What is the WFTDA Anyway?

If you’ve been to our website, one of our games, or talked to one of our skaters, you’ve probably heard this mysterious word, that sounds something like “Wiffda” and wondered just what that is. Well, it’s our lazy pronunctiation of WFTDA, or the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association.

The WFTDA is a sort of coalition of leagues (in fact, its original name way back when was the United Leagues Coalition), kind of like what the NFL or NCAA might be.  But unlike those other governing bodies, the folks who make up the WFTDA aren’t nameless administrators — they are the leagues and skaters themselves. Each member league of WFTDA has representatives who not only handle voting and discussion on behalf of their league, they also do the day-to-day work that makes the WFTDA run.

What does WFTDA offer leagues? The thing that most folks bring up first is the official ruleset.  WFTDA rules are what most flat track derby leagues play by, whether or not they are members of the organization. That ruleset is not just made up by WFTDA and disseminated; in fact, each rule change is debated about, written by and voted on by the member leagues. 

Tournaments are another biggie. WFTDA administers the tournament season, and leagues vote to approve hosts who have applied (OHRG hosted the first ever East Regional Tournament, Heartland Havoc way back in August 2007.  WFTDA now has four regions, and OHRG is a part of the North Central region.) The Games committee of WFTDA helps hosts with the gameplay aspects of the tournament — game structure, reffing, non-skating officials, major rule questions, etc. — while the host league is free to organize the other elements of the tourney how they see fit.

Apart from that, being a member league of WFTDA gives you quick access to the other league representatives.  Say OHRG had a question about marketing, or league policies, or any of a hundred other things that go into the running of a roller derby league. Rather than try to re-invent the wheel, one of our WFTDA reps might pose the question to our network of reps, and see how other leagues have solved the problem. When you’re running a business with no-pay, and in the time outside your day-job, that advice from others who have been there can be invaluable.

There are a whole host of other benefits from WFTDA too: insurance, the ability to sanction games and therefore get ranked regionally, etc. And there are many things OHRG gives back to WFTDA as a part of our responsibilities of membership too: we have reps serving in the IT department, the Apprentice League Program, Games and many more.

A few weeks ago, OHRG applied and was accepted as the host of WFTDA’s 2010 Annual Meeting. That means we get the privilege of hosting our derby sisters from all over the WFTDA, as reps and refs will meet in Columbus this spring for the annual meeting where planning is done for the coming year. We are very excited to share our city once again with the derby world.  There’s a lot of work associated with wrangling 300-some odd people into a hotel to discuss topics of business, organizing social outings in the evening, a scrimmage and other sorts of events. But it’s all worth it in the end for what we get back from being a member league of such a fantastic organization.

Want more info? Or merch? Resources? Check out www.wftda.com