Flo Sports

[AndrewB]

I hate to be that guy but only 1 sport will move the needle for FloSports and that's football.  Frank was talking about Flo week 1 games on YouTube that had the highest rankings.  One game I watched was Linfield vs UW Oshkosh.  You look at all the weekly clips of games done by D3.  What conference teams have the most views week in and out, WIAC. FloSports is great for getting schools to a certain standard they otherwise might not care to meet.  But as long as Culver's helps the WIAC Network financial, I can't see it moving to FloSports.

[WUPHF]

FLO GOT THERE FIRST

You may not like the FloSports model. The NBA and MLB are about to prove it was never an aberration.

By Frank Rossi — @D3FBHuddle
[...]
__________

Dear @grok, can you summarize for brevity and remove the condescension.

[IC798891]

So, story time. Feel free to skip.

The largest individual gift in Ithaca College history was given in 1995. It was for $17 million, from a man named James Pendleton.

James Pendleton was not an Ithaca College alumnus. He was not a faculty or staff member. He was not a parent. In fact, in his entire life, James Pendleton never even set foot on Ithaca College's campus. So why did he give the school $17 million?

Well, in 1976, he happened to meet an IC professor when both of them were vacationing on a Greek island. They got to talking, became friends, and in the early 1980s, the professor told him about how the juniors at the college produce films for their coursework, but often needed financial support. Pendleton agreed to create a competitive cash award for student filmmakers. The dean at the time worked with him to take half of Pendleton's annual contribution and create an endowment while using his discretionary budget to bring the award money back up the the original amount.

Every year, the dean and the winning students hand wrote thank you letters to Pendleton. When he died, his lawyer called the dean and, essentially told him

"James was putting away money to give to you and one other school. Every year, he gave to both of you, but you were the only ones to thank him, so every year he took some of the money out of their pile, and added it to yours. You ended up with almost all of it."

That story has nothing to do with athletics. Or paywalls. But it is how affinity works. And that's why your goal is to create as many pathways to affinity as possible. Because you never know what chance encounter, what fleeting moment, can turn into the kind of affinity that changes an institution.

Now, I know some of you may be saying "IC798891, that gift took 20 years to materialize. Not all institutions have that kind of time!"

To which I would respond with the following:

1. Specifically, I would suspect, that most people, saving up to give an eight-figure sum to a college upon their death, would be willing to give that money a few years earlier if they knew the institution was in dire, dire straits.

2. In general, while we are all dealing with the current challenges in the higher education landscape, most of our institutions are not one or two or even five years away from closing. Yes, you need to start changing things now, but you also have time to plant seeds, cultivate relationships

[y_jack_lok]

Well, that was a long winded X post by Frank Rossi. A lot to unpack, which I'm not capable of attempting. However, I did chuckle when I read this: "Two days ago, on July 21, Flo launched the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported channel on Prime Video carrying more than 300 live events and over 1,000 hours of live programming, plus studio shows, podcasts, replays and documentaries, with additional distribution partners promised in the coming weeks."

I know this is inconsequential in the overall context of that post and that it is maybe nitpicking, but it's my understanding that it costs $139/year for Amazon Prime, so the new channel isn't technically free. But, I've heard that 75% to 80% of U.S. households subscribe to Prime, therefore for most people maybe this new channel is free. But, I don't do Prime and the last time I ordered anything from Amazon was almost two years ago.

I suppose what Frank was trying to say, in  nutshell, is that sooner or later everyone is going to have to pay something to watch the sports they are interested in, so get used to it.

[WUPHF]

The Landmark and other conferences could have implemented a paywall a long time ago if the broadcasts were such a drag on the bottom line without the ROI (e.g. affinity building).

The biggest innovation that Flo Sports brought to the market was giving colleges and universities an excuse to go behind a paywall with promises of improved broadcasts, student-athlete branding and original content. 

It is hard for an organization that brings in tuition and then gives everything away for free (housing and food service excluded) to add a fee.

I have said it before, but I remain convinced: if the Flo Sports model was profitable, Hudl would have responded differently.  I am not convinced that the future of Division III is Flo Sports.

[y_jack_lok]

The Landmark and other conferences could have implemented a paywall a long time ago if the broadcasts were such a drag on the bottom line without the ROI (e.g. affinity building).

The biggest innovation that Flo Sports brought to the market was giving colleges and universities an excuse to go behind a paywall with promises of improved broadcasts, student-athlete branding and original content. 

It is hard for an organization that brings in tuition and then gives everything away for free (housing and food service excluded) to add a fee.

I have said it before, but I remain convinced: if the Flo Sports model was profitable, Hudl would have responded differently.  I am not convinced that the future of Division III is Flo Sports.

It's been a long time since I've had to send money to a college/university, but don't many institutions have "add on" fees beyond tuition, room, and board for a variety of things under the umbrella of student activities?

[WUPHF]

It's been a long time since I've had to send money to a college/university, but don't many institutions have "add on" fees beyond tuition, room, and board for a variety of things under the umbrella of student activities?

Students do pay other fees, sure, but the modus operandi of most institutions is to package all manner of services under one tuition and fee package that all students pay.