FloTrack = Canceled

+1. If the powers that be are serious about growing the sport, they need to have these meets accessible to anyone who is interested in checking them out. Even if its a part of a monthly subscription that we already pay for. Peacock did a good job of covering the world championships IMO. They had feeds for each event. Low to no production value on them, but I only needed to see it. And that was provided. Their main feed did a good job for the casual fan.

I have the same issues with ESPN (which of course I’m paying for), as well as a lot of events being Conference specific such as ACC Network which you have to pay additionally for and/or have the TV provider info (which ALWAYS screws up). ESPN will be my next cancellation.

I only did because I knew someone running a pro race and it was on Flo Track. The coverage sucked. The video sucked, kept stopping and going out. The announcer sucked.

They should just offer refunds and start from scratch.

Also- I want to see the London Marathon.

I hope the whole race becomes available on youtube soon.

Or maybe letsrun can find a link and make it available?

well I tried....

See the first post on this page (up above) from FastTuohy

You need an ESPN+ subscription to watch those baseball/softball games too. Can’t put everything at the top of the page and the more viewed broadcast are going to get premium spots. And lol at your ESPN has shadow banned track.

Regarding the YouTube streams in Spanish. You can used closer captioning in many different languages to get an idea of what’s being said.

are there any videos that actually show hassan stopping to stretch?

Yes. In the Full Race video at the top of this page that FastTuohy shared from FloTrack’s attempt to redeem themselves on their YouTube channel.

the thing about flotrack that gets me is they refuse to use gimbals so the footage is often only marginally better than an amateur parent at a track meet.

additionally, of the 2-3 angles they may be getting of the race, at least one videographer always zooms in way too far, like waaay too far, giving zero perspective of the race and an extremely shaky shot. i can't seem to figure out why, but this almost always happens in the womens races and not the mens. weird right?

Even crappy companies acknowledge when they screw up and apologize to subscribers. Nothing from Frotrack. Not even a reply to my email complaint. No one should be giving money to a company that treats it's customers this way.

I watched Boston and London on olympics.com with a VPN. I looked at the lists of rights-holders in various countries, and noted which countries were not on the list. The countries where rights had not been sold could watch on olympics.com. I watched Boston connected to a Taiwanese VPN server, and London via Saudi Arabia. Had a little bit of buffering here and there, but overall it was a good experience.

That's the way to do it. I've had success with other sports the same way. For example, in swimming I've found I can connect to New Zealand and watch events that would be blocked if I used Australia.

My London experience was a bit different. I'm always up at those hours anyway. It began earlier than I expected so I wasn't connected to VPN and hadn't checked which countries to use. I found a working link on YouTube simply by searching for London Marathon 2023 Live.

That link lasted for perhaps 45 minutes before it suddenly was blocked due to copyright complaints. No matter. I found another one. I had to shift 5 or 6 different times but I missed almost nothing. I saw Hassan struggle and stop twice. I saw her take a few sips then offer the bottle to Ayana. I saw Hassan steadily move closer to the lead pack only for them to briefly draw clear again.

All of this was accomplished simply by patiently knowing what to look for. They key on YouTube was to look at the number of people "watching now." If that's a high number then it's a working link.

There were a few brief periods when a red rectangular box covered the center of the screen. I could hear the commentary but the runners were mostly obscured. No matter. I found a great link via a slightly different search term and the new link survived through the remainder. It was awesome when they passed the 600 meter mark and it was so obvious that Hassan was biding time and simply toying with them before the familiar sprint finish.

Here's the worst part. I go to the ESPN app, I click on the meet I want and it goes to the video screen for the meet, then it says "this meet has not started yet." So I wait for the meet to start, knowing that I can easily get to the screen, but then they tell me I'm blocked from that meet. I was already there before it started, now I am blocked after it started.

I cancelled my FloTrack account years ago, but still wrote to them to voice my frustration (wherein I indicated I cancelled years ago). I wasn't able to watch the London Marathon because of FloTrack. Those who pay for FloTrack were unable to watch the London Marathon. It is a disaster for the sport. Here was there response:

Thank you for reaching out!
We can understand how an issue like this with an event you have been looking forward to isn’t necessarily ideal so we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused! It looks like we ran in to some technical issues at the venue that affected the live feed.
We were able to apply a 50% discount off your subscription fee for the issues encountered. That may take a few business days to reflect on your bank statement.
If anything else comes up, feel free to get back in touch!

Haha, WOW! Their ability to discount you 50% off your non-existent bill is AMAZING! Thanks for sharing that. That’s CLASSIC not-paying-attention customer service failure.

Who could have forseen that an operation run by a bunch of creepy frat boys with stachies would be totally amateur?

A Japanese VPN might have been faster for London marathon (that's what I used). BBC with a UK VPN also worked for me but I think they're better at blocking VPNs than olympics.com.

It IS on YouTube. Very easy to find.

Keep bitchin and whinin and cryin and see how many wealthy people drop covering the sport for no money at all. Then how will you watch races?