Direct Athletics Monopoly for NCAA events

TrackGuru... I know the facts. Here is an exert from the DirectAthletics/TFRRS API Documentation:

"The Track & Field Results Reporting System (“TFRRS”) is a track & field performance aggregation system presented by DirectAthletics and the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. TFRRS only accepts performances from meet management software; teams may not submit their own performances to TFRRS. This ensures a higher level of efficiency and reliability in performance reporting."

Am I the only one who can tell that TrackGuru is just a troll trying to elicit responses from all the productive posts in this thread?

Jason Byrne has done more for Track and Field & Cross Country than probably any other person in the state of Florida. His site was built off of volunteers and even as big as his site is today, he still does not make a ton of money off of it, if any at all.

- Our database of collegiate T&F results is much more complete and extensive than any others that currently exist. There are several websites that post links to results. That's nothing. Importing them into a centralized database is WORK.

- It is much more flexible than the one DA currently uses. You can view performance lists by all college marks, divisions, leagues, etc. We can also make custom performance lists as requested. You can view performance lists for non-standard events. You can view performance lists that include wind-aided marks, or lists with only wind-legal marks. You can view performance lists by grade (not that that matters much for college, more of a cool feature for HS). Etc etc.

- I personally think athletic.net looks better. Better formatting, you can view more per page. You can highlight marks from a certain athlete or team. Obviously that is a matter of opinion, different people like different things and I respect anyone who likes the look of MileSplit or DirectAthletics better.

- We offer FREE online meet registration that downloads into Hy-Tek. It's not as full-featured as DirectAthletics yet, but it works well for most meets and did I mention it's free? We don't make any money from people using it, we're just trying to make life easier for coaches.

- For a small fee, schools can embed their season stats from athletic.net onto their school web pages, saving coaches and SIDs tons of time that they would normally spend each week updating their stats.

- I already have hundreds of college track meets on the calendar for the 2010 season which will help unattached and post-collegiate athletes find meets to compete in.

Ooh a conspiracy theory! Once upon a time, I contacted athletic.net about expanding into college. They sat on it for awhile. In the meantime, I was asked to help with the Washington MileSplit site, and did so for a little while. Many months later, athletic.net got back to me about the college thing, so I left MileSplit to get that started. Jason and I are friends and on good terms, even though there is a lot of overlap in what the two sites do. We both believe that competition makes everyone better.

Read the original post and read the press release and read my earlier posts.

They haven't made it public, my concerns are based on the technical information that Jason has reviewed. It is entirely possible that they will address all of these concerns and it won't be an issue. But they won't address them until coaches bring them up to them.

Track Guru wrote:

Results are entered by both coaches and meet directors....seems not much would be different for NCAA coaches, meet directors, but I digress.

No, this new system only allows meet directors to import results. Not coaches. If you go to a meet and the meet director does not get the results entered, you are SOL.

It amazes me that so many people think that they know how this system is going to work and how much it's going to cost to use etc when NONE of that information has been made available yet.

Here are a couple of FACTS about the system that I have been made aware of by people directly involved with the project:

Fact: This is a results system, not an entry system. DA charges for entries, not results. There will be NO CHARGE for this service

Fact: Meet directors ARE NOT required to use HY TEK in order to be able to submit results

Fact: The USTFCCCA is NOT profiting from this

Fact: Anyone can access these results without charge

Assumption: The milesplit guy is only looking out for himself.

Fact: The milesplit guy is putting out alot of false information

Then I guess you would know that the excerpt you've posted removes all infallibility from the coaches to possibly make a mistake, like entering a kid's name more than once, therefore putting the onus on the meet director(s) to enter the results. They are using the K.I.S.S. method.

Also, if you would have read the actual release you posted from the USTFCCCA you would see the service is FREE. I don’t know why everyone keeps posting that it won’t be free, just because the DirectAtheltics service that most already know about is not, this is a new system. TFRRS is a new system.

Also, for PoleVaultPower to make a bold statement such as “Athletic.net offers much more in terms of searching capability,” is completely out of line. Until the facts actually present themselves from DA or the NCAA, then don’t comment about how great Athletic.net or MileSplit.us services are. It’s complete hogwash.

Track Guru,

You are very active on this thread and are protesting other's opinions JUUUST a little bit too much. How 'bout we ask if YOU have a stake here? From your fervency it seems as if you do. Care to come clean? You are saying let it ride, others are saying open it up and shine some light on the process. Why do you want it closed off? If it is legit, I can't think of a single reason not to have the whole process open for all to have a shot. Can you?

I have no vested interest in this. Just a fan of the track scene that thinks all of this is just nonsensical bs. If track coaches and administrators put as much time into improving the popularity of the sport (and no central database will do this) instead of pointing fingers at each other, then the sport might move forward.

But until then I guess this is what we have to live with.

OnlyTheTruth wrote:

It amazes me that so many people think that they know how this system is going to work and how much it's going to cost to use etc when NONE of that information has been made available yet.

Here are a couple of FACTS about the system that I have been made aware of by people directly involved with the project:

Fact: This is a results system, not an entry system. DA charges for entries, not results. There will be NO CHARGE for this service

Fact: Meet directors ARE NOT required to use HY TEK in order to be able to submit results

In principle yes, in practice I am not so sure.

Currently, when I import meet results into athletic.net, it tries to match each name with an athlete on a school's roster. If the spelling is close, it automatically matches it. If it can't find a match, it let's me try to match them manually. But coaches are very inconsistent about what names they enter athletes under. I know that Bill Smith and William Smith are probably the same person, but I may not know that Buddy Jones and Sam Jones are the same person. So I end up with duplicate athletes sometimes. I believe Milesplit is similar. Each athlete in the system has an ID number, but we don't need the meet results to include that ID number to match the athlete to the mark.

This TFRRS system uses an ID number as well, but everything we have seen about it indicates that all meet results much include this ID number in order to get into the database. I don't mean that they have to publish them on the web, just that the results file that is uploaded to the site has to have them.

So, if a meet director is not using DirectAthletics for meet entries, they have to log into this TFRRS and get those ID numbers and assign them by hand to each athlete. If they are not using Hy-Tek, they have to submit the results in a very complicated CSV format which would be nearly impossible to do by hand. If a school wants to enter an athlete day of meet, they are in big trouble unless they have this ID # handy.

So yes, they are leaving the system open for a variety of formats and entry systems. They're just making it very difficult for anyone to use otherwise. I look forward to seeing how they plan to address this issue, the issue of meets hosted by non-school entities.

Since we've found out Active owns Hytek it seems this whole thing is them beating everyone else to the punch.

We don't know the business side of things. Hopefully they paid a bunch of money to the USTFCCCA or the NCAA for these rights. Otherwise it seems like what we're mostly talking about is the USTFCCCA not negotiating a good deal. ie they gave up a monopoly for nothing. That's what people (schools and coaches and the NCAA) should be upset about.

Hopefully, the USTFCCCA is going to make the results available to the masses in one place. Let milesplit and others publish them, etc. Like baseball stats are done.

wejo wrote:

Since we've found out Active owns Hytek it seems this whole thing is them beating everyone else to the punch.

We don't know the business side of things. Hopefully they paid a bunch of money to the USTFCCCA or the NCAA for these rights. Otherwise it seems like what we're mostly talking about is the USTFCCCA not negotiating a good deal. ie they gave up a monopoly for nothing. That's what people (schools and coaches and the NCAA) should be upset about.

Hopefully, the USTFCCCA is going to make the results available to the masses in one place. Let milesplit and others publish them, etc. Like baseball stats are done.

Old news about the tie in between Hytek and Direct Athletics. I am also sure, as I stated earlier that someone is making some bucks on this and it isn't the coaches or meet directors or the guys doing the data entry and results for the meets.

The concept of uniform posting of results is not a bad idea, since depending on only 1-3 individuals throughout the country to collect and post NCAA qualifiers is quite an undertaking and as these guys get older I am sure they don't want keep this up, especially when every year there is confusion over posting POP forms on time, misinformation, etc.

The problem isn't even Hytek, which has been the standard for track and field for the past 15 years or so and the program does what it should, put out results in a timely fashion.

The problem is with Direct Athletics, which charges a great deal of money for keeping a database for entering athletes. The entry process is antiquated by today's technological standards and is proprietary. It is a nice position to be in, since as a proprietary system, they control the market.

Saying that a meet director or coach who runs a meet and uses other software (not Hytek) can "easily" communicate with Direct Athletics data is not true. Just like it is difficult to create custom reports out of Hytek and export generic data out of Hytek is difficult for anyone not using the software on a consistent basis, working with Direct Athletics is engineered to remain difficult and proprietary. Otherwise, it can't make the money it makes.

In other words, you can't just create an Excel file and use that data to run a meet.

The other issue is that Direct Athletics posts results by event categories, unlike when you see a Hytek result sheet posted on CoolRunning.com. That type of set up is very difficult to cut and paste and put into another database or into Excel for posting on a team website or as a list for a conference.

If Direct Athletics no longer charges for entries for NCAA eligible meets (since it is now required) and posts meet results in a standard Hytek summary form AND posts lists that can be searchable by every division, conference, league, graduation year, men and women, event, and what ever else one can think of, then I would think this concept has some legs. My own experience is that Direct Athletics has tried for years to "corner" the market with it proprietary methods and furthered that with their tiein with Hytek and now has solidified its position to the point where all schools are at their mercy.

The NCAA did a similar thing when it required tracking of all student-athletes via their online database system. In that instance, they did not charge for that service (don't know if they do now) and standardized the method of reporting all academic and athletic items required by the NCAA. Anyone who had other software or used Excel to follow their student-athletes had to switch. In that case, no charge, no foul. With this new system, if you must pay to play, I call foul.

I can promise you that the NCAA is getting something from Hytek and DA or they wouldn't be doing this the NCAA does nothing if it can't make a profit

This is taken directly form the USTFCCCA website.

USTFCCCA Announces New Track & Field Results Reporting System

Courtesy: Keith Nunez, USTFCCCA

October 22, 2009

NEW ORLEANS (October 23, 2009) – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) announces the creation of the Track & Field Results Reporting System (TFRRS). TFRRS will be a centralized results database used by NCAA Divisions I, II, and III coaches and institutions to report meet results during the indoor and outdoor track & field seasons.

TFRRS will be provided at no cost to NCAA coaches and institutions by the USTFCCCA. The technology behind the TFRRS system is powered by DirectAthletics.

The system will be a searchable database that collects and tracks complete results from meets across the country. Both NCAA Division I and NCAA Division II will use TFRRS as their Proof of Performance systems for indoor and outdoor national championships in 2010.

"The committee is very excited about the Track and Field Results Reporting System," said Holly Sheilley, chair of the Division I Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Committee.

"It will provide NCAA Division I track and field with a central performance database for all athletes from all competitions allowing for not only a meaningful measure of athletic achievement, but an integral key to NCAA championship qualifying and future studies of data to improve the sport. The U.S. Track & Field & Cross Country Coaches Association, in collaboration with the NCAA track and field committee, is moving the sport forward by leaps and bounds," said Sheilley.

Beginning November 2, 2009, NCAA coaches will be able to access

www.TFRRS.org

to set up their team rosters and information. The first results of the 2010 indoor track & field season will be posted after November 27, 2009 – the official start of the indoor track & field season for Division II.

Meet hosts will be responsible for submitting meet results electronically within the time frame specified by their respective NCAA Division.

"The Track and Field Results Reporting System of the USTFCCCA will serve as a valuable time-saving tool for both coaches and administrators in track and field," said Kim Duyst, chair of the Division II Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Committee.

"This new procedure for reporting results will provide a performance list with verifiable results for coaches and meet administrators to review and use for selections to both Invitational and Championship meets. We look forward to launching this new system for the 2010 track and field season," said Duyst.

Further information and technical details regarding the TFRRS system will be forwarded the first week of November to NCAA coaches and institutions.

Not exactly sure on some of the details, for instance do coaches have to use DA for their own meet entries. I do know that this information was a huge surprise to myself and the coaches that I know, there was no heads up or fore warning involved with this plan.

Hy Tek is not that expensive, is very user friendly and is pretty much the standard in the industry in the rest of the US outside of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The D3 results look like crap in comparison (presentation wise).

If you want to use excel, pull your hair out and make a track meet go way longer than it should then be my guest. But I've run some insanely efficient meets where we seeded on the fly and Hy Tek is the bomb.

On a note actually directly related to the thread, I think there is room for everyone in the sandbox, but I'm not sure that the NCAA is obligated to open up the competition. Logic tells us that competition is a good thing-particularly where technology is involved. It doesn't look broken and in need of a fix. DA does a great job IMO, but I've been wrong before...

DA does a good job in terms of downloading to Hytek. It is a seamless integration, for good reason. However, the initial entry process is confusing if you are new to the system and/or if you don't quite understand relational database operation. My issue has always been the cost factor in terms of entries. When one had a choice to pay DA or do your own entries that was your choice and you could opt out and do your own without paying extra for going through DA. Now, it seems that is no longer an option. Who will bear the costs? Should it be the individual schools that host the meet or should it be the NCAA, since they are mandating the process?

Also, in reading the previous post on the news release it seems that DA will expand it options in terms of reports generated for public use. I hope so...

If this keeps coaches from inventing marks to get runners in to meets or in better races at the expense of other more deserving athletes then I am all for it. The Liar's Poker that passes for some entries has been a problem for a long time and it is at its worst in the distance races. As for the technical aspects of it I have no clue and don't pretend to.

My concern is when codes are written for one service company, this locks out competition. The 14-character code generated by DA or whoever is the key to the TFRRS system. My meet directors now have to pay .25 per athlete when they were getting online service for FREE or a minimal charge. The hosting school will end up paying alot more to play this game.

THE ENTIRE SYSTEM is FREE. THERE WILL BE NO HIDDEN CHARGES, YOU WILL NOT HAVE .25 PER ATHLETE AS YOU NORMALLY DO FOR DIRECTATHLETICS.

YOU SHOULD READ THE RELEASE MORE CLEARLY. FREE SERVICE FOR ALL COACHES, MEET ADMINISTRATORS, ETC.

THE RESULTS REPORTING SYSTEM IS COMPLETELY SEPARATE FROM DIRECTATHLETICS -

WWW.TFRRS.COM

- NOT THE SAME SERVICE AS DIRECTATHLETICS, JUST POWERED BY DA.

And how do u no track guru? You sound like you know the product intimaely and disagree with any negative statement. What is your true motive I wonder....