Many BJJ practitioners were relieved to hear that the so called grappling Olympics had moved to UFC Fight Pass. But the joy was short lived considering the news of ADCC’s return to Flosports was announced earlier yesterday.
Flosports has faced criticism for its business practices and treatment of athletes. Some critics have accused the company of using deceptive practices to secure exclusive broadcasting rights for events, while others have raised concerns about the company’s revenue-sharing model and its impact on athletes’ ability to earn a living wage.
Flosports also features ads on a feed of an event despite the fact that all of the people watching at home are paying subscribers.
Flosports has a number of verticals including the BJJ oriented Flograppling.
Flograppling’s monthly subscription price is around $29.99. The kicker is the fact that they disable monthly subscription ahead of major events, forcing the viewers to pay for a year in advance totaling to $149,99.
This is significantly higher than the monthly subscription fees for some other popular streaming services, such as Netflix and Hulu, which range from $5.99 to $18.99 per month. HBO’s streaming service, HBO Max, costs $14.99 per month, while ESPN+ is priced at $6.99 per month.
In terms of sports-specific streaming services, UFC Fight Pass is a similar offering to FloSports, with a monthly subscription fee of $9.99 and no ads or extra charges.
Of course the one thing you can do to get passed this is to sign up for Flosports on another vertical like Flocheer or Flotrack and end up paying just the $30 for watching the ADCC.
ADCC staff has addressed the changes, blaming them on the fact that an ADCC open recently couldn’t be viewed live on UFC’s service.
Controversial organizer Seth Daniels elaborated on the change saying:
“Since so many people are posting their opinions of ADCC returning to Flograppling instead of UFC fight pass as originally announced I can give you the truth and reasons of why this decision was made.
1. Flo has the best technologies to run multi mat/ stream events.
2. Flo goes above and beyond in terms of coverage and marketing for ADCC and the athletes
3. 90% of the mistakes of 2022 ADCC were my team and my fault. I took on more than I was capable of and it broke me mentally. lye decided to turn over control of production to real professionals that can produce an event worthy of an entire year Flo subscription and the cost of a ticket. I’ve listened and read the thousands of comments from 2022 and am addressing everything including my horrible attitude I had during that week.
4. After 6 months of trying to make things work with fight pass it was clear that retuning to Flo was not only the right option but the only option.
5 I want to thank the Fight pass executives and teams that tried their hardest to make this venture happen and wish them the best in the future. ”
His post has since been deleted.
Another member of ADCC organization clarified some of the issues. Event producer Megan Parducho went on to address some of the backlash on flograppling’s announcement. The concerns were about the awful interface of the Flograppling website, the ads that play over livefeeds of matches,
jahredbowen
@han.grapple probably an Indicator that BJJ doesn’t bring in viewers or money. So UFC let it go.
17h
meganparducho
@jahredbowen that is definitely not it lol
17h
bellavec
@meganparducho obviously not, but you guys should own your decisions and announcements instead of following the scent of money. I got FP and was looking fwd to the first trials. Super unprofessional
17h
jahredbowen
@han.grapple it would be bad business and almost unheard of to make an announcement before the agreements are executed. UFC and ADCC had already made their announcements. I can say with almost 100% certainty that UFC terminated the agreement, more then likely due to cause over ROI and performance. There is a 0% chance that UFC attorneys let an agreement be executed that allowed ADCC to just pull out due to Mo giving someone another chance
17h
meganparducho
@bellavec we do own our decisions, and it has nothing to do with money actually, and 100% to do with providing a better experience for viewers who want to watch live 🙏🏽
17h
meganparducho
@bellavec but I am truly sorry to hear you got FP for ADCC! 🤍
17h
meganparducho
@jahredbowen this misinformation you continue to spread is wild lol
17h3 likesReply
jahredbowen
@meganparducho wow then whoever runs BizDev at UFC should be fired immediately. The fact that formal agreements with exclusive rights weren’t put into place is embarrassing on their end
17h
moorejitsu
@meganparducho it’s still incredibly confusing, especially considering how Flo constantly interrupts streams with ads and Mo kept talking about how FP was great bc you could have multiple screens… If it’s better for ADCC then great but it did come out of nowhere for the public (us). The only reason I pay for Flo is bc of ADCC (they sure know that imo), but as a streaming/content platform they kinda suck pretty bad…
17h
meganparducho
@moorejitsu they are actively working on making sure the automatic ads don’t play over matches
17h
pmuriasbjj
@meganparducho flograppling has a trash website (without working search), how is that experience any better than FP?
16h
meganparducho
@pmuriasbjj some of the comments have pointed out their user experience ☺️ but it’s a lot of comments to sift through!
16h
jahredbowen
@dan.petrea.lazar even if Megan isn’t just saving face.This is still insanely bizarre given the amount of creative and everything that has happened for the partnership already. In situations like this, especially exclusive contract negotiations. It’s not about something being obscure it’s about money out vs. money in. If ADCC costs 2 million to put on, and only brings in 1.5 then it may not be worth it. Other obscure stuff could have really small costs or be a loss leader in an overall strategy. We will likely never know the real reason they suddenly flipped.
12h1 likeReply
meganparducho
@jahredbowen I welcome all conversation about this! But I’m genuinely curious, other than a logo on some graphics, what other creatives have you seen? Were you able to watch the live stream for either of the previous 2 opens?
9hReply
