I've said this before on here, the high school federations all need to get on board with using tfrrs as our official results/meet registration system. The college coaches were smart to insist on having their own private instance of directathletics so they would "own" the data forever. I know Florida and a few other states use tfrrs for high school but it's definitely a minority.
Milesplit has been going down hill for more than a decade, and they have something like a decade and a half of track and XC results for dozens of states held hostage. We should never allowed a single company to put our data behind a paywall.
I agree but recently tfrrs was acquired by Milesplit last year :/ the monopoly continues
Hopefully whatever contract the NCAA has with directathletics still applies after their purchase by FloSports. I really don't know the details but presumably the NCAA (or USTFCCCA) stipulated that they own the data in tfrrs and had some clauses to protect them even if directathletics goes out of business. Unfortunately there is no national governing body for high school sports and not the NFHS or USATF or anyone else can compel each state federation to do the right thing here, but a guy can dream I guess. Realistically the best we can hope for now is an "I told you so" someday when milesplit finally goes down in flames for good.
Getting state HS federations to agree on anything is difficult. Some states have several federations. Plus to be the sole provider, each federation will have their hand out. NFHS cannot top-down that request. FloSports buying DirectAthletics was the first step in trying to accomplish something without having to do that.
So flosports bought directathletics? Isn't that TFRRS?
There must be A LOT of cash in meet entries. When I was at Cornell, we wold get meet entires by fax and hten me and another assistant would type them one by one. Weldon showed up and designed his own entry form online. We shoud have just made that worldwide.
Isn't it still very expensive to use? How hard is to maintain? It seems like meet entries shouldn't cost much. BUt there must be a ton of money as both flo and runnerspace are very much into it.
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I also was paid to contribute to Milesplit/FloTrack. I have no complaints about my experience there, the pay was fair and the expectations were reasonable. Whether I'm saying this as an outsider or as an insider, my takeaway is that someone, somewhere in that management chain has absolutely no idea what they're doing.
With the departures of longtime personalities and the heat from Diamond League rights debacle, FloTrack has lost its soul. People here criticize the Brojos for comparatively trivial things. It's way worse if management takes no responsibility for the big stuff and then leaves content creators to catch all of the flak. It would have made such a big difference if someone from the C suite at Flo stepped up to own the "Diamond League paywall" decision or even to respond to RunnerBoi's well-researched video posted earlier this summer showcasing how much the freelance meet coverage had declined in quality since Covid.
As a die-hard track fan who was drawn in by the company's early coverage of the sport, part of the appeal in freelancing for FloTrack was the idea that at some point someone might ask for my opinion on something consequential. Gordon Mack had an engineering degree from Hopkins and is one of the most passionate track fans I've ever come across. You don't think he was regularly sending suggestions to his higher-ups and voicing concerns when there was a misstep? The problem likely is that someone doesn't want to listen.
TFRRS is part of DirectAthletics, which is now owned by FloSports
MileSplit is also owned by FloSports
My understanding is the meet registration system used by MS runs through the DirectAthletics system
and this was from the press release after the acquisition:
Additionally, DirectAthletics and the NCAA have agreed to a multi-year extension to their long-standing technology partnership. As part of the agreement, DirectAthletics will continue to power meet registration, rankings, and qualification for 18 NCAA championships across all three divisions. TFRRS will also continue to track millions of performances annually, further establishing itself as the authoritative hub of collegiate Track & Field and Cross Country statistics.
Minnesota Milesplit used to produce lots of content (race videos, interviews, etc) but during and after covid, there’s barely any of them nowadays (except during NXR)
I used to freelance for them. I've heard that when they do pay up for work nowadays it takes weeks or months which is not viable for most photographers/videographers.
Milesplit CA has written something sort of like an article the last TWO DAYS! They hadn't been writing anything for a long time and have been terrible. They must have heard the critique.
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I think on one end, you could interpret the departures of Cory Mull, Olivia Epkone, etc as “jumping ship” (which is a valid interpretation), but I think it’s also fair to say Milesplit needs a huge facelift/overhaul in creative direction. obviously the corporate end is abysmal and plays a large factor into why Milesplit has been limited, but let’s not pretend Cory was producing riveting content.
I think on one end, you could interpret the departures of Cory Mull, Olivia Epkone, etc as “jumping ship” (which is a valid interpretation), but I think it’s also fair to say Milesplit needs a huge facelift/overhaul in creative direction. obviously the corporate end is abysmal and plays a large factor into why Milesplit has been limited, but let’s not pretend Cory was producing riveting content.
While MileSplit does basically need a new overhaul, it would still have been good to put in efforts to keep the faces that have pretty much been what people identify to MileSplit, Mull especially. There's a balance between keeping tradition and evolving. Think of it as grandfathering new methods of content in.
I think on one end, you could interpret the departures of Cory Mull, Olivia Epkone, etc as “jumping ship” (which is a valid interpretation), but I think it’s also fair to say Milesplit needs a huge facelift/overhaul in creative direction. obviously the corporate end is abysmal and plays a large factor into why Milesplit has been limited, but let’s not pretend Cory was producing riveting content.
While MileSplit does basically need a new overhaul, it would still have been good to put in efforts to keep the faces that have pretty much been what people identify to MileSplit, Mull especially. There's a balance between keeping tradition and evolving. Think of it as grandfathering new methods of content in.
but do people actually identify Mull with milesplit? Yes, maybe the "die-hard" milesplit fans, but lets not pretend like the majority of high schoolers and parents know who cory mull is. I can name a handful of people in track and field social media who have built a following in the high school track coverage space who have a bigger brand identity than cory. next time you go to a high school xc meet, ask athletes there if they know who cory is or if he was let go from milesplit - he's not exactly a crowd favorite.
While MileSplit does basically need a new overhaul, it would still have been good to put in efforts to keep the faces that have pretty much been what people identify to MileSplit, Mull especially. There's a balance between keeping tradition and evolving. Think of it as grandfathering new methods of content in.
but do people actually identify Mull with milesplit? Yes, maybe the "die-hard" milesplit fans, but lets not pretend like the majority of high schoolers and parents know who cory mull is. I can name a handful of people in track and field social media who have built a following in the high school track coverage space who have a bigger brand identity than cory. next time you go to a high school xc meet, ask athletes there if they know who cory is or if he was let go from milesplit - he's not exactly a crowd favorite.
Add onto this: If you watched oregon's long run video with track: all-access, the guys on the team asked Gordon, in the video, how long he's been doing this for. They didnt have a clue who he was. These former/current milesplit guys dont have brand identity. As I said, unless you are a die-hard flo/milesplit fan who listens to their podcasts religiously (which check their numbers, they dont pull a lot of views) you would not have a clue who these guys are.
There is a HS running social media YouTube account called YouthRunnerMag. It’s a lot more active now, now that one of the interviewers Erik Boal switched from Dyestat to YouthRunnerMag
There is a HS running social media YouTube account called YouthRunnerMag. It’s a lot more active now, now that one of the interviewers Erik Boal switched from Dyestat to YouthRunnerMag
There is a HS running social media YouTube account called YouthRunnerMag. It’s a lot more active now, now that one of the interviewers Erik Boal switched from Dyestat to YouthRunnerMag
just checked. Direct Athletics has been taking about 10% of the entry fee money. So when we took in about $10,000 in entry fee's DA charged us (kept the money) $1000. Just add together in your head how many high school and college meets are going on each weekend. They must be raking in the cash.
It looks like milesplit is going to regional editors instead of having an editor for each state. Maybe states like Texas will continue to have their own editors it's hard to say. I don't think most of the state editors like Reyes were full time and this new western region editor is a full time position so it might mean better coverage?
I can’t imagine that expanding the role to stretch across a region will lead to better coverage. If anything, this looks like MileSplit is moving backwards.
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