Links to free audio broadcasts by Cornell's opponents

[jtwcornell91]

Having OCSN do your website does not obligate you to participate in College Sports Pass.  Ohio State's website is an OCSN site, and they have two free internet audio feeds.

I have a lot more to say on this issue, but no time to go into it this afternoon.

[dodger916]

OCSN might be able to control it, if it's contractual.  This pertains to internet "broadcasting", the rights to which is something OCSN could certainly have an interest in.  Plus which, this way the end consumer would pay for the service directly.

John:  Have you seen any OCSN contract for Athletics?

[kaelistus]

I still blame Cornell Athletics.

If the OCSN contract is bad, then why did Cornell get into it anyway? In fact, I was already annoyed by that before I heard of the internet charge, since IMHO the CU Athletics page looks much worse than what it looked like 4 years ago when it (I think) was student run. Its not like there isn't a lack of student talent on campus.

And there is no fee for internet broadcast if you are not doing music. So that argument is not true at all.

Plus, what Whelan said. Maybe CU Athletics isn't making a cent off the broadcasts, but they still got into a shitty deal, and I am still voting with my wallet by cancelling my annual donations.

[Al DeFlorio]

Perhaps someone will show us the gun that was held to Noel's and Stange's heads forcing them to sign the OCSN contract.  C'mon, they just didn't give a crap for the Faithful here--among whom are those who paid for Cornell Athletics' first Internet broadcast machine four or five years ago.  It was simply an easy way out.  Nearly every other school managed to find a solution, and none of 'em have fans who care like the good folks here do.

Absolute worst case, we should have been given a heads up on eLynah that there might be an issue concerning Internet broadcasts long before the insulting public announcement (TADA, do we have a great deal for all of you Faithful!!!!!), and given a chance to kick in whatever funding might have been needed to keep the broadcasts free for those in grad school, etc., who might not be exactly flush with $$.  Instead, we get an insensitive, impersonal, insulting announcement out of the blue and are told we should be really thrilled because we can now listen to Miami football, too--as if any of us here gives a hoot in hell.  

Insensitive bahstids, plain and simple, IMNSHO.

Speaking of the OCSN wasteland, where's the Cornell site I can access to get any kind of historical records about past teams, players, coaches, etc.?  The CornellBigRed site is close to worthless for serious fans, and seemingly serves little purpose but to hype upcoming games and attempt to put as positive a spin as possible on the performance of Cornell teams.  Wonder when we'll have to subscribe to that, too.

[jnachod]

To quote from the FAQ for internet broadcasting:

Why are you charging for access to live game audio while other schools still have free audio?
We believe that most colleges and universities will be using some form of subscription product for their multimedia content by the start of the next school year. We decided to shift into this model now rather than later. By making the transition now, we can begin offering our fans this improved experience immediately. Further, subscriptions benefit the athletic department from a revenue standpoint, which makes it possible to offer as many live events as possible and the best in multimedia content and quality.

I'm just amazed that they think that charging us money is a BENEFIT to us.

[Al DeFlorio]

What was the word Orwell used for stuff like that?  Doublespeak?::rolleyes::

[DeltaOne81]

CornellPass is double plus good  ::help::

[jtwcornell91]

Yeah, that FAQ is really annoying since it's clearly a pile of generic propaganda which was put together by the marketing team at RealNetworks or OCSN.  In our case, it's clear that the switch is not giving us an improved experience, considering that last year we had the hockeycam complete with radio feed for free.

[jtwcornell91]

Felix Rodriguez wrote:

And there is no fee for internet broadcast if you are not doing music. So that argument is not true at all.

To be fair, the ludicrous DMCA fees do make it more difficult to put sports feeds on the air, because it means that stations which play music and also broadcast college sports are in large numbers dropping their feeds, which means one has to come up with special game-time-only streams, which are more hassle to maintain than 24/7 ones.  Cornell Athletics was put in a difficult situation by the off-season changes, but they handled it really badly by not using the potential volunteer resources at their disposal to put up a "listener-supported" feed.  That's why we have to convince them they made a wrong decision, by means which include making them face the consequences of their actions (e.g., withdrawn donations).

[Al DeFlorio]

Well said, John.  "Pile" is an astonishingly good choice of word.

Perhaps a little deconstruction is in order.  Take the two sentences:  "We believe that most colleges and universities will be using some form of subscription product for their multimedia content by the start of the next school year. We decided to shift into this model now rather than later."  

This is pile number one--a non-argument built on pure speculation.  The reality of the situation would better have been described by the following:  Despite the fact that Yale, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Union, Colgate, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Vermont, RPI, BU, Maine, Ohio State, and Western Michigan have found ways to offer Internet broadcasts free of charge to their fans this year, we've decided that you, the most Faithful fans in all of college hockey, are not worth our incurring the cost or effort it would take to do the same.

Pile number two:  "Further, subscriptions benefit the athletic department from a revenue standpoint, which makes it possible to offer as many live events as possible and the best in multimedia content and quality."

"As many live events as possible" in fact means all scheduled games except exhibitions and Red-White games--the same as last year...the sleeves out of their vest.  And would anyone listening Friday night (I, of course, did not since I refuse to pay for Internet radio) care to describe any additional "multimedia content" that was offered, and how it enriched your listening experience?  Do I hear silence?

It's all just BS.  "Tell the monkeys whatever it'll take to keep 'em off our backs."

[jtwcornell91]

In Cornell's case, what they mean by "as many live events as possible" is football, basketball, and lacrosse in addition to hockey.  Of course, it's not like they came to us over the summer and asked us to go along with paying a subscription for something we could have arranged to put on the net without a per-listener charge, in order that they'd have a way to broadcast other sports.

[Al DeFlorio]

I could be wrong but I believe all these sports were available over the 'net last year.  Football, hockey, and lacrosse certainly were.  I have too vivid memories of the collapse against Brown last spring costing us an Ivy title.

So "where's the beef?"

[jtwcornell91]

The point is that those broadcasts were done through the old web outsourcee (FansOnly) and that mechanism went away in the offseason.  So they had to do something, and chose to buy into RealPass.

Of course, none of this is apparent from the press release.

[Erica]

I don't have a computer, so this discussion doesn't concern me, however, sometimes you guys make it sound like you are the only ones who listen to sports on the internet. There is a HUGE contingent of football fans (ie. mostly family) that are thrilled they still have the opportunity to listen to their kids/friends/students'/ football games. And I'm surprised that you guys are appalled at having to pay whatever it is a month or a year to listen to something of which you are self-professed fanatics, especially since a lot of you (not all) are willing to drive or fly from the ends of the earth to go to each home game and away game and tournament, not to mention the cost of tickets.  Some people spend upwards of $300 (I would imagine) to follow Cornell hockey around. It seems like you would save money if you were to pay this fee and stay home. Perhaps you are only complaining on principle, but I believe the people who refuse to do things just because of principle are the pettiest people around. And refusing to give to the Athletic Dept is just ridiculous. You do know the athletes are the ones that will suffer the most. And not the big athletes, the athletes of the little sports that hardly get any money as it is. If you don't want to listen to it, fine, but there will plenty of other people who will.

[Al DeFlorio]

And my point, John, is that, despite the hype of the press release and FAQs, all of this was available last year and there's nothing whatsoever "improved" in the new offering.