I haven't always been the biggest fan of Flo, but I don't have much of an issue with anything they did with the beer mile, and it's glaringly obvious just how annoyed you are that they managed to put on a successful event. I could be wrong, but that's just what it seems like to me, as well as a number of people I've spoken to about Letsrun's negative comments about the event.
As far as the venue change mishap goes, as far as I can tell, Flo did sign a contract with the people who had rights to the land of the original venue (owner? leaser?), but got dicked over in the end after too many community complaints. At best, a vague contract loophole allowed the owner to cancel the event despite Flotrack's careful preparation, or maybe Flotrack even agreed to change venues voluntarily to avoid a huge controversy. At worst, Flotrack didn't do nearly enough due diligence to ensure that the event would go off no matter what. Regardless, you guys (brojos) seem so absurdly annoyed at Flotrack and are trying so hard to look down on them and dismiss them as incompetent. But this seems like such a hypocrisy -- you guys repeatedly claim to want the best for track and field. You don't seem opposed to the beer mile in and of itself, so why not support Flotrack's event? Why does the unfortunate event of having to change venues at the last minute deserve an almost complete dismissal of the event? Shouldn't you direct criticism towards whoever got it moved? Flo's beer mile brought tons of attention to the sport, and not a "hobby-jogger" knockoff of it -- the elites in the race, especially Symmonds, are quite good runners themselves.
Even if we were to pessimistically view it as a big negative that Flotrack lost it's original venue, the new venue was hands-down (or at least in my opinion and that of everyone else I've spoken to) significantly better than the original, a run-down track on the outskirts of town in a not-so-great neighborhood. The Formula 1 track was a much more attractive venue, one that allowed for much more publicity due to it's prestige in auto racing and better video production due to the smaller infield and ease with which to set up cameras, banners, etc. Those physically at the event certainly would've appreciated the incredibly high quality announcing system and the huge HD tv's along the track. The only drawback to the venue was the tightness of the turns, which likely led to slightly slower times. But who knows, the difficulty of the turns might have been outweighed by the fact that the athletes were never more than inches away from the crowd of people cheering, whereas on a track the back straight and turns can be pretty quiet.
"Three Thoughts The Flotrack Beer Mile in Austin" was probably the least forthcoming title I've ever seen in on your site. Why not "The Best We Could Come Up With For Why You Should Hate Our Competitor's Event"? Let me offer my take on your unbiased, without-agenda "thoughts":
1. Yes, the initial success of beer miles as underground events necessitate that they never move beyond those dark, quiet, uncompetitive races. Definitely the best route for beer miles long-term because "most adults in positions of authority" must always be obeyed. The venue had to change for the right reasons, although I guess I'm a bit confused after the fact, now that the event proved to be incredibly successful. Where were the adults in positions of authority storming down the Formula 1 raceway, demanding a cancellation? A professional, publicized, live-streamed beer mile with 8/10 all-time performers vs. a dim, unstable vertical iPhone video posted to YouTube days after one guy runs a fast time in front of his wife. It sucks that because "most adults in positions of authority" won't allow the former and some hipster introverts prefer the latter means Flotrack should really never have even thought it was a good idea to try to put on their silly race.
2. A better name for the World Series would be "Americans are full of themselves". Hmm, wait a minute though. 5/10 competitors in Flotrack's event were non-Americans. Flotrack was delusional to call its event the World Championships when it was able to get the best of the best to show up. The California beer mile you (brojos) keep spamming deserves way more to call itself the World Championships with a whopping 2 of the top performers in the world. Hey, they even have WR holder. There's absolutely no valid concern about the validity of his record, I read it on Letsrun. As long as Nielson doesn't decide to run at Flotrack's "World Championships" next year, his record is safe with the brojos.
3. Ruh roh, the only website to ever establish any set of clear-cut rules for the beer mile has teamed up with the host of the first large-scale organized, officiated event of that nature. After the alliance of these two evildoers, all of the sudden the website looks TOTALLY different, there's a BIG PROMINENT LINK to the organizer of the largest legitimate beer mile, and there's a MASSIVE rule change that makes total logical sense! Beermile.com has the audacity to change the rule so that performances on Flotrack's more difficult paved course with tight turns are official? I smell collusion, corruption, and all sorts of horrible things going on. I bet Flotrack's course is 50 meters short and made of a forward-moving belt rotating at 10mph. Or, maybe, the founder of Beermile.com recognized that he happened to establish the most widely-accepted rules and record-keeping and decided to use his influential position to further the cause the beer mile as a whole. Therefore, he took steps to legitimatize the most publicized and successful professional beer mile by ensuring it abided logical rules. No, no, that would be crazy. Why would he ever try to support his own cause? Must be the money. Gosh, I wonder how many hundreds of dollars Flotrack could be paying him to be in "cahoots" (great word guys, really drive home that villain narrative) with them and obediently confirm their event as official. There's no way the rule change made total sense. It's mutually exclusive for a rule change to be reasonable and to support an event, especially if that event is inherently evil and stupid.