Contact Sport Now that's how you play the networking game.

Whether you're after expansion capital, some creativeemployees or cutting-edge business contacts, you might try lookingin a surprising place: at an Ultimate Frisbee game. Once a fringepastime played primarily at East Coast colleges, Ultimate has nowbecome one of the fastest-growing participant sports with at least100,000 players, according to the Ultimate Players Association.Most U.S. cities now offer Ultimate leagues at a variety ofcompetitive levels, and the sport has become as popular with men aswith women, and with middle-aged professionals as with youngerpeople.

Ultimate has particularly attracted entrepreneurs who like itsfree-flowing style, lack of referees and nonhierarchical nature.(Players switch positions all the time.) "Everyone has to playevery position, so you get people who understand the kind ofversatility a small company needs," says Peter Nieh, a generalpartner at San Francisco-based venture capital company LightspeedVenture Partners and an avid Ultimate player.

Entrepreneurs say Ultimate has become the most popularparticipant sport among venture capitalists, so business ownersoften run into a potential source of funding on the field."Many of our executives play Ultimate in the weekly Fridaygames at Greer Park in Palo Alto," says Russ Rive, co-founderof 100-employee desktop management company Everdream in Fremont,California.