Flo Sports

[Ron Boerger]

Quillman is working on getting one of these Blohar.... I mean FLOhards on his Q-cast to try and nail down these clowns down.  I'll try to post the link when he announces it.

The Q-cast is something Bob has done for years that highlights D3 basketball, mostly teams/players back east but let's face it, that's where most of them are.

[Kuiper]

@SimpleCoach, a poster on the D3 soccer boards who also hosts a podcast (All Things D3 Soccer), posted this on Quillman's Twitter thread and it's worth posting here too:

Couple of things that I noticed with Flo.
1.  I do think the quality of the broadcast has for the most part... most part.... improved.
2.  I've noticed that engagement in the world of D3 soccer has declined.  This is anecdotal to me.
3.  I don't know of and material impact that signing with Flo has had on any one school.  ie.  No new building because they got money from Flo.
4.  I do know for a fact that viewership is a 1/4, at best, of what it was before.  Again, soccer is my sport.
5.  I've been told by more coaches than I can count that they think it's a terrible model and would rather go out and raise money to make up the difference.
6.  For parents of players.... it's just another fee.

[WUPHF]

There are some that would defend Flo Sports, though I have never seen Frank Rossi explain his reasoning in full.  I would suggest that the two discuss the matter, but for whatever reason, the latter seems to be needlessly antagonistic in his approach to others.

Frank Rossi
@FrankRossi
When Bob wants to understand what the concept of "apples to apples" is, @D3FBHuddle
, maybe I'll take him seriously. He seems to have trouble comprehending how view counts work, what the schools are comparing, and why it's not representative of the reality. Flo spelled it out for him, and he still has no clue what he's talking about. https://x.com/bquillmanqcast

[Gregory Sager]

Frank Rossi's a rather combative type. In his defense, he's been the recipient of a lot of nastiness from D3 football partisans who haven't taken a shine to his opinions regarding their teams, particularly in recent years. But Bob Quillman's a mild-mannered guy who doesn't pick fights. Bob is trying to make this FloSports debate all about facts rather than opinions. Rossi may think he's sticking to facts as well, but his needless ad hominem hostility detracts from his credibility.

[ziggy]

Let's just say there are people who are capable of saying "I see this differently than you do and that's OK" and those who are not.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Let's just say there are people who are capable of saying "I see this differently than you do and that's OK" and those who are not.

Hey man, it's not my fault that my opinions are facts and you people, whose opinions are wrong, can only be jealous.

[WUPHF]

I would thank you guys for the responses, but for unclear reasons, I cannot take any of you seriously.

[y_jack_lok]

Here is Quillman's post on Twitter/X regarding the data he is using: https://x.com/BQuillmanQcast/status/2023560099596259695

"I am getting the data *directly from school Athletic Departments.*  These are being sent to me by Athletic dept leaders who hate the drop in viewership after moving to Flo. 

"I am being sent spreadsheets with 2025 vs 2026 viewers/time viewed data.  It's black & white."

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Here is Quillman's post on Twitter/X regarding the data he is using: https://x.com/BQuillmanQcast/status/2023560099596259695

"I am getting the data *directly from school Athletic Departments.*  These are being sent to me by Athletic dept leaders who hate the drop in viewership after moving to Flo. 

"I am being sent spreadsheets with 2025 vs 2026 viewers/time viewed data.  It's black & white."

But the earth is clearly flat!!!

[Kuiper]

Here is Quillman's post on Twitter/X regarding the data he is using: https://x.com/BQuillmanQcast/status/2023560099596259695

"I am getting the data *directly from school Athletic Departments.*  These are being sent to me by Athletic dept leaders who hate the drop in viewership after moving to Flo. 

"I am being sent spreadsheets with 2025 vs 2026 viewers/time viewed data.  It's black & white."

It's hard to argue over how many viewers saw any part of the stream and how long they watched it.  That's easily verifiable data.  It would be useful to collect the data from every school and see if it varies from school to school, conference to conference, or sport to sport, but once you've established that we aren't talking about outliers, then there isn't much to argue about.  At best, we might wait to see if these trends persist over time, which probably is what conferences/schools have or will be doing when it comes time to renew.

The question, however, is how or why it matters.  We know most viewers rate the benefits to them as falling below the costs because they stopped watching the games when they stopped being free.  Does the college, however, benefit more from the extra viewers in the unpaid scenario or from the longer views in the paid scenario?  No one has come close to satisfactorily answering that question.  We're all just guessing.

Part of the problem is defining "benefits."  We could measure that in terms of donations, but there are so many confounding variables related to the economy etc, that it's hard to isolate why they go down or up in any one year.  Some former donors may indicate they stopped giving, or giving as much, because of Flo, but that's likely to be a small group that would noisily withdraw their donations.  Plus, others could have increased donations without explaining why.  We could instead measure that in terms of applications, but with the demographic cliff, rising costs of attendance, out-migration from areas traditionally home to D3 schools, and the increasing interest in big state schools and away from small liberal arts colleges, it would be hard to really isolate how much the absence of a free stream led to a decline in applications.  Marketing consultants try to provide concrete data on the value of name brand exposure, but it's really hard to trace that to the few hundred more people catching a few minutes of a stream of a D3 game. 

To me, that means both the colleges and their detractors probably don't really know whether the Flo contracts are helping or hurting the schools.  About all we can say is that these decisions are likely being made by people based on short-term considerations (budget cuts, revenue raising requirements) rather than based on any long-term strategy. 

[WUPHF]

The D3Ticker included an interview with Flo Sports today.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/02/17/college-convo-flosports-betting-on-d-ii-d-iii/

This is a new angle that I had not heard before:

"These are the ways that we bring value to the space beyond just writing checks. The money's great. It's hard to compete with a big check, but right now I'm thinking about how we can get more D-II and D-III athletes involved in NIL. How can we bring sponsors to the table? How can we help facilitate some of these deals?"

[Ron Boerger]

The last thing D3 needs is NIL ruining the sport like it has D1.  But given the total lack of awareness shown by Flo$port$ about what makes D3 great, it's no surprise.  VC sucks the life out of everything except profit for the backers.