Exposing The Company That's Ruining Track And Field

[@RunnerBoi]

Edit: For Athletic.net, simply making an account will grant you access to see athlete results, so you don't need a subscription to access them. Apologies for that. I'm almost certain you didn't even need to do that in the past though.

[@Boomaroo96]

Yeah, up until a few years ago you could see all the results without an account.

[@griffinlupes8419]

For rankings you have to pay even with an account

[@Itsfalcon9]

This is correct. I remember ten years in high school always being on that site with no account. Looking at my and my competitors stats. Now when I try to compare my old times to my current times it asks me to make an account 😅

[@aconcernedcitizen1]

pin your comment so it goes up top and everyone sees it.

[@DylpiqkleSTier]

Man really? I didn’t think you needed an account to access. When I got atletic plus for my birthday 7 months ago you didn’t

[@quackymacky]

Worst news of 2024 was the flotrack diamond league news

[@mertholomy8414]

😂

[@ideatsand]

IT'S VPN TIME!!!

[@classicclassi6146]

NFL has some pretty good livestreamers who profit off commenting on live results, without showing actual footage. This makes streaming restrictions possible to skirt around while simultaneously adding nuance by having unique takes and entertainment value.

[@lol-gb5vt]

kelvin kiptums death*

[@ThisisAEDEN]

Agreed 😢

[@RunnerGang1997]

The fact their CEO is hating on small creators goes to show their intentions as a company and they just care about profits and not about growing the sport.

[@ATHLETE.X]

FloTrack gave me a copyright strike for doing commentary on a race that was filmed by world athletics, then had the gall to use one of my videos without credit.

[@PeanutTheSnail]

thats wild

[@liamgumprecht4983]

that's crazy man, they can't keep getting away with shit like this

[@Patman1216]

I LOVE RUNNING BUT I HATE FLOTRACK

[@mertholomy8414]

Same

[@elijahebbert6884]

FloTrack about to go through all your videos and look for footage to copyright. Watch your back 😭😭

[@ATHLETE.X]

Facts

[@griffinbarriss2537]

Bringing the RECEIPTS for why FloTrack is the worst company in the world for track and field. This was an incredible dunk fest, and the data-driven reviews sealed the deal. Great work 👏👏

[@SSAS1129]

they also have a simiar company, called flomarching. its essentially doing what flotrack is doing to track & field, to marching band / dci, and people hate flomarching just as much as flotrack

[@jacobfletcher4920]

FloWrestling as well

[@tyris4559]

It's literally anything that has "Flo" in it lol

[@RudimentalNico]

FloVoice as well, for barbershop peoples

[@theincompletepackage]

it would be crazy if all the sports across the flosports diaspora united against it

[@Dexter037S4]

@@theincompletepackage Considering people actually like FloRacing, and WBD + NASCAR have major stakes in it, it's likely not gonna exist when Venu Sports launches.

[@Cody_JY]

I was once a cameraman for a wrestling tournament on FloWrestling, I would turn the camera to always keep the wrestlers in the middle of the frame, and especially since the edge of the mat was not in the frame when the camera was pointed at the middle of the mat, I thought that it was pretty necessary for me to move the camera with the action. The Flo guy that brought all the cameras came over and told me to stop turning the camera and to just keep the camera pointed straight at the middle of the mat, even though this made it so most of the action was not on the middle of shot and some of it wasn't on camera at all. They've monopolized wrestling too and I believe it's damaged the sports growth.

[@Cody_JY]

not even sure what my job was supposed to be as cameraman if not to move the camera

[@MouseBurp]

As a freshman xc-track and field athlete, this is so annoying and a completely unknown subject to me. Today and a couple days ago I was wondering why some meets that were big that I cannot find without finding a random person who recorded it. Most of my races are far away, and my parents cant watch, and they wish they could've been able to go. Without this, it kind of removed me from them without them seeing the main results that they can see from the work that I put in every day. This really angers me because I myself should be capable of looking at MY own races, Pr's for my freshman year next year, or just be able to simply look back at how I looked or ran before.

[@willis4799]

Runnerboi mad when the flotrack stream doesn’t have a clock: 😔 Me when the meet I am racing in doesn’t have a clock: 0_0

[@classicclassi6146]

Someone gave their kid a camera and said "go at it hoss" like no production value

[@snooples]

man i love it when runnerboi goes expose mode

[@Scampwick69]

I don't really know anything about track and field, except for what my dad told me since he used to do it. But I really like your videos and learning more about the sport. Keep up the good work

[@elijahebbert6884]

You should think about running it

[@zbarrett727]

What's that track with the mountains around it at 19:30

[@Itsfalcon9]

This video is like the feedback from all reviews ever on Flotrack combined into one video. I really hope they watch this before their morning stand ups and really try to understand what you and others are saying.

[@stefanlungescu9367]

You are doing a service for the community, much love

[@vladgordiyenko9696]

I don't even run, but your content is fun

[@HistoryWithCoachT]

Fuck Flowrestling. Solidarity!

[@RunnerGang1997]

I bought a year subscription to "support the sport" because I thought the big price tag would mean I'd get to follow the collegiate season... Some of the worst money I've ever spent and I had pretty low expectations. Barely covered any big meets and if they did the quality was okay at best but normally absolutely crap. Be better FloTrack.

[@RunnerGang1997]

Podcast were actually fun and quirky conversations back with Kev and Gordon but those days are gone.

[@theokphotos]

great video, as a relatively small creator in the running space, just being overshadowed by these large companies that ultimately control all the content I create if I were to work at their events is just insanely depressing. World athletics is saving my job, but in America, it's really really hard to fight for something that is so out of my control. hopefully the content i make with the athletes themselves will snowball into something greater and be the content that people want to see instead of another 30 dollar subscription

[@RunnerBoi]

If there's one thing I've constantly asked from the American distance running scene (and others if possible), it's that athletes need their own damn YT channels lol. Strongman was in a very similar spot (if not, fairly worse) than T&F, but then they were able to create such a consistent, cohesive, and large content ecosystem to the point where the sport was completely unavoidable at one point, and is still doing very well today. Take a look at the average Paul Chelimo vid. His metrics are insane for how little he uploads. and he's not even that relevant of an athlete anymore comparatively speaking. The formula is there, but athletes are either too lazy to hop off of more superficial/campy mediums like Instagram, or they don't have an editor/videographer to capture anything meaningful. People love properly produced training vids from pros, they literally farm near or straight up 6-digit views if made properly. I can go on and on about how T&F content is so unnecessarily decentralized and how it's using like 20% of its potential, but I'll just cut it there lmao.

[@theokphotos]

@@RunnerBoi no no, i'd love to talk about it, or see you make a video about it, and if you want my input i'd be down too!! i recently made a video with a training group based out of Atlanta, mixed with elite athletes and some olympians, and the video did surprising numbers. I think the problem definitely lies in the fact that there is not enough people seeing the potential like you and I. I used to work with New Gen a lot (saw your iceberg vid too haha) and there's clearly a market for it. I don't think the athletes are lazy, tbh if anything it sucks that as athletes, if they don't market themselves, they fall out of relevancy and obviously a lot of athletes in the track and field space can barely afford to make a living, balancing a job that actually pays the bills in order to train all the time. if they don't have the budget, they can't afford the training, and that leaves them very little time to market themselves. that's why i got hired to go produce a video with the training group in the Cayman Islands, because there is not only a market for it, but because there is a growing surge of media in the running space that is beginning to rival the media coverage in more big money sports like American football. feel free to contact me if you want to talk about it! you can find my contact on my youtube channel, but my email is [e-mail]

[@TheSandbagga]

I've never, ever watched any videos on T&F. Yet, here I am. The production and presentation of your videos have me hooked as a competitor

[@geogeotagz]

I've subscribed to you because of this video. Thanks for making it!

[@markcullen2870]

I love athletic,net a lot more than milesplit. I like the Ui more and how everything is set up. it is just more simple and easy to understand

[@johnlangill5289]

The crazy part is they are doing the same thing to wrestling

[@lightwavewrestling314]

I know, it's stupid. Using flowrestling to watch a wrestling duel is so laggy it won't work on a TV

[@Supermoneygang12]

That’s extra funny considering wresting they’re just…there. It’s not like a race where you have to figure out the logistics of shooting footage.

[@theincompletepackage]

flomarching too. all glitching out and shit

[@theathletearchives]

I was so disappointed to learn the only way to watch the London Marathon today from the US was via flotrack.

[@torunit4620]

And you know what . . . I didn't watch.

[@OtesOtesOtes]

The poor video quality during the time of streaming is justifiable by a poor internet connection. However, it's total incompetence to not upload a clear recording after the fact. As someone investigating the stream quality retroactively it's good tho cuz otherwise you'd never know the original potato quality. Downloading vid in case it gets taken down.

[@DubYuhGChoppa]

All I've seen so far are the community posts you made about them, looking forward to getting some more clarity here

[@RunnerGang1997]

What's more clarity? They've wasted money being invested into track and provide low quality service for a premium price...

[@PrentisHancock1]

Well done on making this. Trackstaa also made one on Flotrack last year. I fully agree. I made a short video report using BBC footage under fair dealing and Flotrack manually copyright struck it within 90 seconds of it being uploaded and I received a strike against my channel, knocking me out for 3 months. Flotrack will copyright strike content that doesn't even belong to them. There is only one solution to this problem, and it lies with the athletes. They should not co-operate with Flotrack. Do not give them interviews. All athletes, like you showed in your video, should be their own media PR companies. Indeed many of them do. But they need to raise their game a bit more, such as UK's Adam Fogg and Callum Elson, and USA's Chari Hawkins. What this will do is make Flotrack redundant, which it pretty much is, but it's business model needs to be fully undermined. Other players will also play a major part in countering Flotrack. I think these will include Michael Johnson, as you indicated, with his league, Andy Baddeley with The Running Channel, and Seb Coe, with World Athletics, if, or when, he finally cottons on to the damage Flotrack does to the sport he is trying to grow, and shuts them down, or at the very least, curtails their operations.

[@lonelyweeb03]

Absolutely fucking hate it when some companies monopolize a certain market. Disappointing to hear that it got to track and field running with some of the companies having no consistent quality control or straight up paywalling records and footage while also buying out smaller competitors so they remain a monopoly

[@mertholomy8414]

So much facts in one video. Someone had to say this about flotrack, and you did.

[@eliasbergman7961]

As a GVSU athlete, we hate FloTrack. Literally keeps good coverage away from our meets

[@marypagones6073]

I'm also a fan of equestrian sports, and similar things have happened with some major horse-related events (not racing, but eventing and showjumping). What used to be free content has now been taken over by pricey subscription services, and there's no way to pay to watch a single event--you have to subscribe for the entire year at a premium, and the quality of the streams are terrible. "Niche" sports can't complain about a lack of growth and viewership if they make it almost impossible for people to view the sport. It also means only die-hards will subscribe, since there's no way someone just curious can watch a competition or two.

[@jdjdjdjd7575]

RUNNERBOI DOESNT MISS. ALL MY RESPECT FROM SDHJ

[@owenwhite748]

12:46 is me in the red armsleeves! I won that race. I remember watching this on my friends account and just wondering why they bought it at all...

[@bradnotbrad]

On athletic net individual Athlete stats are still free. I remember the real joy for my in high school was looking at how I compared to others across my state that I might not see at meets, I believe that feature is behind a paywall if you want to view outside of the top 20 in each event.

[@lexington476]

Don't hold anything back, tell us how you really feel 😎🙂.

[@AvocadoAfficionado]

Athletics fan: "Nono, you don't understand capitalism is ruining *my* sport. It's different." Everyone else: "First time?"

[@nicktsotu5493]

This video was completely ON POINT. And the ending 🤣 I will make absolutely sure to NOT do any of those things

[@robinbauer1975]

0:56 😂😂😂😂😂 Love your knowledge and honesty In germnay we can’t see diamond league races on yt you gotta pay 12 euro per month subscription on a random ass service

[@Ivan_King2.0]

What is the location of your beautiful background footage? The track surrounded by mountains is one of my favorite parts of watching your videos. Great work, thank you.

[@zbarrett727]

Lol I had the same question just now and just seeing your comment

[@esar96]

I think you said you can watch from other countries just on youtube streams? So if you use a VPN, can you watch races for free?

[@-masteryoda]

BIG shoutout to the hdRunners KZbin channel. They’ve been providing FREE high quality race videos of high school track & XC races for over a decade.

[@gregamann2327]

Flo owns the rights to the Tour de France in Canada. I have to miss daily coverage of my fav event because I won’t give Flo a nickel.

[@chrisrulz555]

Where is the running track @19:30?

[@CoreyGary]

There’s a production quality problem with Flotrack. At a bare minimum, a track meet should have 1) a finish line camera with an operator very high up either on a genie or fixed to the stands, 2) two color commentators, 3) feeds to scoring & timing with a graphics operator, 4) a producer or two orchestrating the whole thing. Extras include a roaming camera for field events, a camera on the back straight, feeds from the PA system, and a third commentator. None of us are expecting NBC Sports Olympic-level producing from Flotrack, and to be fair for some of their bigger events they’re able to achieve this standard. But, taking people’s money for an event where there’s no commentary, no timing, and a fixed camera on the track is egregious. What they need to do is reduce the number of events they’re producing since quality is suffering. Only produce events where the quality is high. Then figure out how to scale into more events. As for XC, there needs to be a stabilized camera on a Gator or it’s not worth producing.

[@cirrious139]

I hate flo whether it's grappling, marching band, track, etc.

[@bobhamster3235]

FOR REAL SMH.THEY CHARGED ME FOR ABOUT 120 WHEN THEY CLEARLY DIDINT DETAIL IT THAT IT WILL BILL YOU ANNUALLY,I WAS GOING FOR MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION SO I CALLED MY BANK SHOWED PROOF AND GOT MY MONEY BACK AND A FREE SUBSCRIPTION FOR A WHOLE YEAR!!

[@lukerobinson2893]

I don’t mind using peacock for the diamond leauge. It is always good quality and easy to rewatch races.

[@aze4308]

what song is the chapter transition music from

[@sjeffy5137]

So if somebody had a vpn, could they simply access a KZbin livestream for free?

[@nea2150]

Yes

[@sjeffy5137]

@@nea2150 Damn that’s crazy cause it means anyone could pay like 3-4 dollars a month to a vpn service and wholly skip FloTrack’s pay gate 👀

[@cartoonpower0]

shoutout to HDrunners for always posting the best running videos and all for free on youtube

[@inappropriatejohnson]

Cough.....VPN.......cough.

[@luffyluck]

Flograppling is also shit. They are pushing athletes on juice and their poster boy is just dodging hard matches while being a walking pharmacy.

[@wxbrainiac]

i hate it im the athlete yet i have to pay an outrageous subscription fee just to see my full list of results its a huge paywall especially for high school runners as even the fastest high school runners can still have money issues.

[@0161scally]

It's cheaper to have a VPN subscription and change your location to the UK etc and watch via youtube!

[@unbreakabeau]

around the 17:00 when covering the streams that were happening that day i was actually competing at the regional championship you put on haha, however when you said that it was bugged and it was the same stream it was simply a different regions championship, both in texas hence the similar stream titles etc

[@lowzyyy]

I cant believe that athletics as a sport seems like it is trying so hard to make the sport less accesible and less popular. Yesterday i tried so hard to find a FREE fucking stream of London Marathon, on of the majors....

[@InvictusMartin]

So, as a non American, who doesn’t run and definitely has never heard of this company. I don’t know why I watched this video, but I liked it.

[@Devghost]

Happens with football as well. Here in the uk you have to pay a fee to watch. Whereas in the states I don’t think you have too.

[@jackrunstrack]

does anyone know how flotrack is for junior olympics in previous years?

[@mfeekssuper64]

That’s it, I’m moving to the Netherlands

[@Driver8takeabreak]

Flo-anything is just bad. They're such a budget company. I'm honestly amazed they've lasted as long as they have. I subscribed for a year (and then got auto-renewed into another year) mainly for their bike racing coverage and their price was so high for poor quality and very limited coverage.

[@danbiddulph]

Surely these companies must realise that it is in their interest to promote and help to grow the sport, and copyright striking small creators who are providing brilliant content and promoting the sport is only going to harm them in the long run.

[@Starstrike21]

appreciate your effort on all of this, 205 streams is insane!!! how long did that take?

[@pomanprod]

You should do an analysis with runnerspace.

[@clouie205]

Its like when they made it big they spent all their money on rights and no money on hiring professionals to help them

[@tjvortex6143]

If I went to whatever school that track is at in the intro there’s no doubt I would’ve run track just to look at those mountains everyday

[@DarkLink0]

What discords should people definitely NOT restream flotrack streams? Especially the upcoming Penn Relays 👀

[@trevormay101]

Thank god my parents showed up instead of trying to watch me in the Lou classic this year

[@susch7466]

This guy seems competent and well spoken. He should get into rhythm games.

[@bblesener]

Probably shouldn't have included Tanuto's comment at 3:06 ngl

[@u1tra_p0wer52]

I got a FloTrack ad before I was able to watch this 💀

[@YersiniaPestisNPO]

Flo track is so trash. Glad more KZbinrs are exposing this

[@BirdDance]

As of last summer, they own the company who owns TFRRS. I give it a couple years before they've ruined that too.

[@wafov9584]

Know this is off topic but could you do a video on your track and field career?

[@Itsfalcon9]

“The water helps out giving a little boost” 😂

[@cows543]

Don’t worry runnerboi. Field event fans are used to not seeing their favorite events mentioned on track “and field” streams already

[@molybdnum]

The Flovertaking of sports streaming has been very mixed. I think the answer has to lie with event coordinators and rights sellers. Flo has positioned themselves as heroes - hey, we can do something brand new that your athletes and parents never had an opportunity to have before, live webcasts, they'll love it and we can charge a fair price and we all win. If the event rights-holders aren't versed in what's a reasonable broadcast expectation and want to appease parents or feel some stream is better than none, you're stuck with whatever Flo gives you. They're the only game in town and parents are a captive audience. If the event stream was bad, take your complaint to the event manager and find out who signed the contract with Flo. They're the ones who need to pressure Flo for a minimum quality expectation and have the leverage to say "we want a full broadcast crew and 1080 60fps and we know you can deliver it - do it or we're exploring other opportunities."

[@trayne5151]

Flo Wrestling sucks as well. They have horrible organization, so finding particular meets can be hard. The schedule is really messy as well so I can never find the tournaments or duals I'm looking for. I just gave up and only watch the biggest events that get posted on KZbin now.

[@wompastompa3692]

Tbh, MileSplit was already going down the shitter in 2017. I remember it having less restrictions in my day, 2010-14.

[@brianbruno1786]

Fuck yeah baby - coming out here swinging!!

[@pinkrose8272]

i am sick of businesses especialy any thing tech related. following the pattern of cornering or taking advantage of a small niche market, using theing market power to but more stuff keep any better competitiors out while keeping quality as low as possible and making sure there is never a better more afforadble option forcing people to use product and then raising prices. I am not even a big sports fan (i still have no clue how i ended up on this channel honestly even though fascinating vids keep it up) but I hope flow track can be stopped soon or some better options pop up so this wont happen to other sports.

[@honsou48]

A little bit of context on why the BTN streams are so bad. For most Olympic sports, BTN just gets the college students of that particular college to run everything, like its part of their learning process. As someone who has BTN+ for wrestling I've noticed that really only Rutgers has a decent set up with every other school being completely awful. For reference BTN+ is $10 per school. I had absolutely no idea they were giving their content to a third service

[@peturf1788]

It would be a different story if FloTrack was similar to ESPN+ where they have alternate camera angles/broadcasters or event coverage. Unfortunately their broadcasters are dry and add zero input to what you can see on screen

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

Thank goodness. It's been getting bad.

[@fedos]

Wait. I want to know more about this water-powered superhero who's running track instead of fighting crime.

[@stuckinkiev]

Flotrack and Milesplit aren't covering much high school cross country this season on their KZbin channels. They dropped their usual programming and "on the line" podcasts. I have a pro membership and it doesn't cover high school this year anywhere near as well as in years past. Dyestat offers much better 2024 xc coverage.

[@bellewhite3764]

The ending lines 👌😂

[@psnSupergrobi10]

One more step towards the resurgence of the golden age of pirating

[@jakegregor7355]

Not a track fan but flowrestling has stunted the growth of wrestling for years

[@katelawrenceart]

i am not familiar with track and field at all and i just have to say: wow the runnerspace logo is ugly

[@chokistick9581]

In South Africa you need dstv. South African cable. But it’s quite reasonable so not complaining.

[@pomanprod]

They charge all that money but uses 20 year old camcorder livestreaming 720p. I cover the OC TF scene with 4k ... and doing this on a voluntary basis!

[@Alexsruns]

The very first scene is the track at mammoth I love that track

[@davisunser4451]

Michael Johnson will save us all

[@GardinerAlan]

Surely buying Diamond League rights cost them quite a lot so wouldn't be surprised to see their subscription cost shoot up even more. Or having DL as extra tier w/ much higher price point. Either way, viewership is going bye bye.

[@salemal-murisi5784]

Ur the man, running production who?

[@shalashaska5851]

THIS SHIT IS WHY THIS INCREDIBLE SPORT WILL NEVER GROW IN THE UNITED STATES. It’s such a gut shot.

[@c_waitz2855]

As a note, you say you’re going to go off the $12.50 model but only mention the $30 price throughout the video

[@morley364]

I think they meant for the 'out of 10' ratings- I assume a stream rated 6/10 for $12 would be rated much lower if you're charging $30

[@benjaminkuch2558]

i saw their podcasts on the olympics. They have absolutely no idea about t&f...