2 years ago
05/17/2017 9:03am CDT
Personally, I think USATF should include it with their membership. I haven't been a member in years but if I felt like I was supporting USA track athletes and getting to watch some great meets, I'd be happy to pay much more than $70.
As it stands now, I'd be fine with $70 if it was a grade A product that gives me a lot that I don't already get with my $175 cable and wifi bill, but you dont get much that you don't already get on tv and it's not truly amazing like MLB.tv.
Ignoring the fact that the service wasn't working during the Shanghai DL, here are my suggestions for improvement.
1) On the DL broadcasts, , there should be a track only feed that shows the distance races from start to finish
We've been saying for years that the people doing tv don't understand the sport. If you've been watching the first few meets, our sentiment has only been reinforced. Watching all of the field events is great. Well done. Watching the DL without commericals is great. But guess what? There is no track only feed.
Instead, their track feed is just the international feed so it cuts out to field events in the middle of the 5ks and steeples.
They need to have a track only feed but they also should have it like MLB where you can pick your own audio overlay. If you are watching the DL on gold, you get the international announcers. Why can't we choose who we want to hear? They have their own announcers on tv (Sanya Richards Ross and Ato Boldon) so why can't I choose them?
Right now, if you are watching the field events, there is no announcing. If I'm watching field, i'd like to have the main event audio being broadcast on tv so I can know if something big is happening on the track and I can switch over.
2) They need to archive the races individually. After each event is over, they should have a link to every single event. Like the schedule results pages should list the event and have a link to the results and to the video of that race.
It's pretty simply really.
But in general, this just reminds me of why people are cutting the chord - everyone has gotten greedy. People already were paying a ton for cable to get ESPN. Then the individual leagues started their own channels - NFL, NBA, MLB which cost even more. And then the leagues want you to pay for their own apps and what not.
The same thing is now happening in track.
Can someone tell me why I should have to subcribe to both USATF.tv + and NBC gold? Shouldn't it be all in one service since they are both tied to USATF?
You'd think NBC and USATF would be heavily reaching out to us - as let's be honest the people buying this are regulars on LetsRun (When Universal sports did the DL they said by far the most signups came from our website) - to explain why this is a great and innovative product. Instead, it was pretty hard to find out what events were on Gold only and what events were on tv.
I imagine most people are going to be miffed to pay for something when they find out most of the stuff is already on tv.
NBC or USATF or IAAF if you are reading this, I'll be happy to take a train to NYC or fly to Indy on my own dime and tell you how to improve this. It's common sense really.
