Mark Flotrack » CALLING OUT LetsRun!

Oh, so you're breaking ground with all these doentaries? You think you're doing all this great ? Are you going out to Utah to film Cam Levins? Wow, please tell me more about how you're the first ones to do this! If you want to talk about how you're doing all of these great doentaries, go watch Five Thousand Meters: Nothing Comes Easy. Those guys had not even 1/10th of the resources you have and they still made an excellent doentary. Stop making it out to seem like you're the only ones who care about the sport and are trying to grow it.

Here's the deal. I don't like the fact that I've had to start paying to watch my friends run at meets. For something that used to be free, its a hard transition to make to suddenly have to fork over $20 to watch one meet (luckily I managed to get two meets in for this month). The only way I've had to defray the cost is get a bunch of my teammates together and we all pitch in for a subscription.The meet commentary, in a word, is horrible. I don't know what you guys are up to behind that camera, but if I'm paying for something, I expect to get something worth watching/listening to. Whoever you had at the Meyo Invite Friday night was quite possibly the worst announcer I've ever heard. I kind of wanted to stick nails in my ears, to be honest. And last night (Alex Wilson invite, Friday night), the video stream started buffering in the middle of the 5k and multiple times during the DMR. Neither of this helps my view of you; I was really amped to watch my friend go stupid fast (for our school) in the 5k and I was also amped to see one of my friends qualify for Nationals, which he did. But, because of the buffering, I didn't get to see that.This is what it comes down to. If you want me to pay for your services, I have to believe that what I'm getting is worth $20/mo. I really don't give 2 about all your exercise videos, run junkie videos, grass routes whatever the hell--The only things I've ever really enjoyed on flotrack is the kick of the week (sometimes) and Thirsty Thursdays with Jack Daniels. And that's only because he's the man. This little stunt of yours, calling for a skype debate, lowers my already low opinion of you. This is not professional, and for people trying to call themselves professional, for people that are taking my money, I expect some sort of quality of conduct as well.Recap:-If I pay $20/mo, $150/yr, I demand quality.-I don't care about your "original" content, so don't tell me there's value in that. Not true for everyone, but a reminder that what you think is value is not what everyone else might think-You need to conduct yourselves like the professionals you claim to be.Constructive Criticism:Go to a different pay structure, if you want to keep forcing people to fork over money. Just a flat fee for watching the meet--here's how you can compute the fee===>(Production Cost / Average number of viewers). That result is what you can charge for a 1 day viewing of the meet.

The coverage is great, I pay for it, the announcing is not good, nor informed. when guys are calling a DMR out at ND, they have to know the difference between Sam Ellison who ran the 400 leg and Rbeer who is a 48.x freshmanDenault vs Jordy Williamz etc.

letsrun sucks c0ck on the side. Phuck those illiterate sixteen year olds stuck in their sixty year old bodies.

Not a big fan of Flotrack Pro. I also believe it is overpriced. Maybe they should just charge a smaller fee per event like Universal Sports once did. I think more people would pay for that instead as they could choose what to watch etc... or even do some on demand type stuff with the Cam Levins series and others like it. $149.99 is quite a bit of money for me to pay for the PRO content. Make the series available for 1.99 or 2.99 and I think people may pay for those things with a cheaper pricing structure.

Great point made by Ken Goe,"Flotrack's rationale, at least as explained in the video, is circular. Touting videos about training techniques as a way to grow the sport is silly. That's for runners. Joe Six Pack doesn't care about the way Cam Levins trains. Fans get hooked by watching the competition. For that to happen the sport must be accessible and appealing."http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2013/01/oregon_track_field_rundown_a_t_1.html

Is it a bummer that some of this awesome content is now behind the money wall that is FloTrack Pro? YesIs it wrong or hurtful to the sport of Track & Field? ABSOLUTELY NOT!All these whiny little babies keep complaining that they're not able to see this content because of the fee. Some of those people are truly just being idiots and should fork out the extra cash. For those like me who truly can't afford it, suck it up!It's been a miracle to have been getting has much as we have for FREE! Just because you want it, doesn't mean it should be given to you freely. Although the delivery of this video was a little weird, the point is completely valid. What FloTrack and FloTrack Pro are doing for this sport is AMAZING! Stop whining about it and realize that this goes beyond your selfish individual desires.

TEAR IT DOWN!!! TEAR IT ALL DOWN!!!

You're all ridiculous. $12.50 a month makes you whine? That's about 3 gallons of gas. Do you throw 7 tantrums everytime you have to fill up your car? Thank God Flotrack is actually covering the sport like a true PROFESSION with some dynamic enthusiasm. This is why our sport remains a joke in the shadows and our favorite pro runners live below the poverty line; because corporate America knows that their fan base is financially non-existant. I can just see major corporate sponsors now... "please sign us up to invest in the sport where the fans are revolted at the thought of spending any money at all". Most of you complaining will probably spend more than $12.50 on coffee this month. Yet you call yourself track fans. There's a reason that the PGA is on TV ad nauseum and our sport's main venue is a circa 1999 text-only sleep aid called LetsRun. If you're a fan be happy someone is doing enthusiatic, quality coverage, pony up and enjoy. You can happily take my money Flotrack. Just keep doing your thing.

I'd pay as much as $20 a year but I won't even consider it at $20 per month. I'm guessing they won't have too many takers at $20 per month.

In come the letsrun forum posters!Nowhere else will you see more ultra-conservatives demanding that stuff be free ;)

Ditto

You are charging for the live stream, so what Letsrun.com said is not complete "BS."

First off - LetsRun.com is a joke. The site is an absolute mess of regurgitated articles. The 'World Famous Message Boards' are exhausting and almost never worth reading. Flotrack fills a niche that no other site does with any sort of consistency. They seek out and interview the World's best track and field athletes and coaches on camera. There is no comparison between Flotrack and LetsRun - it's not even close. They have sucked you in, and it would make a lot more sense to simply ignore what they posted. Flotrack does not need to defend itself in response to a post from a site like LetsRun.com. There is also no comparison between what Universal Sports provides and what Flotrack does. Universal Sports is an entity of NBC, Flotrack is on their own, there is no comparison and Universal Sports is never available in Canada.I completely understand the decision from Flotrack to post their content on a subscription basis. Those who suggest they only want to make a profit and have no wish to grow the sport are foolish. Flotrack does grow the sport. Other sites post on race results, athlete Q&A's and other mundane content. Flotrack gets into the weight rooms, the tracks, roads and trails to see how some of the best athletes live and train. They post informative debates and concepts that directly relate to how the sport is growing. This is a grass roots site and the creators are passionate fans of the sport. In order for Flotrack to continue to progress with the quality of their products and services they need to try and turn a profit. In the end, if the consumer has access to a higher quality product and even more resources then it is for the greater good of the sport.Flotrack staff do not have professional broadcast training with regards to play by play and interviews. However, they still do a far better job than any of the hacks put in place to commentate the Olympics, World Championships or major marathons.Flotrack's price point may have to be adjusted if the model isn't working. That's for them to decide. We don't know their subscription numbers or if it's working or not. If it is, then they have a good thing going. Regardless, Flotrack shouldn't bother getting into debates with faceless sites like LetsRun.com

I totally don't want to get yelled at by Mark, but instead of Calling out Letsrun.com he should explain to FloTrack viewers what they will get for the money, why it is worth the price and how it will be different from what they have offered before. Will the meets be shot in a high quality format with multiple cameras? What meets will be covered? Great, you have a future Cam Levins video and are going to film Lagat in a month, those are pretty vague and it doesn't sound any different from what you have had before.

Tough market- a free sport that requires no real outside commitment to participate in. I wouldn't mind paying 5 dollars a month - which is still about how much net flix is with 1/10,000,000 of the content. Apples to oranges maybe- but as everyone and their goat has said the price point misses the mark. ( no pun intended )As far as the video. I found it highly entertaining.

Flotrack is awesome, entertaining and informative. Been a supporting the website since its beginning and will continue to do so. I really feel that I would have quit running after college if it wasn't for flotrack. Many of the interviews, race coverage and workouts have really kept me motivated. And watching the support for Leo during his race was amazing! Go Flotrack!

Also you say in the video you have you brought the fans the techniques of world record holders. When? I havent seen one kenenisa bekele workout video on here. Also flotrack, if you look at any other site that has made huge amounts of money, they usually offer all free material. Look at youtube, the money is in adds and sponsers. Work more on those, and less on charging your loyal fans or you will lose them all.

Seriously you guys have so many ads now, and we have to wait 30 seconds to watch every video on the site. If all you guys care about is making money then how can you even call yourself track and field fans. Go join a site making videos about the nfl if you want to make huge profits. What happened to you guys caring about your fans? Now the only thing you care about is money and yourselves.

Letsrun in my opinion calmly pointed out an issue with flotracks pricing and flotrack kind of reacted like a crazy person. The response was defensive, angry, loud, full of ad hominems and illogical. You just can't do that, especially considering letsrun is like the tabloids of running. Watching this video feels like I am watching a crazed celebrity beating down a paparazzi photographer with a baseball bat or something, it's just weird.

I really wish this video was part of flotrack pro so I wouldn't choose to watch it. This video is loud, obnoxious, and angry. You just wasted a minute and a half of my life. You should pay us for posting this garbage. If I were you I would take this video down and calmly explain your new pricing model. I might pay $20 bucks a super quality product, but the way you have marketed this thing is a major turn off. I still don't even understand what flotrack pro is, and to be honest I'm so turned off right now that I don't really want to know any more.

tl;dr- You're asking for way to much money for the coverage you give. Also, I just want track meets but I have to pay for galen rupp's hurdles drills too. Stupid.1. YOUR CONTENT DOES NOT MATCH YOUR PRICING. I do not care what your overhead cost is, I care about my pocket more than I do yours.2. SEPARATE YOUR CONTENT. I do not care to see the hip drills galen rupp does.but I would like to see live races. Why would you lump these together in a paid subscription?3. ASKING PEOPLE TO PAY FOR SOMETHING THEY USED TO GET FOR FREE WILL MOST DEFINITELY PISS THEM OFF AND DECREASE VIEWERSHIP. I understand you need money in order to film the track meets you want to film. But why would I pay $20 a month for a few interviews and some track meets. I get the many other sports and 80 other channels for $100 per year!

Love it!

Thank You Ryan for responding. I appreciate it. I clearly let my expectations for the Olympic coverage disappoint me, I guess my point overall is I am a Track and Field fanatic. I love the sport and I love watching the racing and the flavor you guys add to the interviews. However I am not really interested in training drills, etc.. Asking people to pay $20 a month, especially knowing that a good percentage of your viewers are high school/college kids is shocking. It seems as an outsider that the pricing DOES not match the content. Put the "inside tips from pro's and coaches" on FloCoach and do Races and Docu-style videos on Flotrack Pro. And if you are going to charge a yearly subscription fee, you need to have the upcoming content in its entirety listed so people know what they are getting for that time and money. It is coming off as "Give us money and we will show you some stuff" and I know this site it better than that.

Something I just found out is that the Millrose Games use to be streamed online for free (I watched it last year). But now I will have to pay to watch it?! This definitely does not grow the sport!!! Buying the rights to the Millrose games and then charging for it makes me think you guys care more about the money than actually growing the sport. I agree you guys need to make money, but putting a pay wall up to something that was a available to everyone to enjoy kind of makes me sick and definitely really angry.

I love the calling out, but at the same time I can't help but think it could have been handled a bit more...tactfully.On a slightly unrelated note, I do agree that Flotrack would likely see benefits from offering the meet streams on a PPV basis. Speaking personally, I would have no problem dropping some money to watch some meets on here, but I can't justify spending $150 a year for that (but I wish I could, because I do appreciate what you are trying to do for the sport.)

Seriously Flo. Cut the price to 9.99 per month and you'd get twice as many subscribers. You'd make the same amount of money and do twice as much good for the sport. I know I would subscribe.

subscriber

subsriber

To Mark Floreani and the people who decided to make this video,While I agree that there needs to be some money "flo" in order for this site to survive, and I agree that the stuff that you guys are doing is em' effing awesome! The real problem I think is that right now is that $150 a year to $20 a month seems really expensive to people, and what it's doing is making people angry, when in the past you've provided a lot of this stuff for free. First, People who are in college, high school, and graduate students (me), who are your main viewers see that price tag and think "holy poopers that's a lot of money" as a result they get angry because they feel left out (I know I do since I can't afford to subscribe). Second of all, all the posts on Letsrun are not made by the Johnson Brothers, and that particular post could very well be some angry ex-flotracker trying to get a rise outta people. Usually Rojo's posts are accompanied by "Rojo, co-founder". Third, when you make this kind of video to try and "call out" Letsrun it is incredibly childish. As you said Letsrun thrives on drama, so don't feed the troll! I'm confident that after awhile and get you guys get a base these prices will come down enough so that someone on my gradstudent salary can afford to watch these meets. Just keep doing what you're doing because, once what you guys are doing takes off it's going to be awesome!

Robert,This is the second time you have brought up the Olympics. Sorry if there was confusion but there was no deception there. We knew we didn't have credentials for over a year and it wasn't anything we were trying to hide. We talked about what were doing in london on the site daily and anyone that asked us (before or during the event) was told we didn't have access so I'm not sure what the confusion was. As for upcoming events, you guys make a good point that there isn't a live schedule published yet. We have events confirmed and will work on that getting them on a schedule soon, plenty of things coming down the pipeline!

The problem with Flotrack "PRO" is there is No schedule for upcoming "events". There is no schedule because they haven't confirmed anything. Look at what happened at the Olympics. They got to London and THEN found out they couldn't get credentials so they had to film themselves watching the 1500m finals on tv and there reactions. LOL. That isn't very "PRO" to me. Also, they won't be able to get ANY PAC12 meets such as Stanford etc. so whats the point? They won't respond to any of us so I guess I just wasted my time.

You Tube quality videos are not worth $150 a year. If it was $5 a month then I would pay for it. But LetsRun.com has a very good point. So instead of being immature why don't you guys sit down and figure out a price that would work better for everyone. If not then I'm sure someone else will come along and do exactly what you're doing, but for free. Grow up.

Dear Flotrack,While I do understand why you are charging for certain things, I do not understand why you felt the need to create this video. Personally, I am a fan of both letsrun and flotrack. Let's be honest, they both help the sport of track and field in their own way. By tearing them both down, we are doing nothing for the sport. I am not here to argue about pricing, either. The monthly fee seems reasonable, given the amount of content that is (supposedly) going to be up. It is fair. It is reasonable. You need to make a profit and moreover, you need to get the sport out there.That being said, I think this video was cowardly. Letsrun did nothing, but comment on the FACTS. Whether or not you like this is neither here nor there. It is not a debatable issue. It may have been a bit low on the Brojos part, but what you have done is far worse. Grow up. Stick to your guns, if you think it's worth it. But, making videos like this will do nothing but turn people away.One last note: I find it interesting how little flotrack has done to answer the outraged masses. As a previous poster mentioned, are you only willing to even talk about flotrack pro and its pricing scheme if some hack journalist starts calling you out (which he wasn't real)?Stick to the basics, flotrack. No need to make petty videos like this one.

No matter how many people complain about the pricing its not going to change. Ive seen this exact conversation under countless videos on Flotrack and they never attempt to explain to their fans. Chances are this wont be any different. Pretty sad that it takes a rival website to voice concerns before we get a reaction from the Flotrack staff.

The arguments for $20 being too much have already been made countless times, no need for me to reiterate that. I will say that this video is childish. I didn't realize this was the jersey shore.

I could go on and on, but basically you're asking too much money, even if it was world class content. Figure out a business model that isn't for the top 2% and doesn't lose your core audience. Shame.

It's crazy when netflix is half the price as flotrack pro. I thought the point of flotrack was to bring popularity to the sport of track, not limit who can see it.

Why doesn't ESPN cover it? Maybe because they cant make money off it.If you want the sport to stay where it is, then keep doing what we are doing...........