A Definitive Explanation Required

Butkus051

Butkus051

Well-Known Member
BTN Plus subscriber for several years to 1) get early season men's BB 2) get all women's BB and 3) Get Wrestling, Baseball and softball. Up until this year I've been very satisfied with the coverage however this year the early tournaments were subcontracted away from BTN Plus to FloHoops who wanted an outrageous fee for the men's games ..... above and beyond that which I paid for BTN Plus. (i.e. BTN Plus subscribers should have been "grandfathered" in but were not. A parallel topic which is moot now.) I attempted to voice my displeasure to BTN just receives email and doesn't answer them. My question for someone "in the know" would be what is BTN Plus's future intent? Are the trying to get out of the streaming business completely by subcontracting everything out to FloHoops (as well as other sports)? If so I'm scrapping my BTN Plus subscrption. Are they just going to subcontract preseason BB tourneys and minor sports that have high production/travel costs? Where are they driving this car? I (we) have a right to know.
 
It used to be that most of the games were covered on basic cable some where until the BTN came along. Of course as long as each B1G school gets 60 million a year from the BTN they aren’t going to complain.

Seems to me that a school like Iowa that receives public funds to finance itself is setting themselves up for a law suit. Iowa fans shouldn’t have to pay to watch their team as long as public funds are involved with the school. Just waiting for some ambitious young lawyer who is bored to take on this issue.
 
i won't say i know what B1G's strategy is; but I would think streaming is a huge revenue source as things turn to pay per view for all games, further down the road. My assumption was that the Cayman Islands Classic held the rights to streaming and they picked flo hoops. I got shut out of all 3 games because of that. I wasn't gonna pay flohoops.
 
As an official old man, I had no problem listening to Iowa games on the radio. I actually enjoy it. Not paying flohoops to watch Iowa crap the bed in the Caymans.:p
 
1hawkeye1 said:
As an official old man, I had no problem listening to Iowa games on the radio. I actually enjoy it. Not paying flohoops to watch Iowa crap the bed in the Caymans.:p
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Hug and kiss your radios as Jim used to say. Many cold snowy winter nights were spent listening to Jimbo on WHO radio when Lute was still around.Those were good times, Lester, Bruce sky King; Dick Paith, Tommy Norman, Vince Brookens, a young freshman Bobby Hansen, just to name a few. Don’t know I spelled those names correctly but that was how they sounded on the radio.
 
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ArvadaHawk said:
i won't say i know what B1G's strategy is; but I would think streaming is a huge revenue source as things turn to pay per view for all games, further down the road. My assumption was that the Cayman Islands Classic held the rights to streaming and they picked flo hoops. I got shut out of all 3 games because of that. I wasn't gonna pay flohoops.
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Good thought. It wasn't BTN but rather the tournament who controlled broadcast rights. I too refused to pay.
 
BigD said:
Hug and kiss your radios as Jim used to say. Many cold snowy winter nights were spent listening to Jimbo on WHO radio when Lute was still around.Those were good times, Lester, Bruce sky King; Dick Paith, Tommy Norman, Vince Brookens, a young freshman Bobby Hansen, just to name a few. Don’t know I spelled those names correctly but that was how they sounded on the radio.
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I too am an "official" old man and did listen to the games on WHO. In fact, the my first rememberance of Iowa Basketball was the 1969 team ("Six Pack" – John Johnson, Chad Calabria, Fred Brown, Glenn "Stick" Vidnovic, Dick Jensen, and Ben McGilmer) whom I listened to in bed on a $2 transistor radio with the covers pulled over my head.
 
BigD said:
Hug and kiss your radios as Jim used to say. Many cold snowy winter nights were spent listening to Jimbo on WHO radio when Lute was still around.Those were good times, Lester, Bruce sky King; Dick Paith, Tommy Norman, Vince Brookens, a young freshman Bobby Hansen, just to name a few. Don’t know I spelled those names correctly but that was how they sounded on the radio.
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It's Dick Peth. I believe he married Lute's daughter. He is now the head coach at Wartburg!
 
Knight78 said:
It's Dick Peth. I believe he married Lute's daughter. He is now the head coach at Wartburg!
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I didn’t know that he married Lute’s daughter. There’s probably a pretty neat story behind the scenes with that one.
 
Butkus051 said:
BTN Plus subscriber for several years to 1) get early season men's BB 2) get all women's BB and 3) Get Wrestling, Baseball and softball. Up until this year I've been very satisfied with the coverage however this year the early tournaments were subcontracted away from BTN Plus to FloHoops who wanted an outrageous fee for the men's games ..... above and beyond that which I paid for BTN Plus. (i.e. BTN Plus subscribers should have been "grandfathered" in but were not. A parallel topic which is moot now.) I attempted to voice my displeasure to BTN just receives email and doesn't answer them. My question for someone "in the know" would be what is BTN Plus's future intent? Are the trying to get out of the streaming business completely by subcontracting everything out to FloHoops (as well as other sports)? If so I'm scrapping my BTN Plus subscrption. Are they just going to subcontract preseason BB tourneys and minor sports that have high production/travel costs? Where are they driving this car? I (we) have a right to know.
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You're confusing a few major things here..

FloHoops wasn't the rights owners to the games. FloHoops is just a website that pays other sites to also broadcast their games in one place. Think of it like Hulu. Hulu can stream CBS content, ABC content, Bravo content, etc all in one place because they pay the various companies money to broadcast them. FloHoops is just a convenient location for college basketball fans to watch a lot of college basketball. Subscribing to FloHoops gets you access to BTN+ (and several other sites), subscribing to BTN+ does not get you access to FloHoops. FloHoops doesn't create any content they just pay to broadcast other companies' content.

The Cayman tournament sold their broadcasting rights to CBS, who then put the games on the internet at collegesportslive.com. It had nothing to do with BTN so emailing BTN was pointless because they didn't own the broadcast rights to the Cayman Island Classic

Hope that helps
 
mopkins said:
You're confusing a few major things here..

FloHoops wasn't the rights owners to the games. FloHoops is just a website that pays other sites to also broadcast their games in one place. Think of it like Hulu. Hulu can stream CBS content, ABC content, Bravo content, etc all in one place because they pay the various companies money to broadcast them. FloHoops is just a convenient location for college basketball fans to watch a lot of college basketball. Subscribing to FloHoops gets you access to BTN+ (and several other sites), subscribing to BTN+ does not get you access to FloHoops. FloHoops doesn't create any content they just pay to broadcast other companies' content.

The Cayman tournament sold their broadcasting rights to CBS, who then put the games on the internet at collegesportslive.com. It had nothing to do with BTN so emailing BTN was pointless because they didn't own the broadcast rights to the Cayman Island Classic

Hope that helps
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Thank so much for the breakdown. Very informative. Even so, from a consumer standpoint, the Big Ten should be controlling the rights to their teams' games. I do not beleive that I (as a subsciber to BTN Plus) should have to pay for streamed coverage that should be included in my subscription. From your description it sounds as if the BTN is signing away its rights when a team agrees to play in one of the tourneys. My hunch is that BTN is being compensated for these rights which means they are being paid twice for the same content. (i.e. 1 - via my subscription and 2 - Sale of the broadcast rights.) As such, if I am a subcriber I should have access to the content regardless of who is streaming it. In either case, thanks for your response.
 
Butkus051 said:
Thank so much for the breakdown. Very informative. Even so, from a consumer standpoint, the Big Ten should be controlling the rights to their teams' games. I do not beleive that I (as a subsciber to BTN Plus) should have to pay for streamed coverage that should be included in my subscription. From your description it sounds as if the BTN is signing away its rights when a team agrees to play in one of the tourneys. My hunch is that BTN is being compensated for these rights which means they are being paid twice for the same content. (i.e. 1 - via my subscription and 2 - Sale of the broadcast rights.) As such, if I am a subcriber I should have access to the content regardless of who is streaming it. In either case, thanks for your response.
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I completely agree with you that it would be nice if the BTN could at least put all Big Ten games on their streaming pay site, but that would be super expensive I'd imagine. Plus these exempt tournaments are a different beast. If you have Duke vs Michigan State in a preseason tournament can you really say that BTN should own those rights? What about the ACC? What about ESPN who is willing to pay much much more to put them on actual television?

Its kind of a mess, but at least we have the option to watch them online if we're willing to pay...I guess

Money always wins :(
 
I realize these decisions are based upon money, but I'm surprised BTN doesn't try to also make money syndicating the games. For example, Iowa's non conference games against Alabama State, Grambling State, etc. are not going to be shown on BTN. So why not offer those games up to local TV stations for a fee? I assume some channel in Iowa that was otherwise going to show re-runs of Big Bang Theory, might decide to pickup the Iowa game knowing they could sell that advertising spots to an Iowa game easier than old re-run comedies.

Again, I'm sure smarter people in the TV business have already considered this option, but it seems like there would be a place for selling the games to local networks where everyone wins (fans & BTN).
 
Needless to say. The BTN being what it is should be able to televise it and all the Big 10 teams games that aren't on other networks. The BTN should be televising just about all the games of the two major sports between all the alternate channels they have. Showing womens soccer/lacrosse etc and other time killing garbage like that is stupid. Why they wouldn't be televising what they could actually get ratings on is beyond me. Mens football and basketball have to be their top priority. Nebraska basketball would draw better ratings I would bet then pretty much any womans sporting event besides maybe hoops. Why they want to do what they do is beyond me
 
It's amazing, that you guys can listen to the radio for Hawkeyes' games that I never to get to enjoy, for free. I just go to Hawkeyenation game thread. Stormin-Spankin does it very well, hosting the game thread. I think the game has become commercialized for revenue. I just go to MSN sports scoreboard just to see the score. I'll just wait until the regular season games start.
 
I paid the 30 dollars that's 6 games for $5 dollars each. Not a great deal when I thought I was paying for an Iowa/Cinn. match up. Hell, even a Iowa/Richmond or Iowa semifinal appearance would have made it a little more palatable. Their defense got exposed.
 
dahlhawk said:
I paid the 30 dollars that's 6 games for $5 dollars each. Not a great deal when I thought I was paying for an Iowa/Cinn. match up. Hell, even a Iowa/Richmond or Iowa semifinal appearance would have made it a little more palatable. Their defense got exposed.
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Same, the quality and camera work was worse than you'd see at most junior high games too. Seriously it was some of the worst coverage I've ever seen of a game
 
Lute's daughter married Cal Wulfsburg, a PG he brought to Iowa with him. I thought I had heard they were divorced.
 
atomicblue224 said:
It's amazing, that you guys can listen to the radio for Hawkeyes' games that I never to get to enjoy, for free. I just go to Hawkeyenation game thread. Stormin-Spankin does it very well, hosting the game thread. I think the game has become commercialized for revenue. I just go to MSN sports scoreboard just to see the score. I'll just wait until the regular season games start.
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Uh, StorminSpank hasn't been on HN for years...
 
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