for a similar cost to Ultimate Central.

But what changes? Is there anything we lose in the shift?

Firstly, change itself is hard. For those of us who've gotten used to Ultimate Central over the years, Gameday represents a new way of doing things and we are starting from scratch. With time, hopefully Gameday will become second nature in the way Ultimate Central became for some of us. It is also early days, and we've been taking player and administrator feedback on what works and what could be improved. The Gameday team continue to work with us to respond to any feedback, so be sure to let us know if you think something could be improved! (More on that below.) For administrators, we've been given more options and power on how to set events and membership up, which makes the first setup of an event more involved than before. Over the coming months, we hope many of these issues will resolve as we learn the system and change it where necessary.

How does this practically impact event and membership registration?

The most immediate and obvious change is how registrations work - where in the past you may have logged into the AFDA web page and searched for an event, now your team captain or event organiser will send you a link, or that link will be posted on social media, this web page or email. When you register, you will also note that the look and feel of registrations is different and hopefully more streamlined. Finally, event information, instead on being on the central AFDA page, will be hosted on this website and essential details will be emailed direct to participants.

How does this practically impact my game experience?

Another significant area of difference that you will see as administrators get more familiar with the system is the fixturing, stats and points reporting system. You will be able to see fixtures and enter results on both a website and the Gameday mobile app. We believe this system is significantly more intuitive than Ultimate Central. We have also worked with Gameday to develop a series of statistics that can be entered live into the game page for events that would like this function, such as (for the moment) competitive finals or potential future league formats. As we use Gameday more, we can tune both the registration and game time experiences to meet player feedback.

What does this mean for administrators?

Gameday gives admins more power to tune the player experience at all levels and can also make some admin tasks much easier. For example, league directors can manually assign fields in a visual field grid, a feature that was very popular at a test run at AUC D2. You can run a number of reports as well as create your own reports for registrations and finance. It can also automate payment distribution between the club and the AFDA EBF so that you don't have to worry about big lump sum invoices arriving every quarter. There is also comprehensive and easy to find help files for all functions within Gameday, and you can request training sessions. Again, we are working with Gameday to continue to improve the experience for administrators. In the near term, we will be reaching out to all admins to arrange access and training where needed.

What now?

Over the coming months, more and more events will transition to Gameday. Until you need to register for one of these events, you don't need to do anything. When you do register for one of these events, you will be prompted to set up a Gameday Passport if you don't have one from another sport and will then proceed with registration from there. We hope it is an easy process.

We value feedback, however, and need help with ironing out bugs as they occur. So, if you have a comment or idea that could help us improve the system, send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

WAFDA thanks all members for their patience and support through this transition process, and we hope that we will deliver a better user experience to all members for every event in the near future.