How about a DCU-friendly bar with good wi-fi? Who said a "viewing party at a bar" has to mean 100 DCU fans watching on one big screen? How about 100 DCU fans watching on 100 hand-held screens at said bar? Now, that would be a mighty, mighty weird sight to behold, no doubt about it. But the absurdity of it all might make the point to the FO. Or not.
Today is the torture test for FloFC. Got the Roku set up, we'll see. Double header today, watching DCU then going to Cap Center with my son to watch the Caps.
Each with their own Flo subscription. The days of two DCU fans heading to their suburban Glory Days or Greene Turtle, asking for one TV to be turned to a local team’s broadcast and enjoying themselves, and perhaps creating mild interest in the game in surrounding casual sports fans, are dead. DCU is all-in on District-centric fans. More power to them. Thx, Jay!
Announcers not even on site for a game in NYC. Today marks the debut of @flosports for D.C. United match coverage. Digital subscription service. First of 21 games this season. Announcers are not on site in New York, instead calling the match from monitors in Washington. #DCU #MLS— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) March 10, 2019
I was just about to post that. FloSports got its start as some guys going to wrestling and track meets and streaming or uploading stuff soon after events. Now there is this... Great start. No, NC8 wasn't great. I did not like the broadcasts although it was HD for me. The broadcast reach of the channel was extremely limited even if a couple of Sinclair channels were included as they sometimes were. NC8 was not the peak of United broadcasts. That has slid backwards for much of the past 10 years when the greatest worry was if pre-season NFL would delay a broadcast or eventually put the game on CSN+ when that came around. I remember feeling sad for Dave Johnson as new venues were opening around the league and other teams were taking leaps forward yet United stopped sending production crews to games. Unless the game is on national television, a casual sports fan is not going to see United. A casual local sports fan is not going to purchase a FloSports. Casual fans of United are not going to purchase a FloFC subscription. Obviously some people will purchase subscriptions, but this deal put a new cap on the reach of United after already severely limiting themselves in recent years. I've had a few co-workers ask me what channel after visiting Audi Field and being impressed by Rooney and Acosta. They were disappointed. None of them intend to purchase the subscription. According to my account information, I have been a Flo member since 2006 and even I hate just the idea of United on the platform. Also, I just checked my e-mail and Flo charged $.01 more than they said. FWIW, FloSports can be seen via browser on android devices like FireTV.
FYI, Flo reiterated on their website this week that the blackout area is Northern VA (from Richmond north), and ALL of DC, Maryland, and Delaware. So no live ESPN+ streaming in all of Maryland most likely.
I went to the DCU-promoted watch party at Lou's City Bar in Columbia Heights, DC. I arrived right at 3pm to find people walking out. They couldn't get the feed to work. (I stayed for 15 minutes assuming they'd figure it out. They didn't.) I have no idea if that was on the bar or FloSports but either way I missed the first half before getting somewhere that had it working (The Airedale, though the feed still cut out numerous times). Also, nonplussed by having Dave Johnson do the play-by-play from DC. Sorry to continually be so negative about all this but I've obviously not been happy with the pricing and availability of the stream, and now it seems the execution is piss poor, too.
Watched the 1st half through a browser app on the Fire. It was pretty grim-- it froze twice and we got kicked out completely twice. But in the 2nd half, we just plugged a laptop in the the TV via the HDMI cable at it twas totally fine. We had no freezes at all in the 2nd half. I think the picture quality was better than we got on NC8 last season.
No. LAFC has a free OTA Spanish language broadcast that the bars typically use. YouTubeTV has been fine both at home and in commercial venues. James