The best thing flotrack ever produced was the Andre Hernandez post race interview at the Texas state meet. I would pay to see that but NOTHING else on that site. The site is a joke and they pray on desperate track idiots. I hope they go out of business soon.
Sp!kes wrote:
The best thing flotrack ever produced was the Andre Hernandez post race interview at the Texas state meet. I would pay to see that but NOTHING else on that site. The site is a joke and they pray on desperate track idiots. I hope they go out of business soon.
And if they go out of business, how will we and you see the meets that they usually cover? Flotrack has been the only one doing this for us (runner space a little bit too)
Problem is they have greatly overestimated the value of their content. No one will bite. They'd be better off with something like 99c per event. People with a large appetite for flotrack interviews and such can go for the $20 per month deal.
Tstock wrote:
"Real sports" can be watched on espn for free.
Not if you don't live in the right area... or if you don't have expensive cable...
But MLB.TV is $20/month to watch baseball online. I agree that makes Flotrack expensive - similar price but not as much content as MLB.TV, I think. But they don't have to give it away for free, either. If you like it, support it with your wallet so it can improve.
I would prefer the Universal Sports model of charging $5 for the event you want to watch.
the prob is ft/rs are making money using kids as slaves. if streams were editorial with no copyright then folks would be happy to help out by paying some. the old 'starving students moving company' scam doesn't fly and ft/rs plays that sob story so often people suspect a game is being played on them.
crazy raisin wrote:
Why are Letsrunners so dang cheap? I mean I guess I remember when I was a high schooler with no debit card or anything, paywalls on the Internet were annoying, but geez...
Question: what other "real sports" show videos of all competitions for free?
Agreed. After reading all of these cheapskates whine about their entitled media, I am happy to pay FT to watch these meets.
Get a job and pay some money to support your sport people.
Once an Expert wrote:
No. F them, get better at selling advertising and start writing more articles and not posting all of those annoying videos.
Agree. Two pet peeves, they have all their videos set to auto start and at high volume. So if you open a video of theirs from your twitter stream, in another tab, it starts playing, usually screaming at loud volume.
There's a lot of debate right now about paywalls. At this point people are used being able to watch things streaming for free. Gonna be hard sledding.
Will the few parents they get to sign up ultimately make a big enough revenue difference?
Doubt it.
I think the Floski's are on the road to demise.
Monetizing through selling ads would possibly have been smarter.
I wish them well and hope it works out for them, but I'll be surprised if it does . . .
Fans shouldn't have to pay Flotrack to "support the sport" if they don't feel there is value behind what Flotrack is offering. I certainly don't. The $150/year price point is way too high for a fanboy site that only does a very, very average job at producing live event coverage. Maybe they'll start using this money to improve their quality.
I agree that fans shouldn't complain about paying. Either you do it or you don't. There is no need to hate on Flotrack. You can be critical, but don't hate on them. They are trying to make what they do a more legitimate business. I don't think it'll work, but good for them for trying.
If Flo is going to be making money off their work then they need to start being more careful about blatantly stealing other people's conent.
I would gladly pay $5 a meet if there were an option for that and I wrote that under the comments about the BU meet on their website. That would allow those of us who really only care about the races to watch the races. That could give the meets some cash as a kickback to allow Flotrack to broadcast their meets. Cool, Cam Levins runs a lot. Let the high schoolers who don't have bills to pay to watch Levins run on the roads.
What flotrack is doing right now is bad for flotrack. Either they will adjust the price point or lose their audience and fail as a company. But the sport will still be there, floundering along as it always has.
A Duck wrote:
Two pet peeves, they have all their videos set to auto start and at high volume. So if you open a video of theirs from your twitter stream, in another tab, it starts playing, usually screaming at loud volume.
Have you considered e-mailing them to suggest that they change this practice, or are you like every other idiot here who would rather bellyache to the choir than take any potentially productive steps?
Failing that, here's a suggestion: Turn the friggin' master volume on your computer down. Since you know in advance how the Flotrack videos behave, you can even be proactive in this area. If you need detailed instructions on how to do this, I'm sure someone will be willing to provide them as you're clearly accustomed to being spoon-fed at a presumed age when people generally have learned to take at least a smidgeon of initiative.
Again, I can understand being disappointed that a formerly free product is no longer free, but those of you who are unapologetically *offended* by this are something to behold, and not in a good way.
I can't believe this is even a debate on LRC. This is unequivocally bad for the sport. Why are we putting up another barrier for fans?
Counter Argument: It costs money to stream the event
- Not really. The armory already has the infrastructure in place. They've had the cameras they use for years. They need 1 person to operate the cameras. The team hosting the meet could easily just have one injured athlete doing this job. There is almost 0 production value in these streams (which is totally fine - we don't need anything fancy).
Counter Argument: If you really wanted to support running, you'd pay the fee and support Flotrack
- This is backwards. Flotrack, which I still value as a site that aims to popularize running in America, is making it harder for people to be fans of running. Watching running is not fun. Meets are 8 hours too long. Find another way to make money.
One other thing I've been thinking about recently... The armory needs to do a better job with results. I have no idea what results software they are using, but it is embarrassing how long it takes to post results from armory meets. All results for every meet at the armory should be posted LIVE. This should be very easy to do (and at essentially no cost, except maybe a 1 time fee to upgrade their software). And this would be great for the sport. It would be very easy to say "if you want to host a meet at the armory, you need to use timing software that will publish live results instantaneously."
21st century, let's bring track into it.
One more thing. I just noticed that flotrack has been doing a little bitching on twitter as people have complained about their "service."
"Unless @letsrundotcom wants to foot the bill for producing meets, they can send us an email to ask about it"
Tell us how much this "production" costs. Whatever they are spending to "produce" it is way too much given how crappy a job they do.
The armory provides you a supply of hundreds of media savvy high school kids who would volunteer to do the job better than flotrack for free. Maybe tap into that.
Lets Think About This wrote:
I can't believe this is even a debate on LRC. This is unequivocally bad for the sport. Why are we putting up another barrier for fans?
Counter Argument: It costs money to stream the event
- Not really. The armory already has the infrastructure in place. They've had the cameras they use for years. They need 1 person to operate the cameras. The team hosting the meet could easily just have one injured athlete doing this job. There is almost 0 production value in these streams (which is totally fine - we don't need anything fancy).
You forgot bandwidth, and lots of it, needed to stream at high speeds to thousands of potential viewers. That's the biggest cost...
crazy raisin wrote:
You forgot bandwidth, and lots of it, needed to stream at high speeds to thousands of potential viewers. That's the biggest cost...
Armory Track has been using Youtube's live stream service. Which is *free*
Why is it so hard for them to use a tripod? Most of their videos have so much movement that I can't watch the whole Four Minutes. Often times I think they like to flip the camera around and give weird angles - maybe that adds to their production costs?!?!?
I give them credit for doing what they are doing, but they need to add way more quality content for me to pay for the FloPro. This will be very hard as most coaches will not share what they are actually doing with an audience.
There is a reason why track sucks. A large part has to do with the fans. If you believe the price is too high then pay for the service with two or three friends and share time. But stop complaining about actually having to pay to watch online or pay for a ticket. Millrose had 3000-4000 fans (at most) the last time it was at MSG. Where were all of you "fans"? Nowhere. Did you guys make the trek to NCAA's or USATF champs? Nope. Have you emailed ESPN about its lackluster track coverage? How about CBS? Or NBC? How about Sports Illustrated? Nope. You just bitch. If you don't want to pay to watch then don't. But good for flotrack. They are at least TRYING to do something for you complainers. I have paid. Is it pricey? Yes. Will I complain? No. Why? Because I remember that fans would say in the 90's that we WISH we could pay to watch these events but at the time there was no option. Now there is.
And I will order two less pizzas this month as a result. Seems like a good deal.
It's a shame how so many of you feel entitled to so much for free - music, movies, track and field, websites. You do nothing. You deserve nothing. Somebody has to do the work so you can enjoy this stuff. So once in awhile shut up and pay.
People like 'worst generation ever' are inclined to make this an 'entitlement' issue because that's the hot button political rhetoric these days. Others will respond to the Original Poster by offering some answer vaguely intended to exhibit business savvy: "things cost money," "upkeep," "overhead," "production."
Both of these posts are wrong. The original issue was that the high amount Flotrack is charging is bad for the sport. As someone who has been to several USATF championships and more Millrose Games than he can count, I feel at least minimally involved and qualified enough to say that, yes, the $150 a year is bad for the sport. I do not think it is at all unreasonable to charge money--but the amount Flotrack is charging is high enough not only to turn off track fans (which actually isn't that big a deal--all of us on here will find other ways to appreciate results) but, more importantly, it's so high that it ensures only die-hard track fans with the proper disposable income will be exposed to all that Flotrack has to offer--thereby ensuring, in turn, that Flotrack attracts new fans to the sport (with the exception, perhaps, of a handful of athlete-parents).
It's possible to argue that this would be the case no matter how much Flotrack charged; however, I think a cheaper fee of, say, $5 per meet, would allow wider and more flexible involvement on the part of fans than the $20/month charge.
It's possible to argue, too, that none of us should expect track to be free, since, after all, we invariably pay in some form to watch more mainstream sports like basketball, football, and baseball, whether through a cable subscription or a beer at the bar. But a large and unfortunate difference between track and these more mainstream sports is that track enjoys far fewer competitions than, say, football, meaning that you get far less "bang for your buck" with a Flotrack subscription rather than an ESPN subscription. Flotrack is throwing in videos, documentaries and the like to convince us that the money is being well spent, and I like the idea; but they are, ultimately, supplementary videos, and until Flotrack gets solid writers to complement the videos, that supplementary material will not be worth the cost.
Another word about a pay-to-watch company like ESPN--it does for the sports it showcases something that Flotrack, in its present state, will never be able to do. It attracts single sport viewers (say, football fans) to other sports like basketball or tennis by diversifying its coverage; commentary on football is interlaced with commentary on basketball, or the football game ends and a basketball game can be watched. This diversification ensures that single sport fans quickly become multi-sport fans. This is why I think it is wrong-headed to point to ESPN as any kind of model for Flotrack; Flotrack, in focusing solely on track, has no means of attracting new audiences to a sport. This is not a fault of Flotrack's so much as it is just a condition of the sport of track and field. But by making people pay so steep a price, Flotrack ensures that audience grows smaller and stagnant--not larger.