I would thank you guys for the responses, but for unclear reasons, I cannot take any of you seriously.

There are some that would defend Flo Sports, though I have never seen Frank Rossi explain his reasoning in full.  I would suggest that the two discuss the matter, but for whatever reason, the latter seems to be needlessly antagonistic in his approach to others.

Frank Rossi
@FrankRossi
When Bob wants to understand what the concept of "apples to apples" is, @D3FBHuddle
, maybe I'll take him seriously. He seems to have trouble comprehending how view counts work, what the schools are comparing, and why it's not representative of the reality. Flo spelled it out for him, and he still has no clue what he's talking about. https://x.com/bquillmanqcast

Quote from: Patrick Coleman on February 16, 2026, 10:51:04 PMDuring the football season, those Games of the Week were on YouTube, for free.

Tank the Susquehanna viewership to a few hundred and then brag about getting 4,000 views on the free YouTube live stream when Johns Hopkins comes to town.  I would love to see the analytics on that stream.

Quote from: ziggy on February 16, 2026, 09:50:49 PMThere is zero chance average view time went up 200x. 200%? Maybe, but I doubt average view duration went up that much, but it absolutely could not have been 200x.

Maybe I'll try to work out how many viewers casual viewers had to be culled from the broadcast in order for a 200x increase, but I am not sure I care enough to do so.

The record-setting NYU broadcast that was averaging 300-400 viewers throughout much of the game ended up with 2,000 or so actual views.  Did that broadcast experience a 200x decrease in average view duration?

I must have watched 10-15 minutes of the game, but the analytics would have registered my average view duration as 1-2 minutes.

More interesting is the statement from Flo Sports that they have grown the viewership.  In some cases by 10x for the so-called Games of the Week.  That is just not possible.

Quote from: Gregory Sager on February 11, 2026, 01:23:49 PM... and Greenville was within five points of CCIW champion Augustana in Rock Island in 2018 with seven minutes to go before the Panthers faded down the stretch. There were a lot of nervous Augie fans in the Carver P.E. Center that night, and everybody who watched that game either in person or online (as I did) came away very impressed by Greenville.

Thanks Greg and I'll add that Westminster played Washington University very close in 2008-2009, finishing within single digits.  Spalding took the Bears to OT a few years later.

Quote from: hopefan on February 11, 2026, 08:02:09 AMSo here is the ugly truth..

Webster is running away with the conference championship...they could finish 23-2, 16-0

BUT... what happens if they get upset in the conference tourney... highly unlikely that they will get a NCAA tourney bid

What happens if they run the table... they get the tourney bid... but get sent anywhere.. CCIW, Wisconsin, down the street to Wash U... to face a top seed and while carrying "this is the year" hopes and expectations, most likely end their season with a double digit loss.

I have offered this thought in the past, and offer it again.... expand to 68 teams... have that mini-playin round to give the little guys a real shot at a win... D1 can do it, why not D3.... the lessers deserve it...

I do not share your pessimism or your interest in play-in games.

Too complicated, too expensive, not a Division III thing to do.  And with so much parity, do they really have a substantially better shot against Carthage than Stevens Point?

Webster had a real shot against Nebraska Wesleyan and Illinois Wesleyan, Fontbonne had a shot against the eventual national champions in Trine.  Just gotta enjoy the ride.  I imagine the players do.

From Bob Quillman... those numbers are better than I thought, still pretty terrible.


Bob Quillman
@BQuillmanQcast
Here are real @flosports
 viewership numbers from a very successful UAA MBB program.

This season vs last:

* Total viewership: ⬇️ 73%

* Top 5 games viewership: ⬇️ 70%

I continue to think limiting exposure to our programs and schools is a huge mistake...and certainly not worth the $30,000 revenue from Flo.

#d3hoops

Quote from: Gregory Sager on February 09, 2026, 03:55:06 PM... and even harder for me to care that they can't become profitable, because I really don't like what they are doing to D3 sports.

Understood.  I do not care either, but I mention it because I am not convinced that Flo Sports lives out the five year contracts they signed last summer.

Just thinking about the NYU numbers again. 

Probably the biggest game of the year, involving one of the world's largest universities (currently 50-60K students) and all the local and national coverage, a crazy streak that may never be broken again...

In addition to YouTube, the game was also live streamed on X and FloSports, so maybe 300 sustained viewers and maybe 600-1,000 overall on the high side.

For a tech company with a lot of Vice Presidents and 300-400 employees, it is hard to imagine that Flo is profitable.  Harder still to imagine they ever become profitable.

356 viewers as NYU draws close to a history-making 82-game streak.  Hard to believe the problems on Friday had anything to do with NYU. 

291 people watching NYU vs. Carnegie Mellon. Just 291.

As an aside, as the Winter sports season draws closer to the postseason, I would give Flo Sports an F for the additional content that was part of the promise. 

Just based on a review of their primary Flo Sports websites and X accounts, they appear to be doing less overall for Division III than they were to start the 2025-2026 season.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on February 08, 2026, 09:08:08 AMIf you notice, it's still a FloSports broadcast, though.  Does answer the question "can a school opt out of the Flo paywall for one of its webcasts"; does not answer the question of what they had to do to pull it off.

True, though interestingly, Case Western Reserve was able to pivot on Friday and stream most of the game against NYU using the Boxcast platform they used for the past 5-10 years.

It would be interesting to know the backstory.

Flo Sports brags about the number of streams they have on offer.  Did the additional traffic to the NYU game really bring the entire platform to a standstill? 

The fact that they are offering the stream on YouTube may suggest that the answer is yes.

The NYU streak is a great story and they have received much-deserved national coverage, but really, only Flo Sports subscribers could have attempted to watch it.  How many viewers are we talking about?

The YouTube platform will provide a snapshot as to how many viewers they have at any one time.

Here is the link again for NYU vs. Carnegie Mellon.  They are already three others waiting for the game to begin.  https://www.youtube.com/live/uOA71OCN-ao

Quote from: deiscanton on February 06, 2026, 10:05:32 PMI hate to see what is going to happen Sunday at noon ET when NYU attempts to break the DIII all-time consecutive games winning streak at Carnegie Mellon.   

Carnegie Mellon is going to stream the Women's game for free on YouTube.  Not even bothering with Flo Sports.  The Men's games are still on Flo it seems.

https://gonyuathletics.com/sports/womens-basketball/schedule
https://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/wbkb/2025-26/schedule

Every UAA school had layoffs in 2025.  I am not surprised that they signed with Flo, though officially, they said that the funding was secondary.