Clayton Murphy rips Flotrack

Where Flotrack went wrong is that they focused on the quantity not the quality of their content. They sensationalize news and it is maddening for avid fans who know enough about the sport to recognize it and reject it.

I am a firm believer that the people capable of producing quality content for running sports are at mundane jobs somewhere, depressed, long overdue for a run and longing for their glory days. Those are the real sports nuts who do best when they release after work.

Point of the message is that there are super creative people out there but flotrack will never be attractive to them because they wont go for a 40k year salary. Flotrack doesnt need to look for news and be machine to produce it. Rather the news will write itself. In which case they could scrap everyone they have and start from scratch.

Every generation has a Marc Bloom or Tony Reavis. They need to focus on finding them before they run out of money.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8444610

What's wrong with a news story about the Akron program dropping a sport, and leading the story with one photo of the school's big-name alum? Every single story anywhere on the web which uses a photo as an accompanying illustration would do the same.

Clayton Murphy's prissy prima donna reaction to seeing his photo in a story behind a paywall is ridiculous. No doubt he's peeved at Akron, and he doesn't like the Flotrack profiteering mentality, but whatever you think of Flotrack, they're like every single business on the planet: trying to make money. The powers that be have every right to set their fees in this supply-and-demand culture. If they do it well, some people who run Flotrack can afford great season tickets to the new Hayward Field and love living the good life (when this virus mess is behind us).

It's an unfair world, isn't it? Hey, I don't like the fact that I have to pay for a cup of coffee, a gallon of gas, a new pair of Asics, a loaf of bread, a ticket to get into Hayward Field. Why is that Rolling Stones concert fee costing me an arm and a leg for even a bad seat? Why does that pitcher of craftbrew have a pricetag on it? WHY CAN'T EVERYTHING BE FREE OR "REASONABLY" PRICED? Waahhhhhh!!

flotrack rocker wrote:

Not a response. A question. Flotrack covers most of the largest meets so how do you haters watch NCAA XC regionals or championships? How do you watch USA track championships? How do watch conference track meets? They also put some great documentaries together.

Uh, that’s the whole problem? I don’t (besides USAs, which I can often find on NBC). The thing is that I WOULD watch those meets but I don’t because I’m not gonna shell out the price that FloTrack charges. My reason why isn’t that I’m “not a fan of the sport” like you seem to infer, but because I’d rather suck it up and read the recap and look at live results rather than pay out too much money for meh commentating at best, often poor camera work (the most recent example that comes to mind is everyone who HAD a FloTrack subscription complaining about the quality of the 2019 NCAA XC broadcast), and supporting a business model that I feel takes advantage of its customers by doing things such as what Clayton Murphy is criticizing (taking away from the sport when they have the chance to contribute to its growth by doing stuff like essentially reposting free articles under a paywall)

Good points. Clayton Murphy probably gets paid over $100k per year which we all pay when we buy a pair of shoes. It would be nice if he and every other pro athlete stopped charging for their services because it would save all of us some money.

Test

flotrack has been trash for at least 4-5 years now. It used to be one of my go to places for news and content. I can't even remember the last time I intentionally went to the website, not to mention they try to get you to pay to read short news articles with info that's available for free anywhere else....I mean it's one thing if they were long-form feature stories that had something interesting but its not.

I mean they used to have some of the best content for fans even outside of their race broadcasts...now it's just a bunch of former bad D3 runners screaming about memes that were popular among high schoolers 2 years ago while charging a crazy amount.

The issue is flotrack is copying and pasting news from another website (in this case the Akron website) and then trying to charge their readers to view it. Flotrack didn't do any of their own reporting, they didn't send a journalist out there to speak with the administration, or the coaches, or members of the team. They didn't even ask Clayton Murphy for comment.

Nobody is accusing them of doing anything illegal, though many of us believe it's highly unethical. You and flotrack rocker are trying to shame us into paying for a subscription, but it's our right to chose to not pay for a subscription when we can get that same news other places for free.

flotrack rocker wrote:

Good points. Clayton Murphy probably gets paid over $100k per year which we all pay when we buy a pair of shoes. It would be nice if he and every other pro athlete stopped charging for their services because it would save all of us some money.

That's part of the problem. Pro athletes in other sports are paid by their league/team. That money comes from ticket sales and from TV/radio contracts. That means the media companies profiting off those sport are also paying that professional organization and that money is given back to the athletes.

Flotrack is charging money for their service but they don't give a dime back to the athletes - either directly or indirectly. It's like the NCAA model again, athletes do the labor and other people get rich off of it.

There is no shame in not purchasing a product that you do not feel is worth the price being charged. But some posters have made false claims against that organization. Claiming they came to a trackmeet and were forced to leave? I choose not to purchase a Mercedes because it is not worth the price, but I don't make false claims about the product. I also choose not to purchase Hulu, or Netflix, or Starbucks, or Harley Davidson, or private college, or country club membership. I am less inclined to purchase Nike now based on Murphy taking money from them which takes money from customers.

here wrote:

How about as a professional or elite collegiate runner you get $0 from track but they get to make money off of you. You’d be cool with that? Does it make sense why the pros don’t really like flotrack?

Wow, this guy is really gonna lose it when he finds out college football and basketball are on TV.

flotrack rocker wrote:

But how can you be a fan and not watch all if the meets that they cover? USA champs? Iowa State Indoor? NCAA?

Up to about 3 years ago - most meets were filmed by local groups and placed on the web for free. The Flodump started throwing money around and effectively got those local groups kicked out of meets. So now everyone has to pay.l

And Ryan - it was you who was asked to leave. Ring a bell now dip.....

fact checker 642572498 wrote:

flotrack rocker wrote:

Good points. Clayton Murphy probably gets paid over $100k per year which we all pay when we buy a pair of shoes. It would be nice if he and every other pro athlete stopped charging for their services because it would save all of us some money.

That's part of the problem. Pro athletes in other sports are paid by their league/team. That money comes from ticket sales and from TV/radio contracts. That means the media companies profiting off those sport are also paying that professional organization and that money is given back to the athletes.

Flotrack is charging money for their service but they don't give a dime back to the athletes - either directly or indirectly. It's like the NCAA model again, athletes do the labor and other people get rich off of it.

That would require USATF or World Athletics to set up some kind of revenue sharing for athletes to receive a share of the gate or the revenues from broadcast rights.

flotrack rocker wrote:

I am counting. Betting the negative comments come from 10 people. D1 College coaches and runners and their families all like Flotrack. I think the other runners feel slighted and the cheapskates don't like to pay for anything.

I ran D1 and am in races that were filmed by Flotrack. I have no problem with their approach of buying rights to races and trying to provide content worth paying for. The issues I have had with them is: 1) billing/access disputes that I've heard from many different individuals regarding trying to cancel services 2) unreliable quality of product.

I pay for NBC Sports Gold Track and Field Pass because it is worth it, and I do not pay for Flotrack because it is not. But sure, call us all cheapskates.

fact checker 642572498 wrote:

Flotrack is charging money for their service but they don't give a dime back to the athletes - either directly or indirectly. It's like the NCAA model again, athletes do the labor and other people get rich off of it.

Umm, are you aware of how the majority of sports journalism works these days? Flotrack ain't unique in that respect bro.

He just announced on his socials he is doing a giveaway of spikes and a bib on his stream today...maybe we should ask him about it while he streams he can explain his reasoning.

Hey Mr flotrack

This is John from Indiana sports. You know me. So when you copy videos or content from someone's else's website without permission and you put it on your site under a paywall...that is ok? And when they ask you to take it down...the response was "sue us".

After reading all this.i just might

I don't know you because I am just a Flotrack fan here, just like most of the track community. I thought Flotrack took it down from pay after being asked.

I would doubt this is Ryan. Ryan from Flotrack actually seems like a decent person. I find it hard to believe he’d get into an argument with people if he was asked to leave a meet that did not want flotrack there. Anyway, I loved flotrack back in the day. Many great memories, and it really helped bring the community together. I watched from 2007 to 2012 or so when it became PPV, and it felt like I was on the journey with them in thT little van. Going to PPV has driven a wedge in the community. Viewership definitely dropped in the older demographic (no parents to buy a Christmas subscription) or whatever. Used to visit that site 4 times a day. Haven’t been there in years now.

Livetorunfast wrote:

flotrack rocker wrote:

I love Flotrack. Most people do. Just because there are 10 people on this site who are cheap doesn't mean that they don't offer a good product at a reasonable price.

wow! You obviously work for Flotrack.

Yeah that was pretty bad