IFSC do U-Turn on pay-to-view deal with FloSport
- Wednesday 12th April 2017
April 12th; 2017
In a dramatic u-turn, the IFSC have admitted today that the recently announced pay-to-view deal was a mistake and pledge that live-streaming of future IFSC events will remain free of charge.
The IFSC website today...
As CLIMBER reported last week (click through here for that report…) the IFSC announced last week – just two days before the opening event at Meringen – that they had reached a deal with FloSport and that live streaming for all future IFSC events would be via the pay-to-view FloClimbing platform.
Immediately the news was announced, climbers – including the competition climbers themselves - took to social media to express their indignation at that decision; a decision seemingly reached behind closed doors and without input either from the athletes themselves or from the sponsors. A petition against the deal snowballed and was soon signed by 10k+ climbers. At the eleven hour the live streaming for Meringen was excluded from the pay-to-view deal.
The Meringen battle was won but the war against pay-to-view still loomed. Cranking the pressure up further against IFSC, the athletes – via their representative body – issued a statement after the Meringen event calling for all athletes not to co-operate with the live-streaming media.
Today, the monthly meeting of the IFSC Executive Board met to discuss the situation. Shortly after the meeting, they issued a statement saying that the deal was off and live streaming would be free-to-view!
“It was a mistake and we apologize for that” the IFSC said in a statement on their website. They added further details: “The deal – despite having been announced – has not been signed and thus has not been concluded”.
Furthermore, the IFSC pledged: “The live streaming for IFSC will remain free of charge”. Finally, they added: “Any possible future variation of this policy will be discussed inside the IFSC and subject to the approval of our key stakeholders”.
With the pay-to-view deal squashed, climbers the world over will continue to enjoy the live-streams. However, it remains to be seen whether that subsequent events will be beset with the difficulties which dogged the live streaming during the 2016 season. Furthermore, if the IFSC was cash-strapped as rumoured, then how the IFSC plans to generate revenue to address that issue remains unknown at this point in time.
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