D.C. United and New England Revolution were tied with several minutes of stoppage time still to go. A win, loss or draw were all possibilities on the table. Then, for United fans watching the official stream of the game back at home, the game was replaced with a message: “Please stand by. We are experiencing technical difficulties.”
It was not a brief hiccup in the stream, nor was it the first time this year technical difficulties linked to United’s new broadcast partner, FloSports, have angered fans trying to watch their team play.
D.C. United announced in January its new partnership with FloSports, an over-the-top, pay-to-stream platform that was founded in 2006. FloSports — technically, its soccer-dedicated channel, FloFC — would carry the broadcasts for 21 of United’s 34 games this year, representing all games not televised by a national MLS partner. Fans had to pay $8.99 a month for FloFC, or a discounted rate of $5.99 a month for members of one of the team’s three supporters groups.
But in its debut March 10, FloSports’ stream crashed during the game, and even when it was working, fans complained of it being grainy and low-quality.
Saturday’s more recent outage would have been even more disastrous had it started a minute or two earlier, as fans could have missed Wayne Rooney scoring on a penalty kick in the 91st minute to salvage a tie with New England in dramatic fashion.
Jay Igiel, longtime United fan and elder of the United supporters group Barra Brava, lamented that “the story is not about the success of the team this year.”
“Rather, once again, it’s about FloSports and the inability of anyone to watch the games,” Igiel said.
United was the first MLS team to strike a deal with FloSports to be its local broadcast partner; FC Cincinnati, the league’s newest entry, has since become the second. United’s contract with FloSports is for up to four years.
Before FloSports, United matches were found on WJLA 24/7 News. The broadcast team of Dave Johnson and Devon McTavish signed on to continue calling United’s matches for FloFC. But they are not traveling to away games for Flo, so when the stream cut out in the final minutes of Saturday’s contest, Johnson and McTavish lost it, too — yet had to finish their job.
United issued a statement apologizing for the technical difficulties.
“Being able to watch your team for the entirety of the match is of utmost importance to our supporters which is why this incident is completely unacceptable,” the club’s statement read. “We are doing everything we can to fix this problem to ensure this technical issue does not reoccur in future broadcasts.”
Reached for comment, FloSports provided a statement to The Washington Times that appeared to be an expanded version of a statement posted to its FloFC Twitter account Monday afternoon — which said in part that “FloSports and D.C. United are jointly working with our production partners to ensure future broadcasts are uninterrupted and maintain the high standard we expect for premium content.”
“We are still investigating with our partners, and while at this time it does not appear that the root cause originated with FloSports, we fully support the statement by our partners at D.C. United that a broadcast failure is unacceptable,” the expanded statement added.
Igiel believes the only solution is simply for United to sever ties with FloSports, but he does not expect anything to change in 2019, given the logistical challenge of finding a new partner midseason and the unknown terms of their contract.
The technical glitches have had a negative effect on soccer supporters culture in the District, starting with the tradition of public viewing parties, Igiel said.
“It’s extremely hard to organize a viewing party, to get people to come downtown, to come out to a bar to watch a game when they can’t watch the game,” he said.
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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