Flotrack signs multi-year deal to stream diamond league

how much is flotrack paying you to ride and promote them like you are in here?

Because NASCAR has the best fans in the world. They pick a favorite driver and literally buy products exclusively from every company listed on the side of the car.

Peacock does not have the technical issues that FloTrack has. London Marathon 2023. Disaster.

Poor announcing/commentating/too much time on hobby joggers is one thing. FloTrack's problematic history is much, much worse.

Which is why earlier I questioned supply and demand. This model is the exact opposite and does nothing to grow interest in the sport. the EPL bends over backwards to grow interest in soccer. You can catch a free EPL game somewhere (and many other leagues as well) just about any day of the week. Cycling is hugely popular in Europe, more so that T&F is. It's not so popular here but many years ago my interest in cycling was spurred by a FREE network broadcast of the Tour de France.

Why does T&F constantly shoot itself in the foot?

He's pointing out a fact lost on many people. Flotrack just recycles the broadcast for international races, they don't cover it themselves like college meets.

So I don't watch the diamond league anymore - I'll live. My values will not let me pay anything for Flosh--t.

If Flo---- gets every race in the world. I just stop watching meets live. Either I will wait for someone to post a link on their webpage or youtube or whatever for free. It takes until two hours after the race to find every single race.

Do you know why they made this decision? World Athletics probably went with the highest bidder, and maybe the only bidder. It's unlikely a giant like NBC was outbid by a meaningless insect like FloTrack. I bet NBC is just giving up on Track and Field after the 2024 Paris Olympics. If you want to be mad at someone, and that someone is not Track and Field fans, then you should probably be mad at NBC.

Huge and long time T&F fan here! I have Peacock that I gladly pau for. No way I will pay $30 a month for a couple of meets, will just watch highlights on Youtube instead.

This is very very bad for the sport.

After putting commercials and slow-motion replays of failed high jump attempts in the middle of every race longer than 1k, NBC probably wondered why nobody's watching and didn't renew

Yeah, I guess I agree. We're doomed. It's definitely a "trending downward" type of sign.

Couldn't disagree more, content and enthusiasm from the British announcers is 10x better than Goucher and Bolden

Bummer, peacock was a lot cheaper than Flotrack. And you got a lot of other good stuff on Peacock, not much else good on Flotrack.

Flotrack went totally downhill after Mark Floriani, Ryan Fenton and Alex Lohr stopped making their video content. Those guys actually understood the sport and had some good stuff! Gordon Mack, on the other hand, probably hasn't run a day in his life and sounds absolutely clueless about literally everything (in addition to all of the other people there nowadays).

Chris Chavez, however, isn't even part of flotrack and hasn't been for a long time haha. Not related to him; he's part of citius mag, which, unlike flotrack, makes enjoyable content.

Wow that was the bad wigins take of the month--bad take there dude.

Fans can watch the world feed but that could easily be done in any setup the Diamond League struck.

I think this deal shows the sad state of track and field in the country right now. The Diamond League essentially is giving up no trying to grow a fan base in the US with this deal. On what I regard the biggest stage of track in the world (outside of the Olympics and Worlds) they are saying, "we don't care how many people watch in the US, let's just make a little money on this."

Makes sense short term but long-term do athletes want to compete where they won't be seen in their home countries? The counter argument is that the DL wasn't on TV in great numbers in the US to begin with so might as well make a few dollars.

My general take is Flotrack doesn't increase the audience of what it broadcasts, it sometimes increases the amount of revenue extracted from the broadcasts. Which has some benefits.

A few years ago, Flocasts struck a deal to broadcast DC United (MLS Soccer games). When the deal was announced DC United talked about how fans would get exclusive behind the scenes of the club as well as traditional coverage. (Note with this track deal there is none of that, Flotrack presumably will just take the world feed and charge you to watch it).

Nonetheless the deal was canceled halfway through the first year. The Washington Post said, "the exclusive streaming service damaged United’s momentum in the local marketplace. One season after rejuvenating its brand and popularity with Wayne Rooney’s arrival and Audi Field’s opening, United was largely out of sight and out of mind."

Now, for soccer fans were only paying $8.99 a month. The model with track fans is to charge a lot more.

The question is what the DL gets in return?

I am going to become the Joker jesus christ.

It's really ironic how globally track and field is making really good efforts to expand the sport, meanwhile American track is doing its absolute best to kill it. I don't think it can be changed now, but this is absolutely the type of thing WA needs to step in and stop if they're actually serious about growing the sport stateside

A lot of the posters here haven't watched Peacock Diamond League coverage. Except for meets in the USA, they use the World Feed with Hutchins and Cram. Replays are available so you don't have to watch it live. I'd suggest people that aren't watching at least take advantage of Peacock in 2024.

Wejo do you have any sense of how much $ we are talking about here?

In World Athletics annual report for 2022 they list total Broadcast Rights revenue as $14.7 million. Majority of this is presumably coming from World Championships, given thats pretty much the only event thats on Television. How much of this can possibly be US Diamond League rights that get buried on streaming services (Not even including Pre Classic)? Maybe $1-2M?

Why are T&F finances so opaque? Can somebody with a journalism major actually break down the economics of this sport for us

Yes I tend to agree but it wasn’t being done with NBC, which was frustrating. It went from no ads to shoehorned ads taking away from the presentation. I think FloTrack if they were trying to help fans out would offer an “elite track” package that would be just Commonwealth Tour Gold/Diamond League/Marathon Major presentations with the World Feed. Make it $10 a month or $80 for the year. It’s what NBC Sports Gold was and I had no issue with that back then.

Right now they will lose a ton of potential customers with the starting price (30/month) even if the value proposition isn’t that horrible at the yearly price.