where are all the blondes on flotrack?
where are all the blondes on flotrack?
I don't see what there is to debate. The front page basically says that LRC thinks that some parents will pay $20 but most track fans won't. I happen to agree with that prediction, but what is there to debate?
The truth will be available after the Armory meets if Flotrack wants to release its numbers, which I doubt they will. Until then what could be the point of a debate over predicting what those numbers will be?
Anyway, I like Flotrack, and Ryan Fenton and Ken Selby are particularly good. I'm just not convinced the Flotrack Pro would give me $20 of value every month. That seems pretty steep to me for a lot of training and workout videos and an unknown amount of race content. The training and workout stuff is not of great interest to me. As a big track fan, if I knew in advance that I would be getting Diamond League and top NCAA races for $20/mon., I would probably do it, but I don't see that I'd be getting content worth $20/mon. to me. But if I were a coach looking for training ideas, I would probably be willing to pay that. Anyway, I hope they find a model that works, but for a track fan that's a lot of money for not a lot of racing.
There's points on both sides.
Flotrack needs to profit if people want better content, and they also need to be taken seriously by meets and buy the rights to broadcast a meet if they want to provide better coverage.
At the same time, $20/month is indeed quite pricey. I pay the same for Fox Soccer 2-go, which gives me every Premier League game in HD online. Unfortunately Flotrack is not up to par with them (yet?). Lack of knowing what I'd be paying for (never too sure what meets flotrack's going to cover, but I know often Flotrack doesn't know either. I remember stanford pulling the rug out, or Texas Relays giving rights to LHN).
I propose an alternative option: pay-per-view. Like Universal Sports does (did?) do. I'd be happy to pay $5 to watch the BU meet online. It's less of a commitment, I could watch the meets I want rather than pay for a package that maybe only has one meet I want to see, and most importantly, I think you'd get a lot more subscribers, and ultimately may even get people paying more than $20/month anyway but just feel better about how they spent it. Another way could be say, weekend passes (for big weekends with lots of meets), etc.
Another really useful feature would be to get notifications for races on say, my "watch-list". I don't care about the 60m prelims, but the invite mile? Oh hell yes. Do track meets stay on posted schedules? LOOOOOL. But you have guys there, so when they're about to run a race, ping that race out and anyone that has it on their watchlist gets a notification (email, tweet, SMS, whatever) that it's about to come up.
Ultimately, to make Flotrack Pro profitable, I think you need to offer more flexible payment options, and more features that people don't consider to have been free this time last year. The quality of coverage has been steadily improving, but it's not something that appears outright to viewers (you don't notice little progressive changes until you compare it to 2-3 years ago). Make a serious HD upgrade, especially with these indoor meets and the low lighting. Mt. SAC is always great, but the video quality is always terrible. Do something like that but where the athletes don't look like they're running in a dark room and we're talking!
Love you guys, keep doing what you do!
It's a failing business model.
Why?
1. Flotrack badly missed their price point. Distance runners are notoriously cheap. The only people who might pay are well off HS kids whose parents will pay.
2. Because they charge so much, the coaches/athletes providing the free content for flotrack will slow down. No one minds providing tips,workouts, when the content is free to everyone. Coaches/athletes will start wondering where their piece of the pie is since Flotrac is making 20/mo for content they are providing.
3. Track meets are going to want a cut of the profit if they stream them for money. It's one thing to have flotrack/runnerspace stream your meet for publicity, but another for pure profit without you getting any. So now their model of having meets pay their way there is going to change to hey, you have to pay us for rights to broadcast this.
somestudent wrote:
Flotrack needs to profit if people want better content,
Shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't think many people get raises by saying, "Hey boss, pay me more and eventually the quality of my work might rise to that level."
Die a Graceful Death wrote:
No subsidy. Flotrack should stop making fools of themselves and close the doors. We all have facebook pages and tweet, tweet, tweet, and NCAA T&F schools have their own TV channels. It's over for Flotrack and Runnerspace. At least Dyestat, Trackshark, blah blah blah, went down w/o a wimper.
Yep, it's over for them.
First, they sound incredibly immature. And, the Johnson brothers act no more mature.
Both FloTrack and LRC have become embarrassments to the sport.
It is frustrating and sad to real athletes that these weirdos make the sport look bad.
Read the comments on the video at Flotrack.
THAT is what real people think about both of these "companies.
Flotrack had a short window where they got rights for nothing or a song. Now with the birth of the Pac12 network and others... Cya Later boys. Thanks for the good times, but you are never going to survive without live content.
Going to Flotrack is boring and jumped the shark a few years ago.
I wish things remained open enough and they could cover things like The Dempsey preview...but alas...
Investment 101 my friend. You need money first, they can only do so much from advertising.
A Duck:
I've seen you post numerous times over the past year or so and I got to say. You annoy me more than anyone on this board.
Flotrack and Letsrun have helped the sport in so many ways. Where on earth can you go on 1 or 2 sites to find out what's going on with track and field? Flotrack does solid interviews, solid workout Wednesdays, and they give a more in depth look on what's going on at college campuses. Letsrun: who doesn't have fun with the prediction contests? They do an outstanding job covering all the NCAA meets, Trials and Diamond League events.
Please put yourself in the immature category. All you do is complain about people trolling the site. You claim you talking to all the pro's .. no one gives a shit. I've also talked to a few star distance runner and guess what... they are not crying themselves to sleep over what joe doe says on Letsrun. IF you were mature, you would let trolls be trolls. Do you honestly take speculation on a anonymous message board so seriously that you wanna call AL SAL and shut this down.
Unless you're emotionally unstable, was picked on when you were small, or have had very few friends in life I can't see why on earth you give a rats a$s about people trying to get other peoples blood pressure up.
Go Away!
Pizzaguy wrote:
laces out wrote:All the trolls on letsrun are going to be jumping around tonight like a scene out of LOTR now that their master-orc has been challenged to battle by an elvish-clan.
The 2013 POY came early
haha, yeah, i laughed out loud after seeing this last night. post of 2013!!!
Goodonebro wrote:
http://www.flotrack.org/video/652703-FloHouse-reaction-to-Leo-Manzano-silver-medal-Most-Memorable-Moment-Best-of-2012Watch as a group of humans turn into a raving band of screaming apes. Disgusting!
Pretty gay, bro
Flotrack actually produces something. Letsrun basically moderates and draws off the boards. It seems that if the Brojos are criticizing Flotrack, that is the true harm to the sport.
Maybe Flotrack doesn't have the best pricepoint. But on the other hand, I could see how it makes some sense. Probably, most of their work is done during and leading up to championships. Thus, to pay for the cost of everything, they probably need to capitalize on one month subscriptions. That way, they can get 20/month out of someone maybe 3 or 4 months out of the year (xc champs, indoor, outdoor, summer meets). Maybe I don't know what I am talking about, but just some thoughts...
Maybe if they brought the price down on championship months, they could broaden their base at these times, and make more revenue than they otherwise might have...
somestudent wrote:
Investment 101 my friend. You need money first, they can only do so much from advertising.
Good point. To get more advertisers they need more viewers. BUT, is charging $20 per month going to get them more viewers? I don't think so. Making your content free to everyone will get you more viewers. Free may not be optimal but maybe 4.99 a month. Maybe 1.99 per event. The higher the price the less viewers you will get and less reason for advertisers to invest.
Investment 201.
What are we arguing here? Does Letsrun and FloTrack actually bring in money?
In the restaurant business the worst thing you can do when you are struggling is to raise prices. The to save money quality goes down. Then you raise because more people aren't coming back until you are eventually out of business. I see this kinda as what FloTrack is doing.
Anyways, what are the two sides debating and arguing about? I don't get it. It all seems very Junior High. Which by the way probably is a great market.
Seems like a lot of this speculation regarding Flotrack's pricing would be put to rest, if one of the brojos would just agree to the debate.
I think it would be pretty informative hearing directly from the founders of both sites. So what's the deal, is this thing happening or what??
I get the impression the guy from flotrack is a doosh bag and trying to start a controversy to get something going for his pay site. Weldon is a bit confused and doesn't want to play Mark's Jr High game.
It's not always about making profit. If companies are requiring more it is sometimes because that is what they need to operate effectively. If a certain customer doesn't want to pay it then they don't want to pay it and the business will move to target other customers who will pay it because the product is valued correctly at that price.
>Flotrack actually produces something
FT produces nothing of value for our sport anymore. FT are basically a bunch of buffoons along the drift as the original perverted fanboys at Track & Field News. T&FN if you don't know doesn't make a dime can but through familiy money can afford to reside in of Mountain View, CA (the super geek town of incredibly wealthy Iranian, Indian, Pakistani, Israeli, Russian, and Chinese engineers). The fanboys fake like they are journalists to weasel out press credentials. Am I jealous of the 1%. Yes. Am I envious of the 1%. Yes. Would I like to sniff up Adam Nelson's shorts like they enjoy doing. No. But tell it like it is. FT, T&FN, RS, and LR are a bunch of posers.
collage investor wrote:
somestudent wrote:Investment 101 my friend. You need money first, they can only do so much from advertising.
Good point. To get more advertisers they need more viewers. BUT, is charging $20 per month going to get them more viewers? I don't think so. Making your content free to everyone will get you more viewers. Free may not be optimal but maybe 4.99 a month. Maybe 1.99 per event. The higher the price the less viewers you will get and less reason for advertisers to invest.
Investment 201.
Yes, they apparently need or want more money. I was contesting the idea that the standard path is "pay me a lot more, and who knows, maybe the quality will rise dramatically." Where is the evidence that incredible quality is waiting to burst forth if only they had more money? Would you pay a lot more at Denny's and think "now they can unleash their culinary genius"?
I mixed up who is who here.
I don't think the VALUE I place on it would change.
But actually I believe the quality would rise after thoughtful analysis. I think they view themselves as Denny's quality and if they are relying on other businesses to support the company then it will negatively impact the value they place on themselves and reduces their quality even further.
If they adjusted things and operated at a higher level that is more appropriate to their abilities then yes, the quality would continue to go up. Whether a business is Denny's or CPK, the value is the same though. But not perating where they know they can deflates the value they place on themselves.
Humans are apes. . .