Flo Sports

[IC798891]

I'm going to chime in to say...

If you're just "checking the score", especially on a phone, I feel like Live Stats is what you're going to use.

[Kuiper]

I'm going to chime in to say...

If you're just "checking the score", especially on a phone, I feel like Live Stats is what you're going to use.

Makes sense to me, but that's the quote from the SID in the story I posted months ago on this thread.  In any event, my recollection is that the SID only had information about how long viewers were watching the stream and was speculating about why since they considered that to be relevant information about its value to the school. 

[Pat Coleman]

I'm going to chime in to say...

If you're just "checking the score", especially on a phone, I feel like Live Stats is what you're going to use.

As someone who checks scores professionally, I just have to say that live stats are really unreliable. On any given Saturday, I'd say 10% of live stats feeds either never started or are hung up and minutes to hours out of date.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I'm going to chime in to say...

If you're just "checking the score", especially on a phone, I feel like Live Stats is what you're going to use.

As someone who checks scores professionally, I just have to say that live stats are really unreliable. On any given Saturday, I'd say 10% of live stats feeds either never started or are hung up and minutes to hours out of date.

Also, I'm using Flo most often on through my roku on the tv.  It's much easier to switch to another stream than to get my phone out and find the livestats.

[IC798891]

I'm going to chime in to say...

If you're just "checking the score", especially on a phone, I feel like Live Stats is what you're going to use.

As someone who checks scores professionally, I just have to say that live stats are really unreliable. On any given Saturday, I'd say 10% of live stats feeds either never started or are hung up and minutes to hours out of date.

Right, but as you say, you're doing it professionally. For you, 10% of them being out of wack is a big deal. For 90% of us, it means it's working just fine for what we need. (Probably even more, because it doesn't really matter to me if "Hopkins 35, Ithaca 0" in the third quarter is a few minutes out of date or up-to-the-current-snap accurate

[Pat Coleman]

I'm going to chime in to say...

If you're just "checking the score", especially on a phone, I feel like Live Stats is what you're going to use.

As someone who checks scores professionally, I just have to say that live stats are really unreliable. On any given Saturday, I'd say 10% of live stats feeds either never started or are hung up and minutes to hours out of date.

Right, but as you say, you're doing it professionally. For you, 10% of them being out of wack is a big deal. For 90% of us, it means it's working just fine for what we need. (Probably even more, because it doesn't really matter to me if "Hopkins 35, Ithaca 0" in the third quarter is a few minutes out of date or up-to-the-current-snap accurate

And for the 10%, it's not working at all.

[IC798891]

If I'm quickly checking the score, in my experience, LiveStats is one click and it loads the page.

With video, what I sometimes get taken to first is a department-wide video page where I have to first select which event I want to watch, and then when that loads, click inside a video player again to actually start the stream and see a scorebug — unless an ad plays to start. And if I click during a break in play I might not actually see a scorebug, but something else entirely.

Yes, occasionally LiveStats isn't working, but the process being fewer clicks/menus still makes it my first go to. 

[Kuiper]

Another anecdote from an SID of a new Flo school via Bob Quillman.

More @flosports viewership info.  This from the SID of a very successful D3 school in a "power conference"...new to Flo this season.

In the opening football game of the season, vs a big opponent, they had 168 total viewers...down from 1,170 the last time they hosted this opponent.

Total viewing minutes were down 85.5%

That "total viewing minutes" doesn't really offer additional information since the decline from 1170 to 168 is also an 85% drop.  It just suggests that the 168 viewers are watching a similar percentage of the minutes of the game as everyone watched before Flo.  It also doesn't tell us the drop among that school's viewers, since the "big opponent" could have been responsible for a large percentage of those viewers the last time they host the opponent and they aren't going to sign up for Flo for a single game.

I actually think football is the statistical anomaly for schools and conferences when it comes to viewing and Flo.  It seems that it attracts the largest number of viewers at the schools that have reported data, which is not surprising since the rosters are by far the largest of any sport and I think football is more popular among alums, but they play fewer non-conference games than most other sports, so the value proposition for Flo is lower for the visiting fans.  Subscribing has more value than purchasing a single game, but if your team is only going to play one game against a Flo opponent, most people would skip it.  In other sports, by contrast, they may play the majority of their non-conference schedule against Flo schools, especially as more conferences sign those deals, making it more worth it to subscribe for the first month and then cancel.  I'll be interested to see how these numbers shake out in other sports for new Flo schools when conference play starts and all games are on Flo.  I expect that will give a better indication of how many people are subscribing per sport since both teams that are playing will be Flo schools.

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ The D3 conferences new to Flo this season are NWC, OAC, ODAC, UAA, LEC according to AI overview from Google. My speculation is that the school referenced is from the OAC and quite possibly is Mount Union.

[ziggy]

Another anecdote from an SID of a new Flo school via Bob Quillman.

More @flosports viewership info.  This from the SID of a very successful D3 school in a "power conference"...new to Flo this season.

In the opening football game of the season, vs a big opponent, they had 168 total viewers...down from 1,170 the last time they hosted this opponent.

Total viewing minutes were down 85.5%

That "total viewing minutes" doesn't really offer additional information since the decline from 1170 to 168 is also an 85% drop.  It just suggests that the 168 viewers are watching a similar percentage of the minutes of the game as everyone watched before Flo.  It also doesn't tell us the drop among that school's viewers, since the "big opponent" could have been responsible for a large percentage of those viewers the last time they host the opponent and they aren't going to sign up for Flo for a single game.

I actually think football is the statistical anomaly for schools and conferences when it comes to viewing and Flo.  It seems that it attracts the largest number of viewers at the schools that have reported data, which is not surprising since the rosters are by far the largest of any sport and I think football is more popular among alums, but they play fewer non-conference games than most other sports, so the value proposition for Flo is lower for the visiting fans.  Subscribing has more value than purchasing a single game, but if your team is only going to play one game against a Flo opponent, most people would skip it.  In other sports, by contrast, they may play the majority of their non-conference schedule against Flo schools, especially as more conferences sign those deals, making it more worth it to subscribe for the first month and then cancel.  I'll be interested to see how these numbers shake out in other sports for new Flo schools when conference play starts and all games are on Flo.  I expect that will give a better indication of how many people are subscribing per sport since both teams that are playing will be Flo schools.

I disagree that the similar drop in watch time is not meaningful to know. One of the pro-Flo narratives that was out there was an indication that overall watch time did not drop as much as the view numbers, suggesting that the lost views were people who might be scoreboard checking rather than a significant drop in people who were actually tuning in to watch the whole (or bulk of the event) who are more likely their core audience.

With similar percentage drops in both views and watch time you can conclude that there is no difference in viewer behavior/engagement between those lost in the transition to Flo and those retained. It takes away validity to an argument that only "low value" viewers were lost.

[Kuiper]

Another anecdote from an SID of a new Flo school via Bob Quillman.

More @flosports viewership info.  This from the SID of a very successful D3 school in a "power conference"...new to Flo this season.

In the opening football game of the season, vs a big opponent, they had 168 total viewers...down from 1,170 the last time they hosted this opponent.

Total viewing minutes were down 85.5%

That "total viewing minutes" doesn't really offer additional information since the decline from 1170 to 168 is also an 85% drop.  It just suggests that the 168 viewers are watching a similar percentage of the minutes of the game as everyone watched before Flo.  It also doesn't tell us the drop among that school's viewers, since the "big opponent" could have been responsible for a large percentage of those viewers the last time they host the opponent and they aren't going to sign up for Flo for a single game.

I actually think football is the statistical anomaly for schools and conferences when it comes to viewing and Flo.  It seems that it attracts the largest number of viewers at the schools that have reported data, which is not surprising since the rosters are by far the largest of any sport and I think football is more popular among alums, but they play fewer non-conference games than most other sports, so the value proposition for Flo is lower for the visiting fans.  Subscribing has more value than purchasing a single game, but if your team is only going to play one game against a Flo opponent, most people would skip it.  In other sports, by contrast, they may play the majority of their non-conference schedule against Flo schools, especially as more conferences sign those deals, making it more worth it to subscribe for the first month and then cancel.  I'll be interested to see how these numbers shake out in other sports for new Flo schools when conference play starts and all games are on Flo.  I expect that will give a better indication of how many people are subscribing per sport since both teams that are playing will be Flo schools.

I disagree that the similar drop in watch time is not meaningful to know. One of the pro-Flo narratives that was out there was an indication that overall watch time did not drop as much as the view numbers, suggesting that the lost views were people who might be scoreboard checking rather than a significant drop in people who were actually tuning in to watch the whole (or bulk of the event) who are more likely their core audience.

With similar percentage drops in both views and watch time you can conclude that there is no difference in viewer behavior/engagement between those lost in the transition to Flo and those retained. It takes away validity to an argument that only "low value" viewers were lost.

I get your point, but you're still just making an inference on that particular point.  An 85% drop in viewers producing an 85% drop in viewing minutes doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the allocation of the minutes among the viewers who stayed or left.  Subscribers might have been low minutes viewers who increased their minutes to get the full value of their subscriptions.  Over a full season, which I believe is what the SIDs were referring to in that article, those subscribers are going to account for more of the minutes.  In any case, I never believed that only low minutes users were lost, but I do think it's quite realistic to expect that those are the marginal users in this situation.  The look-in viewer seems the most likely to view the value proposition unfavorably and not subscribe or pay for a one-game pass.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The big thing to remember with Flo is how viewership is different in different sports.  For the most part, football and basketball are the only sports with any sizeable viewership beyond friends and family.  There are certain sports at certain schools that are exceptions (ice hockey is a big one, where that's played - and sometimes baseball).

This is the calculation that everyone's making on this Flo deal - can we hold on to enough "outside" viewers (ie: are they willing to pay) to justify all the money we're getting from friends and family who will subscribe regardless.

Schools will be looking at the difference and whether they can make up the Flo money in advertising to those folks who won't pay.

I know this disregards the intangible value that really is the crux of most of these arguments - but it seems the schools who've gone with flo have largely disregarded that value as well, so this is where we're at.

[WUPHF]

The Washington University student newspaper wrote a story on Flo Sports and got written comments from two commissioners that offered opposing perspectives and a possible benchmark (25% drop) to consider next summer:

Katie Boldvich, commissioner of the Landmark Conference, wrote in a comment to Student Life that her conference saw an increase in viewership in their first year with FloSports. On the other hand, Jennifer Dubow, commissioner of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, admitted in a comment that their conference experienced a 25% decrease in viewership, but the decrease was only seen across certain sports.

Boldvich said that their FloSports partnership has paid off for its member schools, both financially and by reducing strain on schools' sports information offices.

[Pat Coleman]

"viewership" is a generic term that could mean anything. It isn't a metric.

[IC798891]

Another anecdote from an SID of a new Flo school via Bob Quillman.

More @flosports viewership info.  This from the SID of a very successful D3 school in a "power conference"...new to Flo this season.

In the opening football game of the season, vs a big opponent, they had 168 total viewers...down from 1,170 the last time they hosted this opponent.

Total viewing minutes were down 85.5%

That "total viewing minutes" doesn't really offer additional information since the decline from 1170 to 168 is also an 85% drop.  It just suggests that the 168 viewers are watching a similar percentage of the minutes of the game as everyone watched before Flo.

Crucially though, what this tells us, is that the drop in viewers isn't just coming from people who use video to pop in, check the score, and leave.

If it was, the percentage drop in minutes would be much, much less, because the minutes 160 or whatever people paying for it — and presumably watching most/the whole game — would outweigh them.

As an example, if you typically have 10 people who view your game, and one does it for the full 150 minutes, and the other 9 do ~3 minutes of "checking the score", you have a total of 177 viewing minutes. If the only people being turned off by the paywall were the "checking the score" people, you'd have a 90% in viewers, but only a 15% decrease in minutes viewed.

Enjoy that $30,000.