Quote from: SKUD on Yesterday at 07:44:53 PMPeople angry about FLO who have not used it prior to now and are complaining, Please tell me you don't pay for any of the following: HBO/MAX, Netflix, AppleTV, ESPN, Disney, YouTube TV, or any other Streaming subscription. If you pay for those what bothers you about FLO?

1.  The ROI on Flo is much less than any of those other platforms.   
2.  The minimal funds that are supposed to go to the schools who signed up to improve broadcast quality are seemingly sucked up elsewhere.
3.  The average quality of the product is poor and does not represent an improvement over what used to be free.  And it doesn't seem to improve over time. 
4.  I, like many others, already donate more to my school's athletic program than Flo costs.  Being forced to pay to watch something I already substantially support is an insult.  Or if you're a parent already spending thousands (to tens of thousands) annually to send your child to college, it's another tacked on fee for no good reason.
5.  If I want to tell someone to watch an event, they too are forced to pay.
6.  This is simply another VC money grab and the people behind it don't give a damn about D3 sports, they just want to get enough suckers customers to pay for it (because they have no choice once Flo takes over) so they can get bought out and show a profit.

Hope that helps. 

Quote from: blue_jays on Yesterday at 12:04:12 PM[...]

If you want a journalistic callout of Flo, look to the local city newspaper or the university student newspaper. But don't put any of this on the hardworking SIDs, who bust their humps with 60-80 hour work weeks 9-10 months a year, doing everything they can to serve the student-athletes.

+1

Not to mention they are paid a pittance.  They have enough to deal with without being involved in this conversation.

A tweet from Bob Quillman, who has contacts deep within D3 basketball:

QuoteI've received notes from 11 D3 head basketball coaches, so far, who say their stream viewership is down anywhere from the 40% to 80% after moving to Flo.

I believe @d3datacast  has received similar messages.

Yes, let's be sure to cut off over half of prospective student athletes and supporters for that $30K a year.  If you miss out on *one* new student across your entire program as a result - all sports combined - you just cost yourself that $30K at your typical private college.

Flo is not taking over "low D1".  They just lost the one they had, the Big East, to ESPN+. 

Their model is to hope someone buys them out before they exhaust the VC they have remaining.

Having seen my alma mater decline to join the SCAC Flo effort last year, I can only hope that it continues to do so should the SAA unwisely chase the few dollars offered to most conferences so far. 

Or the many of us who follow d3 sports in general.   

**** the administrations that are signing up for this garbage with no thought of the impact on their parents, families, alumni, and supporters.

NWC and OAC also announced today.  The days of watching D3 sports for free are sadly, rapidly coming to an end.

God, I hate this timeline.

Trinity P Jack Briese (3-0, 3.38 ERA, 4 saves, 33K in 40 IP over 19 appearances) tweeted that he's going to Eastern Kentucky for his final year of eligibility.  He graduated in May but did not get on the field his freshman year. 

Briese's uncle, Chris Martin, is principal trumpet of the NY Phil. 

Former Trinity P Jack Martinez (10-1 combined in the '22 and '23 seasons) was third former D3 player to be selected in the MLB draft, going in the eighth round to Arizona.  He had a couple of decent seasons at Louisiana (4-3, 4.40 ERA, 2 saves, 50K) and Arizona State (6-4, 5.47 ERA).

Quote from: ronk on July 13, 2025, 12:35:53 PM

Quote from: Ron Boerger on July 13, 2025, 10:50:45 AMI saw this update regarding Smith in the Forbes article this morning:

Update: Smith College, which likely would have been subject to the 4% tax given its 2023 stats—an endowment worth $2.47 billion, which worked out to $780,000 for each of its 3,192 students—contacted Forbes on July 8 to note that its full-time tuition-paying student enrollment is now below 3,000. The school currently pays a 1.4% tax on its endowment (worth $2.6 billion as of June 30, 2024). Starting in January, Smith will likely be exempt from an endowment tax. Smith declined to say how much tax it has been paying.

According to NCES, Smith's enrollment in 2023 was only 2830 (2506 undergraduate, 324 graduate), and according to the school's own "Fall Enrollments" document was, depending on how you count, either around 2600 or ~2700.  It's interesting to note the NCES numbers for 2023 and Smith's own numbers on this page don't exactly match with a difference of over 100. 

 Sounds like incentive to purposely keep your enrollment under 3000.

At least until the goalposts get moved again.

I saw this update regarding Smith in the Forbes article this morning:

Update: Smith College, which likely would have been subject to the 4% tax given its 2023 stats—an endowment worth $2.47 billion, which worked out to $780,000 for each of its 3,192 students—contacted Forbes on July 8 to note that its full-time tuition-paying student enrollment is now below 3,000. The school currently pays a 1.4% tax on its endowment (worth $2.6 billion as of June 30, 2024). Starting in January, Smith will likely be exempt from an endowment tax. Smith declined to say how much tax it has been paying.

According to NCES, Smith's enrollment in 2023 was only 2830 (2506 undergraduate, 324 graduate), and according to the school's own "Fall Enrollments" document was, depending on how you count, either around 2600 or ~2700.  It's interesting to note the NCES numbers for 2023 and Smith's own numbers on this page don't exactly match with a difference of over 100. 

Unfortunately, it was confirmed today that Kellyanne Lytal did not survive last week's flooding. 

Quote"thousands of Division-II and Division-III athletes, their families, and fans"

The potential Big East audience by itself is larger than the combined D2 and D3 conferences they have suckered in captured - and more willing to pay because that's what you do in D1.  I increasingly do not see what their value proposition is.