Flo Sports

[IC798891]

Boldvich said that their FloSports partnership has paid off for its member schools, both financially [/i]

It seems impossible to state this if you don't look at the long-term impact on:

1. Alumni relationships with the college and donor behavior
2. Prospective student-athlete impacts and outreach

Of course, these schools are like lottery winners who go broke, because people who make bad financial decisions (like playing the lottery) usually keep doing so.

Colleges that take FloSports money are showing they prefer short term cash infusions to long term seeds of financial relationships, so it doesn't surprise me that they're already drawing their conclusions.

[Pat Coleman]

Boldvich said that their FloSports partnership has paid off for its member schools, both financially [/i]

It seems impossible to state this if you don't look at the long-term impact on:

1. Alumni relationships with the college and donor behavior
2. Prospective student-athlete impacts and outreach

And, truthfully, these aren't things within the purview of the conference office, so they won't be focused on them or have any insight into them.

[CNU85]

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

How does FloSports help reduce the strain on sports information offices?

Isn't the school still responsible for the broadcasts? So, at a minimum, it's the same strain.

Isn't the school contractually obligated to improve the broadcasts over time? Thus, increasing the strain of adding resources or training existing resources on new equipment.

What am I missing?
 

[WUPHF]

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

Indeed, though it is likely to mean one of a few different things and when quoted, gives us a sense of how stakeholders see the Flo Sports agreements.

[WUPHF]

How does FloSports help reduce the strain on sports information offices?

Isn't the school still responsible for the broadcasts? So, at a minimum, it's the same strain.

Isn't the school contractually obligated to improve the broadcasts over time? Thus, increasing the strain of adding resources or training existing resources on new equipment.

What am I missing?

You're missing all the exclusive content that Flo Sports is producing, apparently!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

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

How does FloSports help reduce the strain on sports information offices?

Isn't the school still responsible for the broadcasts? So, at a minimum, it's the same strain.

Isn't the school contractually obligated to improve the broadcasts over time? Thus, increasing the strain of adding resources or training existing resources on new equipment.

What am I missing?
 

A lot of the Landmark schools have used their Flo money to upgrade salaries, purchase equipment, and hire more student workers.  If you're adding the Flo money to a broadcast budget that already exists, you're going to be able to do more with that budget (potentially reduce strain).

[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.

Well, according to the below from Logan Hansen on Twitter/X, I'm probably wrong.

"Logan Hansen
@LogHanRatings
This could be a NWC, ODAC, or OAC school.

Wouldn't be UMU - last they hosted Wheaton was 2008.

Linfield? Last hosted UWO in 2012.

W&L hosting Salisbury? That's my bet. Hosted them in 2023, too."

[WUPHF]

I apologize if this was posted, but the ODAC commissioner did another podcast with thoughts on Flo Sports as well as thoughts on fairness in Division III and the possibility of subdivisions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwhHSSX_O6U&t=2621s

[Flying Dutch Fan]

One additional "pop-in" viewer scenario (that I do all the time).  I'm tracking scores of various games or even getting updates on X, and note that some game is coming down to the wire or headed to OT - and I'm instantly clicking on a link to go watch the end.  No one is going to pay a Flo subscription for that.

[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.

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.

This is a great explanation. "Views" or "Viewers" needs the added context some kind of watch time stat gives. Think about a video as you scroll social media - it might autoplay as you scroll on by and get counted as a view but did you actually watch the video? No. I think everyone knew the number of viewers would drop but the hope had to be that it came at the expense of casuals or scoreboard checkers. The watch hours dropping by the same percentage as views is bad news.

[WUPHF]

@ziggy, you guys should think about inviting Brad Bankston on the podcast. There are so many data-related questions you could ask.

[y_jack_lok]

@ziggy, you guys should think about inviting Brad Bankston on the podcast. There are so many data-related questions you could ask.

Interesting idea, though it would be a departure from the format of almost all episodes where it's just the two of them -- except for the episodes where five or so guys pick conference winners.

But maybe Quillman could have him (or some other conference commissioner -- or an AD or two from Flo conferences) on the Qcast to ask some of the questions and address some of the concerns that have been stated repeatedly in this forum.