SO FAR in this, the second season of Major League Ultimate (MLU), the Boston Whitecaps, last season’s champs, are leading the eastern league, while the San Francisco Dogfish, whom they faced in the first season’s championship game, are once again top dogs in the western league. Will they clash again at next July’s finale?

The excitement is almost overwhelming. Yet incredibly, many Americans still do not realise that “ultimate”, or formalised Frisbee-flinging, is now a serious sport: in the championship game, held in Philadelphia this July, leaflets were handed out explaining that games are played seven-a-side, typically on an American football field with the posts removed. Players score by catching a disc (often with an athletic flourish) in the opponent’s end-zone.

Plastic discs have been chucked across beaches since before the second world war. Frisbee, still the best-known brand, was registered in the 1950s, and attempts to codify the game’s rules date back to the 1960s. But only last year did MLU begin as the sport’s first centrally managed professional league. “We wanted to create a spectator sport from what has largely been a player-driven experience,” says Nic Darling, an MLU official.

However, an older organising body, USA Ultimate (USAU), has also been working to professionalise the sport. It has created the Triple-Crown Tour, a series of tournaments for elite teams (which operates somewhat like European football’s Champions League but is separate from the MLU). Before this, “it was random teams in random cities, no one was ever sure who was going to play,” says USAU’s chief, Tom Crawford. “It was impossible to sell that.” In March ESPN, a big sports broadcaster owned by Disney, bought the rights to broadcast the tour in full, for an undisclosed amount. Now USAU is seeking a big-name sponsor.

Small firms are benefiting from the sport’s growth. Five Ultimate makes the official kit (baggy shorts and shirt, made of stretchy fabric) for hundreds of teams worldwide. Started in 2006 by five siblings in a Seattle garage, it now employs 23 full-time staff. Ultiapps is a mobile app that allows coaches to track players’ performance. Its data have been used to power MLU’s online fantasy league.

Tushar Singh, one of Ultiapp’s founders, thinks that a whole new economy can form around ultimate. “People can start making livings as funds are injected at a sponsorship level,” he says. Unlike basketball and baseball, ultimate has no millionaire stars—players get modest stipends and travel expenses. But surely this will come. Chucking a Frisbee about may seem frivolous to some—but there was a time when throwing a big orange ball through a hoop was also seen as just a bit of pleasant exercise, and no way to make a living.