Flo Sports

[Gregory Sager]

I assumed that students got FloSports for free, but apparently that isn't the case, or it isn't the case at all schools/conferences or in all deals. 

You should read this op-ed from a Pitzer student who just graduated and was the Editor-in-Chief of The Student Life, the student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges.  You should read the whole thing.  It's really well done.  (you should also click the link below to read it directly from the website so they get whatever money or benefits they get from clicks, but I cut and pasted a snippet to give you a preview.)

https://tsl.news/i-dream-of-free-streaming-how-flosports-is-buffering-my-5c-fandom/

During my sophomore spring, my high school best friend and I — both sports editors of our respective campus papers at the time — compared our processes for reporting on games. As a Division I journalist, he viewed the action from the private media section and had to filter his post-game questions through the team's PR manager. Meanwhile, as a Division III reporter, I would just plant myself in the stands right next to the players' parents, walk onto the field and grab a few players for an interview.

This is why I love sports at the 5Cs: They're the most accessible higher-level sports you may ever get. Every student can watch hundreds of live games among over a dozen sports from two of the top DIII programs in the country — for free. And when I learned that this extended to free streaming for all sports, I thought I was set for life.

But that was until this year.

Last summer, the SCIAC signed a five-year contract with FloSports to make the platform its sole streaming home, effective this season. FloSports is a streaming service with a dubious history of data collection and privacy violations that houses several DI, DII and DIII conferences in addition to a number of niche sports. However, this means that instead of watching every game for free, students are now being charged $9.99 a month, or $5.99 if they commit for the whole year. For parents, alumni and everyone else, it's even worse, coming in at a whopping $19.99, or $8.99 if you subscribe for the whole year.

Why make this move? Well, if you ask SCIAC Commissioner Jenn Dubow, it's all about a new "quality streaming experience."

"FloSports has demonstrated a significant and sincere commitment to providing funding and exposure for small-school college sports in a collaborative way that can help each of our institutions' unique approach and goals to streaming and athletics communications," Dubow said when announcing the partnership last June.

As my available time for attending games progressively diminished throughout college, my reliance on SCIAC streaming surged. Lacrosse during Wednesday night classes, baseball during beer league and football at house parties — I was locked in and I loved it.

This year though, I have not streamed a single game. That's because, as I've said before, paying to watch DIII sports directly opposes why they are so great. Yes, subscribing also comes with the entire FloSports package, including plenty of college and other obscure sports goodies — but I don't care about those. I care about the teams of people I go to school with: my friends and the parasocial relationships I've developed with athletes I've never met.

I loved this piece so much that I bookmarked it. Something tells me that I'm going to link to it in an online discussion somewhere down the road.

[IC798891]

I assumed that students got FloSports for free, but apparently that isn't the case, or it isn't the case at all schools/conferences or in all deals.

The standard Flo deal for students, as mentioned in the very fine article you provided, is $5.83/month if you sign up for an entire year ($69.99) ... only there are no D3 sports for at least three months out of the year which makes it more like $7.77.  And there's darned little in May, mostly NCAA playoffs which are (still) broadcast freely, so in reality it's more like $8.75 a month.  And the effective price for non-students if paid annually ($107.88), using the same metric, would be either $11.99/mo (9 months) or $13.49/month.

Schools could obviously pay for student subs, but that would eat up that $30K pretty quickly, wouldn't it?

The more I think about that, the more it blows my mind. As someone who provided PBP and color for games when I was at Ithaca, watching as many of their other contests as possible — as well as other teams in the conference — was part of the prep work we did.

I feel like every few months we learn more about it, and every few months I get angrier and angrier that D3 has gone this way