Bad news - Flotrack just bought the rights to the Dubai Marathon - Put it behind its paywall

DDOS attack would be a start

Straight outta da suburbs wrote:

What can the common running fan do to basically say f*** the Flo-police? I'll write as profusely as necessary to any executive or politician

Are you fvcking kidding me? I was really looking forward to this.

Sprinter Type wrote:

This all but cements my decision to NOT get FloTrack - I was recently considering paying for the subscription.

More power to you, but that doesn't make any sense.

I'd like to know what they paid for the broadcast rights. It has to be virtually nothing. There probably aren't a 1000 people in the US that will watch it. Even 5000 people is a nothing rating.

How many will of those sign up just to watch Dubai? 7 people? 17? We are probably talking a few hundred dollars. I'm not understanding how the economics work here.

It seems hostile to actually trying to build the sport. Oh a world record attempt is on. We better make sure no one can see it!

Twenty a month. I don't even pay that much for my netflix and spotify combined, and that at least has some real content people want to see or hear.

Good thing I have VPN and can be a world citizen if I feel the need.

The Canadian-based site I work for was also going to embed the free livestream on our site as well. Seems like Flotrack swooped in and bought the rights and now it's behind an iron curtain.

Now dozens of North Americans will watch Dubai!

Oh, and it appears they bought the rights for Rotterdam as well.

You know what's one way to hurt an already hurting sport: put events people may actually want to watch behind a paywall.

Flotrack should do the right thing and take down their silly paywall for major events like this.

But worry not everyone, none of us actually believe that Bekele is seriously going for a WR in Dubai? It's just a put on for some appearance money. London will be where the real show takes place. Dubai will be 30ish K, then check to make sure the lead is good and "fade" in for the $200K.

This website has live streams over almost every T&F event: http://www.watchathletics.com/So I am sure they will stream this attempt as well.

Illinoisphotographer wrote:

DDOS attack would be a start

Straight outta da suburbs wrote:

What can the common running fan do to basically say f*** the Flo-police? I'll write as profusely as necessary to any executive or politician

YES! Someone needs to DDOS these losers for trying to destroy our sport. Fck flotrack!

They need an option were you can pay per event. I would have paid $5 to watch Dubai tonight or maybe i would have paid watch the NCAA XC race, but like someone else said $20 a month is more than Hulu or netflix and those sites actually have stuff I want to watch. I used the free trial for NCAA XC and the quality sucked! Besides that, there's really nothing else i would watch on that site. I would never watch the random college indoor meets they broadcast.

NBPT Runner wrote:

They need an option were you can pay per event. I would have paid $5 to watch Dubai tonight or maybe i would have paid watch the NCAA XC race, but like someone else said $20 a month is more than Hulu or netflix and those sites actually have stuff I want to watch. I used the free trial for NCAA XC and the quality sucked! Besides that, there's really nothing else i would watch on that site. I would never watch the random college indoor meets they broadcast.

But if you would have paid for the NCAA you would have wanted a refund...and everyone else should have been given one!

just go on runnerspace and watch it for free

Hire Knowledgeable People wrote:

But if you would have paid for the NCAA you would have wanted a refund...and everyone else should have been given one!

Agreed the quality of NCAA's was terrible, as are almost all of the meets flotrack broadcasts. I had a FloPro subscription for a year and could not once watch an entire meet without some sort of issue. Every time the premier race of the meet was on something would go wrong. As much as I would like to watch Dubai, I will not pay for Flotrack until they can prove that their quality has improved. Looks like I will be setting up a vpn tonight.

Why doesn't letsrun look to buy the rights to some of these events?

oh please wrote:

I'd like to know what they paid for the broadcast rights. It has to be virtually nothing. There probably aren't a 1000 people in the US that will watch it. Even 5000 people is a nothing rating.

How many will of those sign up just to watch Dubai? 7 people? 17? We are probably talking a few hundred dollars. I'm not understanding how the economics work here.

It seems hostile to actually trying to build the sport. Oh a world record attempt is on. We better make sure no one can see it!

Twenty a month. I don't even pay that much for my netflix and spotify combined, and that at least has some real content people want to see or hear.

Good thing I have VPN and can be a world citizen if I feel the need.

They are acting just like the IAAF with Lamine Diack:

"Hey Liliya Shobukhova. We have your ABP blood test doping results. We can make them go away…if you give us some money."

Flotrack basically just comes in and steals the broadcast of Kenenisa Bekele and then does extortion on us like the IAAF:

"Hey 17 humans at Letsrun.com... and jamin."

"We have total control of any of you being able to see Kenenisa Bekele tonight if you were maybe thinking that you were going to watch him tonight."

"You can see him…if you give us some money."

In conclusion:

1) Please make Flotrack STOP this NONSENSE and make Flotrack GO AWAY right now.

2) Please keep crazy-stupid Yannis Pitsiladis away from Kenenisa Bekele also.

3) Please DO IT NOW.

Thank you.

fatturdferguson wrote:

Why doesn't letsrun look to buy the rights to some of these events?

This

BroJos must be feeling the entrepreneurial bug again.

Want to watch Kenny

Headed for fast times,

Want to see the best

Hey, buy the rights

I hope there will still be a live discussion thread during the race so that the two people who actually pay to watch it can keep a running commentary for the rest of us.

lollololololololol wrote:

just go on runnerspace and watch it for free

Runnerspace stream is through EverSport.tv as well. Banned in US and Canada.

read the thread wrote:

New norm wrote:

Does anyone know if Cape Verde will work to watch the marathon?

Yes I do. The answer is no it will not work, it is on the blocked list.

Damn.

My back-up country is Lesotho. Do you know if it will work there?

And people wonder why I ditched tv a few years ago.

New norm wrote:

read the thread wrote:

Yes I do. The answer is no it will not work, it is on the blocked list.

Damn.

My back-up country is Lesotho. Do you know if it will work there?

"Lebopo from Lesotho" is a line that randomly comes to mind for me. It was said on the broadcast of the 2008 Olympic Marathon. Maybe after the 5k mark? I've watched that race perhaps 10 times.