Flo Sports

[IC798891]

I'm not saying that's worth it, but I can tell you that getting a 5-year commitment is highly valued compared to funding something with an annual fund where contributions often fluctuate with the economy and personal feelings about the coaches or the program or a one-year sponsorship that you have to hustle each year to get them to re-up

But that's the entire purpose of your philanthropy department. That is how you establish relationships that sustain your institution long-term!

What drives me nuts about this entire Flo Sports discourse is how it's couched in larger concerns about the long-term viability of D3 institutions and yet:

1. Paywalling your athletic contests decreases your school's exposure, and decreases points of contact between your school and its constituents, which is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing.

2. You're investing in a relationship with an entity that has no vested interest in your school's long-term survival instead of with the people who care the most.

You need to chase upside. Alumni are the ones who may significantly increase their giving later, through climbing the ranks of their respective industries or starting and selling companies. They're the ones you need to invest your time into.

For crying out loud, the very existence of a Flo Sports paywall tells you that there are people out there willing to give money to watch your school's athletics competitions! Why are you letting Flo Sports take the money rather than getting it for yourself and trying to set up long term success?

[stlawus]

I'm not saying that's worth it, but I can tell you that getting a 5-year commitment is highly valued compared to funding something with an annual fund where contributions often fluctuate with the economy and personal feelings about the coaches or the program or a one-year sponsorship that you have to hustle each year to get them to re-up

But that's the entire purpose of your philanthropy department. That is how you establish relationships that sustain your institution long-term!

What drives me nuts about this entire Flo Sports discourse is how in couched in larger concerns about the long-term viability of D3 institutions and yet:

1. Paywalling your athletic contests decreases your school's exposure, and decreases points of contact between your school and its constituents, which is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing.

2. You're investing in a relationship with an entity that has no vested interest in your school's long-term survival instead of with the people who care the most.

You need to chase upside. Alumni are the ones who may significantly increase their giving later, through climbing the ranks of their respective industries or starting and selling companies. They're the ones you need to invest your time into.

For crying out loud, the very existence of a Flo Sports paywall tells you that there are people out there willing to give money to watch your school's athletics competitions! Why are you letting Flo Sports take the money rather than getting it for yourself and trying to set up long term success?

100% dead on.  I recently gave to SLU in strong part due to this reason. They are adroit enough to say in fundraising emails/texts that giving helps fund these efforts so I feel like my giving (even if paltry compared to most) still feels meaningful and directly impactful. This is just human nature.  And I ask again, where are these schools seeing the money?  30k does absolutely nothing for almost all of these institutions.

[D3BBALL]

I'm not saying that's worth it, but I can tell you that getting a 5-year commitment is highly valued compared to funding something with an annual fund where contributions often fluctuate with the economy and personal feelings about the coaches or the program or a one-year sponsorship that you have to hustle each year to get them to re-up

But that's the entire purpose of your philanthropy department. That is how you establish relationships that sustain your institution long-term!

What drives me nuts about this entire Flo Sports discourse is how in couched in larger concerns about the long-term viability of D3 institutions and yet:

1. Paywalling your athletic contests decreases your school's exposure, and decreases points of contact between your school and its constituents, which is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing.

2. You're investing in a relationship with an entity that has no vested interest in your school's long-term survival instead of with the people who care the most.

You need to chase upside. Alumni are the ones who may significantly increase their giving later, through climbing the ranks of their respective industries or starting and selling companies. They're the ones you need to invest your time into.

For crying out loud, the very existence of a Flo Sports paywall tells you that there are people out there willing to give money to watch your school's athletics competitions! Why are you letting Flo Sports take the money rather than getting it for yourself and trying to set up long term success?

100% dead on.  I recently gave to SLU in strong part due to this reason. They are adroit enough to say in fundraising emails/texts that giving helps fund these efforts so I feel like my giving (even if paltry compared to most) still feels meaningful and directly impactful. This is just human nature.  And I ask again, where are these schools seeing the money?  30k does absolutely nothing for almost all of these institutions.

Great points and 100% agree to the last 2 points. It does almost nothing to help these institutions.

[Ralph Turner]

Does 30k help augment the budget in the SI Dept?

[IC798891]

Does 30k help augment the budget in the SI Dept?

Probably, but the point I'm trying to make is, you could instead fundraise that 30k from alumni — which can provide long-term benefits to your institution, rather than restrict viewership of your games — which can have negative consequences for your institution.

[blue_jays]

The days of free streaming are ending across the college landscape. It stinks for the fans, but it's a financial reality that the athletic departments are trying to deal with. Everyone is tightening their belts.
While the "rich UAA schools" have plenty of endowment money, that really has nothing to do with this agreement. As we all know, endowment money is earmarked to very specific things, and those things are not operations budget.

As a former UChicago employee, I can only speak for my experience at that school. All other schools have their own unique challenges. The thing that was most galling in my time there was the fact that operations budget and employee compensation was so out of sync with total spending. UChicago has received hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts for capital projects as well as establishing new majors/buildings/programs. They've been buying up any open space they can in Hyde Park since they are totally landlocked.
But that spending spree has the consequences of needing more of the most expensive line item of all: personnel/employees. Operations budget has lagged behind for a good 15 years at this point, and it has resulted in 4 hiring freezes in the last 13 years, plus budget cuts in the pre-COVID times.
UChicago, frankly, does not compensate as well as you think. Between that and the increasing cost of living in Chicago, and they lose out on a lot of people for that reason when they do searches for coaches/athletic staff.

My point is, when you all talk down about the drop in the bucket nature of this agreement, you're not seeing the full picture. This might be very financially advantageous to the athletic departments which are already being squeezed (especially with the cost of conference-game flights/travels).
I don't agree with the Flo agreement due to the cost to consumer and Flo's reputation and the potential fallout with nickel and diming alumni. But the 8 UAA schools would not be doing this together unless it was a significant boost to their budget.

[Ron Boerger]

According to the Department of Education's EADA data for 2024, the athletic expenses for UChicago totalled $8.2 million ($8,210,820 to be exact).  I respectfully ask you to describe how the $30K each of the UAA schools likely got for the upcoming season (that has been the going rate) counts as a "significant boost to their budget."  Maybe they got twice the going rate, which seems unlikely, but even if so that would represent less than 1% of total expenditures.

Also according to EADA, the head coaches of UChicago's men's teams receive, on average, the sixth highest amount across all of Division III ($90,636).  The head coaches of women's teams also rank sixth-highest overall ($89,226).  D3 coaching is not where anyone goes to make much money with the average, across the division (for the 406 schools reporting to EADA) for men's team coaches, being $42.4K.

[IC798891]

To add to Ron's point: During Chicago's last giving day, they got the following athletics' gifts:

$700,000 for baseball
$50,000 for wrestling
$50,000 for lacrosse
$15,000 from "Friends of Maroon Athletics"
$10,000 for women's soccer
$10,000 for women's basketball
$10,000 for men's basketball
$10,000 for men's basketball
$8,000 for men's basketball
$6,000 for men's soccer
$5,000 for softball
$5,000 for volleyball
$5,000 for lacrosse
$5,000 for track

I stopped checking after the first 45 pages (There's 90 more) and these are just the individual sport gifts of $5,000 or more that I saw.

It's like this at every college's Giving Day. Athletics always brings in a disproportionate amount of money, The donors are there.

Someone with more time than me could go through all 135 pages and tally up the gifts with numbers attached, and I bet you'd get north of $2 million

[blue_jays]

According to the Department of Education's EADA data for 2024, the athletic expenses for UChicago totalled $8.2 million ($8,210,820 to be exact).  I respectfully ask you to describe how the $30K each of the UAA schools likely got for the upcoming season (that has been the going rate) counts as a "significant boost to their budget."  Maybe they got twice the going rate, which seems unlikely, but even if so that would represent less than 1% of total expenditures.

Also according to EADA, the head coaches of UChicago's men's teams receive, on average, the sixth highest amount across all of Division III ($90,636).  The head coaches of women's teams also rank sixth-highest overall ($89,226).  D3 coaching is not where anyone goes to make much money with the average, across the division (for the 406 schools reporting to EADA) for men's team coaches, being $42.4K.

This $30K number you're throwing around is not what they're all getting. They're getting a cut of the PPV, it's gonna be more. How much more I do not know. Feel free to reach out to the schools and ask.

Respectfully, travel takes up a huge portion of the budget at UAA schools. The budget is allocated to 20+ sports. You know how much of that $8 million is earmarked for live streaming? Not as much as you'd think. Equipment costs and labor costs add up when you're streaming 100+ events per year, especially if you're paying experienced people who cost more than the average college student with a pulse. Ask any SID in the industry and they'll say that it's gotten harder and harder to find good help. Students are valuing their free time more than making a low-paying side gig.

Average salary is always going to be skewed by long-time coaches who have been there 20+ years, which UChicago has plenty of. As for how many times pay/location has been a factor to coaching/staff candidates dropping out of consideration, it's a large number.

I'm not carrying the water for Flo, far from it. I don't like the deal at all. But I can understand why the schools did it, even if it's going to likely bite them later with alumni donations.

[Pat Coleman]

This $30K number you're throwing around is not what they're all getting. They're getting a cut of the PPV, it's gonna be more. How much more I do not know.

If so, this is unusual, but it would be a big benefit to the UAA.

[D3BBALL]

I would want to know how much FLO or the schools estimates, what each school is going to get. Let say 500 subscriptions per month at $15.00 per month fee. That is 7,500 per month. Even double that to $30.00 per month, you are talking $15,000 per month. So in revenue $90,000 to $180,000 per year. I think  500 subscriptions is probably on the very high side and then you have people that are going to opt out when the season is over. My guess is more like 100 to 200 per month. How much is flo giving to the schools. I am told between 80-90%. High side gives schools a decent amount on low side, it's not great. Don't see how this has much value to the sports budget of most of these school while pissing off the alumni.
I talked to one NESCAC AD about this when I found out the Newmac went this route and I could no longer watch basketball games this year. They said they were approached, not sure it was Flo, and they said it wasn't really worth it as the school still had to supply play by play and other aspects of the production. In NESCAC you watch live games for free but have to pay for on demand.
Most D3 schools don't charge for attendance there is a reason why!
Would love to see Newmacs revenue numbers from this past school year.

[Ron Boerger]

Someone with more time than me could go through all 135 pages and tally up the gifts with numbers attached, and I bet you'd get north of $2 million

The page itself tells you:  $11,330,955.  "a cut of the PPV" with a few hundred subscribers is a pittance in comparison no matter how you slice it.