The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) announced their five-year media rights partnership with FloSports June 5. FloSports is a media sports company that livestreams athletic events of underserved sports communities.
According to SCIAC Commissioner Jennifer Dubow, FloSports reached out to SCIAC about a partnership. She said that after discussing plans with SCIAC athletic directors and seeing real value in the deal, both groups began discussing further steps for the multi-year agreement, including the concerns that parents and alumni may have about the paywall.
Viewers can sign up for a subscription of $19.99 per month or $9.99 when signing up with a .edu email. An annual subscription is also available for $107.88.
“We felt comfortable with the price point for what we hope it’s going to give to student athletes and to our staff,” Dubow said. “Our hope is that Flo views us as successful and that the numbers and the offerings continue to climb.
All SCIAC games and championships will be exclusively livestreamed on FloSports and, as of Oct. 15, broadcasted on FloCollege, a new FloSports platform aimed at covering college athletics — especially Division II and Division III programs.
FloSports Director of Global Rights Acquisition Kolby Paxton said there is growing opportunity and interest in showcasing Division II and Division III athletics.
“We’re able to approach our coverage of Division III and Division II schools and their athletes in a way that no one else has done before, and we’re able to cover them holistically beginning to end throughout a season,” Paxton said.
FloSports Vice President of Communications Brian Reinert said that FloSports plans to invest $50 million into FloCollege which will go towards supporting member conferences with technical support, developing institutions’ media departments and providing additional resources where necessary.
“We’re looking to serve the fans, and that’s part of what this is about — serving the fans and serving that community and building a community around the sport,” Reinert said.
Select student-athletes will be able to represent FloSports through an affiliate ambassador program, Reinert said, where student athlete ambassadors will gain more exposure via FloSports’ social media initiatives.
“They’ll post on social [media], we provide them assets and link out and push people towards those sports and then based upon the traction and engagement that they get, they’ll be rewarded monetarily,” Reinert said.
Dubow said this new partnership will not change the day-to-day routine of student athletes.
“We’ve always been streaming our student athletes. They’ve always been on our platform, it’s just a different platform now,” Dubow said.
According to Dubow, funding for athletics at Division III schools represents just 3.18% of revenue from the NCAA, which varies each year.
“That 3.18% equates to about $40 million and [Division III] uses 80% of that to fund our championships,” Dubow said. “To know that you can continue and compete on a national level is really fun, and I want to make sure that that’s still there in 10 years.”
Dubow said the incoming funding from FloSports will be evenly split among the SCIAC member institutions.
“We are getting our portion, and it will be divided up evenly between each institution and that was a very intentional decision by our athletic directors. We weren’t going to break it down by sport or what you have,” Dubow said. “We felt like FloSports was interested in us because of the SCIAC brand and who we are, and we each bring something a little different to that.”
Occidental’s Assistant Athletics Director for Communications Joe Perrino said this partnership will help provide better quality livestreams for parents and fans through the implementation of more cameras and advanced technology.
Perrino said that prior to the FloSports deal, games were broadcasted through a Hudl Cam, a fixed camera that automatically pans back and forth to follow the action. He said this new deal provides funding to buy more and better equipment to improve the viewing experience, as well as opportunities for students who want to work livestreaming events.
“It’s important that [student athletes] understand that this decision was made, really, for their benefit,” Perrino said. “The hope is that after these five years, that SCIAC gets ahead of the curve when it comes to Division III livestreaming.”
According to Perrino, this new deal will improve the coverage of sports games and also provide more exposure to student athletes at a much larger scale.
“I think that provides a great benefit for them, just for their college experience,” Perrino said. “As a department, we’re really excited for what this could become, especially for Oxy, and I know the conference is extremely excited too.”
Contact Karen Palacios Echeverria at palacioseche@oxy.edu
