(10-30-2020 11:00 PM)sctvman Wrote:  ECHL just signed a deal with FloSports recently when their season starts.

ECHL - well that's a game changer!

Let me guess East Coast Hockey League?

(10-27-2020 01:19 PM)Potomac Wrote:  Some "good"-ish news, it looks like Flo now just has a standard $12.50/month price, which is the same as the previous CAA special promo offer was. I remember that if you went to some links on the site, the monthly rate was $20 if you didn't go through the CAA specific link.

Still overpriced, but at least it's one standard price no matter what avenue you come down.

It was $29.95, and https://www.flohoops.com/plans?redirect=%2Flive%2F23533 has the prices of $29.95 per month or $12.50 per month if you pay for a year. Hofstra got worse at Softball and is normally bad at Baseball, but I want to be able to watch the CAA Tournaments in those sports if Hofstra is good, and if the CAA plays Men's and/or Women's Soccer in the Spring, I want to watch that. I don't want Flo for every month, but I want it for more than five months, so if those two prices are the only options I will pay $150 for a year. In a normal year I might pay for seven months, which would be $87.50 at last season's rate (that hopefully will continue) of $12.50 per month for any amount of months. It would be an increase of $62.50. I pay for something else that went from $36 to $160 per year with increased abilities that I use occasionally and ad-free when I didn't mind the ads it had. I'm not voluntarily paying more for the extras. They are built-in. Adding the two amounts makes an increase from $133.5 to $310, which is 2.32 times higher.

Can’t believe I was dumb enough to sign up for Flo this season. Watching the Longwood/Radford game on ESPN+ at a friends has reminded me how bad our deal is for fans.

Not only am I paying for JMU basketball that I can’t watch but
1) ESPN+ is cheaper
2) ESPN+ has games for plenty of other conferences besides just CAA (don’t care for the other sports they provide
3) ESPN+ has original series and other features that would still be there if somehow all NCAA basketball was cancelled

(12-15-2020 06:44 PM)Anders Wrote:  Can’t believe I was dumb enough to sign up for Flo this season. Watching the Longwood/Radford game on ESPN+ at a friends has reminded me how bad our deal is for fans.

Not only am I paying for JMU basketball that I can’t watch but
1) ESPN+ is cheaper
2) ESPN+ has games for plenty of other conferences besides just CAA (don’t care for the other sports they provide
3) ESPN+ has original series and other features that would still be there if somehow all NCAA basketball was cancelled

Yep. JMU got screwed by the CAA conference mates and the Commissioner in forcing Flo on us. Should have gone with ESPN+

(12-15-2020 07:49 PM)Longhorn Wrote:  

(12-15-2020 06:44 PM)Anders Wrote:  Can’t believe I was dumb enough to sign up for Flo this season. Watching the Longwood/Radford game on ESPN+ at a friends has reminded me how bad our deal is for fans.

Not only am I paying for JMU basketball that I can’t watch but
1) ESPN+ is cheaper
2) ESPN+ has games for plenty of other conferences besides just CAA (don’t care for the other sports they provide
3) ESPN+ has original series and other features that would still be there if somehow all NCAA basketball was cancelled

Yep. JMU got screwed by the CAA conference mates and the Commissioner in forcing Flo on us. Should have gone with ESPN+

NOPE. JMU screwed itself by remaining conference mates with idiot non-peers to which we have nothing in common.

^^he’s right you know

Choices have consequences!

Well I paid for the annual subscription and did not even get kissed.

I love my espn subscription, and feel X X X X X ed on the flo subscription.

Our only hope is FLO goes under because there are not enough dummies like me that will overpay for a minimal product.

(12-16-2020 01:54 PM)Dukester Wrote:  Well I paid for the annual subscription and did not even get kissed.

I love my espn subscription, and feel X X X X X ed on the flo subscription.

Our only hope is FLO goes under because there are not enough dummies like me that will overpay for a minimal product.

FLO is terrible but they got Discovery to invest heavily in them so they will be around for awhile.

I’ve actually had pretty good luck with Flo when I remember we have a game. Picture quality is good and I’ve had no issues with connecting or anything.

Course it doesn’t bring much of anything Madizone didn’t already have, except the price tag of course.

I have no issue with the picture/streaming, and JMU's production quality is pretty good now. Price doesn't bother me either much.

The issues with Flo to me are the navigation and interface are a bit weak, and it isn't integrated with a real mainstream outlet for college sports. That limits our teams exposure/eyeballs, and it feels like we are shoved into a corner of the web that few visit.

It would be far better for the "brand" (CAA and JMU) if this was on ESPN+ like nearly all the major conferences (even FCS) are.

Looks like the MEAC may have dumped Flo. They were partnering with them last year, but no mention of them this year, only ESPN properties

Again our conference "leaders" said why they took the awful FLO deal. They were the only platform willing to pay the CAA versus the CAA paying to be on their platform. The CAA chased immediate dollars at the expense of exposure. Plain and simple. And when it comes time to renew, I bet they make the same choice again.

Isn't this a five year deal? Not thinking they will need to renew anytime soon.

Wasn't there going to be a weekly CAA Talk show produced on CAA sports?

The CAA didn't want to pay, but they certainly didn't give a crap about the fans paying.
I blame the CAA and low revenue schools for this. They wanted to save a dime and make fans (mostly JMU fans) pay the bill. We went from watching games for free to having to pay every month.
Despicable.

(12-18-2020 09:05 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  The CAA didn't want to pay, but they certainly didn't give a crap about the fans paying.
I blame the CAA and low revenue schools for this. They wanted to save a dime and make fans (mostly JMU fans) pay the bill. We went from watching games for free to having to pay every month.
Despicable.

The CAA did what was good for them as a whole. This allowed them to pay for a handful of games on a national cable network.

Sadly, what is good for the CAA does not always match what is best for JMU.

So, maybe this is either obviously right or obviously wrong, but I'm not sure so I just wanted to check:

By taking this Flo deal, the CAA basically chose to make some cash off a service that relies on a small number of diehards to pay for an overpriced platform --- as opposed to getting on a service like ESPN+ that's cheaper and might result in more random folks/new viewers clicking on a game and becoming interested?

Is there anything other than that to make the Flo deal decent at all? I'd rather go back to paying for Madizone and get only the JMU games but know where my money is going. I paid for like a month of Flo to watch a football game last fall (or maybe the year before?), but I just can't justify adding that autopay to my life even if it wouldn't totally break the bank or anything.

I honestly kinda think the league signing with this service is a dumber decision than either side of the FCS vs FBS argument -- at least both sides of that argument have supporters. I don't see anything good about this deal for the fans or the schools.

(12-17-2020 02:45 PM)dan10 Wrote:  Again our conference "leaders" said why they took the awful FLO deal. They were the only platform willing to pay the CAA versus the CAA paying to be on their platform. The CAA chased immediate dollars at the expense of exposure. Plain and simple. And when it comes time to renew, I bet they make the same choice again.

Isn't this a five year deal? Not thinking they will need to renew anytime soon.

Wasn't there going to be a weekly CAA Talk show produced on CAA sports?

This is only true if you include the cost of investing in production capabilities up front. Many of the CAA schools had put almost nothing into production previously and it showed. I recall seeing football games (Maine?) that were streamed with a single webcam and very poor quality audio coming from a radio broadcast.

Other conferences, like the SoCon determined that investing in production up front to be on ESPN platforms was worthwhile, and made that clear in their press release.

(12-18-2020 09:57 AM)JMUska Wrote:  So, maybe this is either obviously right or obviously wrong, but I'm not sure so I just wanted to check:

By taking this Flo deal, the CAA basically chose to make some cash off a service that relies on a small number of diehards to pay for an overpriced platform --- as opposed to getting on a service like ESPN+ that's cheaper and might result in more random folks/new viewers clicking on a game and becoming interested?

Is there anything other than that to make the Flo deal decent at all? I'd rather go back to paying for Madizone and get only the JMU games but know where my money is going. I paid for like a month of Flo to watch a football game last fall (or maybe the year before?), but I just can't justify adding that autopay to my life even if it wouldn't totally break the bank or anything.

I honestly kinda think the league signing with this service is a dumber decision than either side of the FCS vs FBS argument -- at least both sides of that argument have supporters. I don't see anything good about this deal for the fans or the schools.

For CAA, this was partially money grab, and partially a subsidize basketball with football revenue decision. It was a basketball first decision, which fits a lot of the CAA members.

They bought a handful of conference televised basketball games on CBS Sports by taxing the football viewership.

If it benefits basketball enormously and turns the CAA into a multibid conference, great. I'm skeptical it will move the needle a lot, and meanwhile is costly in terms of potential ESPN+ exposure for both Football and Basketball.

JMU needs to look in the mirror on this deal. Your own reports tout the ability of several schools(namely JMU), to maintain their ability to have regionally televised games in this deal. The deal breaker for ESPN+ was that several schools(namely JMU), would lose the ability to have regionally televised games.

I know many JMU fans see their school as superior to all other CAA schools, but this one is on JMU as much as any other CAA schools. This was a nod to JMU, not an anchor on JMU.

https://jamesmadison.rivals.com/news/und...-flosports

“There are a lot of different wants and needs for our member institutions when we’re dealing with 17 schools,” D’Antonio said. “Some institutions heavily value their [regional sports network] relationships and JMU is one of them. And we wanted to try to find a partner that was going to allow us to create a comprehensive media package. With Flo, we’ve found a partner that’s allowed us to do that.”

The only exclusivity FloSports is concerned with comes on the digital side.

For instance, if FloSports has the rights to a JMU football game at Bridgeforth Stadium, the school’s digital production, MadiZONE, will not be allowed stream that same game. But if the school partnered with a traditional television network such as NBC Sports Washington or MASN like Bourne’s department often does for Saturdays in the fall, that network can broadcast the same game.

“We love MadiZONE and what it brings to us,” Bourne said. “We feel like we’ve been a frontrunner for our digital broadcasts with that for a long time. The unfortunate part is that you can’t do both. And in order to have one, you have to make a concession for the other. And for right now, we believe firmly moving forward with this enhanced FloSports package will help us long term, and for all those contests Flo does not elect to take advantage of, we will make sure that MadiZONE does.”

Lol, wrong. We wouldn’t need the regional TV component if we were on the ESPN family. Cite sources otherwise or get wrecked.

(12-22-2020 09:44 AM)HyperDuke Wrote:  Lol, wrong. We wouldn’t need the regional TV component if we were on the ESPN family. Cite sources otherwise or get wrecked.

https://jamesmadison.rivals.com/news/und...-flosports

“There are a lot of different wants and needs for our member institutions when we’re dealing with 17 schools,” D’Antonio said. “Some institutions heavily value their [regional sports network] relationships and JMU is one of them. And we wanted to try to find a partner that was going to allow us to create a comprehensive media package. With Flo, we’ve found a partner that’s allowed us to do that.”

For instance, if FloSports has the rights to a JMU football game at Bridgeforth Stadium, the school’s digital production, MadiZONE, will not be allowed stream that same game. But if the school partnered with a traditional television network such as NBC Sports Washington or MASN like Bourne’s department often does for Saturdays in the fall, that network can broadcast the same game.