Why Flotrack is Killing our Sport

I signed up for Flocast for one month (wanted to see one event) and they were charging me $19.99 a month for four months before they quit charging me.

It took multiple e-mails and phone calls to get them to quit charging me.

I'll never watch anything on Flocast again.

Not Cool Bro wrote:

I wonder how many of the posts on this thread defending FloPro are coming out of Austin, TX?

Just sayin...

I think you were right. Two posters came on here and were telling us how great of a deal FloTrack Pro was.

Good for the mods for keeping an eye on that. This is why I like the people at LetsRun.

Feel free to record the races you attend and post on Reddit. The social media universe will love you for it.

But where do future fans come from?

With the Flotrack business plan ONLY runners will ever be fans, EVER. There is no room for casual fans behind the 'paywall'.

They think small and will stay small. Too bad their ideas will have the same impact on track and running fans in the US.

What other sport operates like this? All other sports target the widest audience possible to build a following. Once they have a large following the start charging, NFL, MMA etc...

Flotrack is doing the exact opposite.

the return of edward snowden wrote:

Count how many ads on the forum pages now at LetsRun. The total is six and seven if you count the video ad that runs before the boston marathon videos.

Harsh reality but the only way to make it without charging for content.

Not sure what point you are trying to make. Flotrack has a ton of ads on their site and they charge. Above the fold, flotrack has 4 ads on a given article page:

Letsrun has 2 or 3.

So flotrack has more ads and charges you $20 per month recurring.

the problem with flo-track is that it costs too much. I can get Netflix for less than half of what Flo-track charges. I would get flo-track if it were cheaper. I think that if flo-track would lower their rates, more people would sign up and those extra subscribers would make up the financial loss of lower rates.

old guy 68 wrote:

I signed up for Flocast for one month (wanted to see one event) and they were charging me $19.99 a month for four months before they quit charging me.

It took multiple e-mails and phone calls to get them to quit charging me.

I'll never watch anything on Flocast again.

This is why I haven't joined. The idea that you have to join for a month to watch a single event like the Penn Relays seems like a shady business practice, especially when the company has had a lot of complaints from people continuing to be charged after they cancelled. Moreover, if you look up their profile on the Better Business Bureau, Flocasts gets an F ( I assume this is the parent company of Flotrack). They are not even BBB accredited!

Why not offer a single event option? The Penn Relays used to have this. You could pay "x" amount of money and get access to one meet. I would actually pay more money to not have to listen to the Flotrack boys call the races. It is much much better to just have a live feed with good audio where you can hear the stadium announcer and the crowd on the broadcast. The Penn Relays used to have this and it almost felt like you were there!

works in advertising wrote:

the return of edward snowden wrote:

Count how many ads on the forum pages now at LetsRun. The total is six and seven if you count the video ad that runs before the boston marathon videos.

Harsh reality but the only way to make it without charging for content.

Not sure what point you are trying to make. Flotrack has a ton of ads on their site and they charge. Above the fold, flotrack has 4 ads on a given article page:

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/251580-Cross-country-on-our-minds/article/26372-Pre-Season-Pac-12-Mens-XC-Predictions#.U2KcNfldUZ4

Letsrun has 2 or 3.

So flotrack has more ads and charges you $20 per month recurring.

I swear last night I counted six. Today that number is down. But either way I am alluding to the fact that traditional advertising does not pay that well anymore.

I just think it is sad there are no alternative other than being at the meets themselves (which would be awesome). I love what Flotrack does but I wish there were others that would help bring the cost down. At least theoretically.

Hey rojo

Sorry not me.

But there is another thread on this topic though and yet again we have outed a flotrack employee - or at least someone posting from Austin tx pumping pro flo stuff on their behalf.

Pretty funny. When their site started, we busted them and told them stop pumping their stuff on the boards. I guess good habits die hard.

Here is the problem I have with Flotrack/MileSplit e al. They are using high school and college student/athletes to make money for themselves and their investors. Do they have their permission? Do they have any right to prohibit anyone from seeing results without paying? I think not.

I don't mind and could care less if they do this with pro athletes (although I think pro athletes should be given a percentage for allowing Flotrack to charge watching the races.

If it is ok for Flotrack to make money, then it should be ok for the pros to make money since they are the performers.

Not so for the high school and college athletes. They are performing for the love of the sport, can't get paid and should not be forced to pay or have their parents and friends pay to see them run.

This is not a business plan that will go a long time. It is doomed to fail.

They should get sponsors.

teddy_farley wrote:

I'll offer the counterpoint to pretty much everyone on LRC. I have flotrack pro. I really enjoy it. In my mind, it is well worth the money (I have a yearly membership, so it's $12/month, not $20). The driven videos were excellent, and the entire kenya series they just released is worth watching many times. I will not be cancelling FTP any time soon.

I'm not from Austin, and have no affiliation to Flotrack at all. I know of multiple people, including myself, who pay for FTP and enjoy it quite a bit.

You know what is funny? I think it was 4 years ago at Penn, I directly approached the FloTrack guys and said they should charge for their service, they will deny this , I am sure. They said that was NOT in their plans, I said people would pay for this.

Now that it is here, here are my observations:

1. I think the monthly fee is a little high, and you cannot just join monthly and cancel without a bunch of gyrations and in this day and age that should be easy, that is a limiter. The price point is not outrageous $15.00 would seem more reasonable.

2. The video coverage is actually okay, but they focus cameras too much on leaders even in runaway races.

3. Their audio coverage is absolutely awful, at Penn, if you cannot figure out who Zavon Watkins is before he gets near the front? They incorrectly called PSU in top 3-4 for over a minute and a half of 4 x 8. It is NOT that hard to be informed, to know what Robby Creese looks like and know he is NOT in their 4 x 8 Line Up etc. Miscalling runners left and right and teams as well. This really pisses me off as well as the juvenile race calls calling guys by their first name , like they know them and are buddies, the whole thing is JV. Sorry as far as the audio.

But, and a huge but, there would be no way to watch any of these races that are not in your neighborhood, if not for this, so I buy it. complain once a quater and move on.

puro pinche BS wrote:

Maybe I'm not that big of a track fan, but i will not pay $20 bucks just to see a couple of races on crappy shaky footage. I guess little by little I'll just lose interest in the sport and only pay attention during the Olympics like the majority of America does. Nothing lost really. Track and Field is dying because the only ones willing to cover events want to create a monopoly on the sport and charge an arm and a leg to show the coverage. I refuse to participate in this BS. If what's left of the sport in the US dies, so be it. Track is not that great of a sport anyway. Time to switch over to basketball or football. I don't pay anything to watch my college team or pro-team on TV or the internet.

So your parents still pay your cable/internet bill? Otherwise are paying something to watch your college team or pro team on the TV or the internet.

flotrrack is definitely worth it for track fans, however they ought to offer a student discount or have pay per view. The biggest reasons people won't ssubscribe is they can't afford it because they lack a job (because school is their job) or they don't have time to make it worth it. If you're subscribing but are too busy to watch most meets live, its not worth it.

The more people continue to refuse to purchase their monthly/annual subscription, the more they'll be forced to offer a wider choice of plans (i.e pay per view). Just wait it out.

Their pay service is clearly not living up to expectations, or they wouldn't be limiting (eliminating) their free on-demand after the fact. It's a plan-B strategy to try and force more viewers down their annual subscription rabbit hole.

Pretty sure they're target demo is not the poor/jobless HS/College student. They're looking at Uncle Jack and Grandma Ethyl to shell out $ to see their niece/granddaughter race on the other side of the country. They're hoping affluent mommie/daddie who pay for everything else at their son's/daughter's liberal arts college will shell out the additional for the required FloTrack subscription. They're maybe hoping that the 10 college runners sharing a two-bedroom house will pool their resources to watch the weekend's meets.

But it ain't happening - and guess what - if it ain't catching for live coverage, it won't fly with on-demand without extensive marketing/outreach which they don't have the funds to launch.

What I think they're missing is that runners are typically frugal, no matter the affluence. We that are in that rather wide post-collegiate to old/dead age demographic have the $ to purchase the monthly subscription. We just won't because we have real life experience with price points and value-added. And there's just not alot of value added in such an expensive plan for the casual viewer. I'll watch Mt. Sac, Cardinal, Penn, Oxy, maybe an indoor meet or two. Done.

I'll probably bite even if it's $15 a meet, then you got me (and a ton others) for maybe $60-100 annual right there. Not to mention, you offer meets this way, you look kinder and gentler - a real advocate for the sport.