Flo Sports

[WUPHF]

As did the WIAC.

I am not sure that I see it as a blow in favor of free live streams as it really is the CCIW keeping the status quo with minor changes, though it is good news.

[Ron Boerger]

As did the WIAC.

I am not sure that I see it as a blow in favor of free live streams as it really is the CCIW keeping the status quo with minor changes, though it is good news.

IMO they are deliberately saying "hell no, we won't Flo" after so many conferences have bent the knee and setting the stage for other conferences that care about their students, families, and supporters to do the same. 

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ Hope you are right. But the ODAC ditched its ODAC Sports Network to sign on with Flo. Time will tell.

[Gregory Sager]

As did the WIAC.

I am not sure that I see it as a blow in favor of free live streams as it really is the CCIW keeping the status quo with minor changes, though it is good news.

IMO they are deliberately saying "hell no, we won't Flo" after so many conferences have bent the knee and setting the stage for other conferences that care about their students, families, and supporters to do the same. 

That's exactly right. Many of the SIDs and ADs of the CCIW were very proactive in pushing this option while opposing Flo and the other PPV outfits. In a lot of respects, the outbreak of Flovid among D3 conferences really galvanized the creation of the CCIW Network, as much as if not more than the desire to emulate the WIAC and MIAA in creating one-stop ease of conference-wide livestream use. Remember, Carthage's two-game men's basketball experiment with the Marquee Sports Network last winter was seen as a real threat that PPV livestreaming would take over the league.

[WUPHF]

But the ODAC ditched its ODAC Sports Network to sign on with Flo. Time will tell.

And the Great Lakes Valley Conference formed a Hudl-based conference network with free broadcasts only to flip the pay per view switch a few years later.

I hope the CCIW, WIAC and others hold out.

[WUPHF]

As an aside, whoever wrote the press release had to point out that the first game to be broadcast on the network is one of the few chances that Bears soccer fans can watch a match for free.  Even though multiple broadcasts are scheduled for that afternoon.  Probably a coincidence...

The first live broadcast is scheduled for this Friday when Millikin hosts WashU in men's soccer in Decatur at 4 p.m.

[y_jack_lok]

Here's an initial report on the experience of watching (or attempting to watch) some events today.

First, I'm having to learn the most efficient way to access the event I want to watch. Perhaps someone with more experience watching games broadcast via Flo can give me some pointers. It's not intuitive for me yet, so I don't want to complain until I'm sure I have a legitimate reason. Having said that, it seems like there are more steps involved than the way I'm used to. For example, I wanted to watch Randolph-Macon men's soccer hosting NC Wesleyan. I went to the RMC website, found the "watch" link and clicked on it. Last year that would have taken me directly to the game. This year it first required me to login to Flo (maybe I'll just stay logged in through the end of basketball season to avoid this step), then there were a couple of additional steps (exactly what they were, I've forgotten) before I got to the game. I only caught the end of the first half, but the actual stream seemed okay, which I understand isn't really Flo's responsibility

Second, I wanted to watch Webster volleyball playing Loras and Bluffton in a tournament at Wash U. The matches were presumably available because when I got to Flo, the icon for each one (a box with the two team logos and a "Watch" link below it to click on) was there. But when I clicked the watch link it went to a screen that said the match was completed (in the case of Loras) or hadn't started (in the case of Bluffton). But both matches were definitely being played at the time I was seeking them because live stats for both were being updated constantly. I suspect this experience means that Wash U wasn't actually streaming these matches, which were likely taking place on an alternate court, rather than on the main fieldhouse court. So, this raise the question of why, if they weren't going to be streamed, they were on Flo's event list for the day.

Seems like there are some things that need to be polished up.

I'll be interested to hear the experiences others are having in finding and watching games on Flo.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

There are definitely some learning curves for the schools involved.  Often when you get a "stream not starts" or "broadcast completed" notification, it's because the school didn't connect to flo correctly.

As for finding the games, it might be easier to select some schools as "favorites" on the flo site - favorite are available at the top of the list when you click the upper left menu button.

My experience has been the user interface on both Flo's site and their Roku app leaves something to be desired.  They have everything unhelpfully divided by sport, you have to click in each individual team or switch between websites to get from one to another.

Maybe just going to the team pages does make more sense.


Good luck.

[y_jack_lok]

^^^Thanks, Ryan. Very helpful. I also noticed that they have a list of events being streamed each day, listed in order of start time, so it's possible to scroll down that list to find an event. But pretty soon that list is going to be pretty long with multiple fall sports going on, especially on a Saturday, so I'm not sure that's going to be an efficient way to locate a specific game.

[IC798891]

Know what was awesome?

Last night and this morning, I watched two volleyball matches, a field hockey game, and a women's soccer game, for free. Four wins, to boot

[y_jack_lok]

So, at Ryan's suggestion, I added several RMC teams to my favorites. One, of course, was football. Interestingly, it shows up in my favorites list as women's football, even though it wasn't identified as such when I selected it. Go figure.