For the past three weeks FloSports, a digital media company, has streamed UAA athletic games on their sub-platform, FloCollege, after the two announced an exclusive 5-year media rights agreement in June.

The agreement sparked controversy among athletes and their families, largely because FloSports requires a paid subscription. Previously, fans could stream Case Western Reserve University athletics at no cost. CWRU’s Associate Athletic Director for Communications & Media Relations, Jon Schwartz, acknowledged that the new expense may be difficult for some to accept but argued that the enhanced coverage and services FloSports provides will ultimately benefit viewers.

“I don’t think it’s priced exorbitantly, but I also understand that anything compared to free is a lot more than you were paying last night,” Schwartz said. “But I think when people tune in to the broadcast, they’ll be pleasantly surprised at some of the improvements in the production quality that we put together.”

Schwartz, who was part of the decision-making process, said discussions about outsourcing UAA media had been underway for nearly a year. He added that improving CWRU’s media presence had long been a priority, and after weighing options: including continuing with BoxCast and MediaVision, developing a new platform from scratch, or partnering with FloSports, the university determined FloSports was the best fit.

“Partnering with a media rights company, such as FloSports, had the benefit of improving the branding, getting that nationwide network, plus having a partner that, unlike the previous version, would be invested in promoting that network as well,” Schwartz said.

One advantage of the UAA’s partnership with FloSports is that 100% of revenue goes back into UAA member schools. When the deal was announced, however, athletes and parents immediately questioned how that money would be used, expressing hopes that the funds would be reinvested into athletic departments.

FloSports is not directing how the UAA schools spend the funds from the partnership. Instead, the company has set standards to ensure consistent streaming quality across its network, allowing each school to allocate the money as they see fit, provided these standards are met.

“There are minimum standards that are built into the FloSports contract that you have a year to meet,” Schwartz said. “We are meeting all of those immediately. That’s not necessarily every school, but that was a big push for us…because, again, we’re now charging for something that was free last year. We don’t want to offer the same free thing and tell people you have to pay for it.”

With CWRU controlling how it allocates the funds from FloSports, the university has the flexibility to explore new media initiatives.

“Probably within the last six months, we’ve spent close to $10,000 upgrading our equipment,” Schwartz said. “We’re hoping to add things in the future, and that might be sideline reporting and interviews during games. It might mean instant replay that we’re able to get long-term. Things to continue to improve this broadcast that are expensive but might not have been an option before, [because] any budget we had [before] was towards just maintaining a basic webcast, not necessarily building on some of that.”

When the deal was first announced, families and athletes expressed concern over subscription costs. FloSports currently charges $19.99 per month or $107.88 annually, a significant change for a program that was previously free. Rachel Winter, mother of fourth-year men’s soccer goalkeeper Bradley Winter, admitted the cost was initially frustrating but said she’s willing to pay to watch her son play.

“I’ll pay it because my priority is I want to see him play and this is his last year, so it’s important for us to watch him if we can’t be there live,” Winter said. “I think a lot of people at Case Western don’t live in Cleveland, so they may utilize this to watch their games since they are coming from far away and they can’t come to all the games.”

Schwartz acknowledged the controversy over the program’s cost, noting that CWRU was able to secure a 15 percent discount for its athletes through August, a deal he believes no other conference has offered.

“It’s a little tricky, because once it’s up on the platform, it’s kind of FloSports’s decision,” Schwartz said. “But it is certainly a concern. I also think we are still very early in this process…I think we’re going to go through a year and get a lot of feedback. And if we’re starting to hear from people that these subscriptions are an issue, I’m sure the question will be asked, what can we do about that?”

Although initially reluctant to pay, Winter said that after using the platform, she found the subscription to be well worth the cost.

“You get what you pay for,” Winter said. “In the past there were definitely issues where it would freeze, there were glitches and I did sometimes get frustrated in the past because of those issues. Even though initially I was like ‘gosh, I can’t believe we have to pay,’ based on this past weekend, it’s well worth the money.”

Winter said the platform was worthwhile for her because it made streaming to the TV easy and offered high-quality sound, picture and commentary.

“To put it this way, if Bradley was a junior this year and I’d only used the subscription for a weekend I would pay for the senior year for sure,” Winter said.

Another concern for CWRU athletes was whether the high subscription prices of the new streaming service would hurt already low viewership. Despite this, Schwartz believes the benefits of the deal clearly outweigh the drawbacks.

“I’m not sure our general student body was ever fully tuned in to our webcast when it was free,” Schwartz said. “I think their primary mode of watching our games was showing up in person. That being said…we’ve now taken our broadcast and made them less accessible to the public than they were before, and that’s a huge issue. [But] a couple things you’ll see from us that may actually be more beneficial is more of a presence on social media, more highlight clips and our games will all be archived on the FloSports network.”

Schwartz is confident that, over time, the benefits of this deal will become clear and that it will greatly benefit both CWRU Athletics and the UAA.

“I think in the long run, I do think people will see some of the positives of this deal,” Schwartz said. “So while I understand there’s some hesitancy to sign up for a monthly account, I do think people will see some benefits from this deal that will help our student athletes. That’s going to help the department. That’s gonna certainly help the production value of the webcast. I think people will see some value in that.”