Schlottke

The last two programs that have been dropped in Division I wrestling had nothing to do with Title IX. Hmmm. What is the wrestling community going to blame this one on? Let us think hard on this one. Who or what can we blame? The damn evil feminists had nothing to do with it, so who is at fault?

The problem is the wrestling community has been pointing the finger at Title IX for way to long. Really their own faults are to blame for the demise of wrestling. God hasnt cursed wrestling, our country hasnt cursed wrestling, wrestlers have failed to adapt and adjust to American laws and media. While women's basketball was introduced into society what seems like a generation ago only now do I see a girl or two at Wrestling Camps. At Missouri there was 1 out of 800 or so campers. At J Robinson camp, (he is much more liberal than Brian Smith), there is about 5 or 6 out of 330 or so campers.

But I digress, remember we cant blame those very evil feminists who want women's wrestling on University of Oregon dropping their wrestling program. Darn IT! It would be easier to sleep at night if we could blame them. So this one falls under the fact that wrestler's have failed to adapt to American Media.

For example in the past instead of opening up results and sending them to newspaper publications and media outlets across the country, the NWCA (the rule making body for NCAA wrestling) has decided the only site good enough for the results was intermatwrestle.com. I think it is a huge conflict of interest for our governing representative at the NCAA level to control the results. They help pass rules that mandate NCAA wrestling programs to enter their results it into their system and then conveniently only share those results with intermat.

Jason Bryant does a great job with Intermat (NWCA owns intermat) and spends hundreds of hours on those results, but he should work directly for the NWCA not intermat. Those results should be available for every website and newspaper in the country and hopefully Mike Moyer can open up that process this year.

Look for example at the program that is replacing wrestling at Oregon...Baseball. Do they have open results for media publications to use..absolutely! Go to http://ncaasports.com/baseball/mens/stats . You can see who is the hardest to strike out, batting averages, wins, losses and everything in between. And remember how much more difficult it is to keep track of baseball than wrestling. There is an infrastructure and a culture that is friendly to the media.

Let me give you another example. I fly around the country sometimes in a plane and sometimes in the white pearl (our conversion van) on my own ticket. No one pays flowrestling. I went and filmed University Nationals put on by USA wrestling. It was a great event and we got hundreds of emails from people in response. People were able to actually watch the event. (I still get people thanking me for it like John Peterson Olympic Gold Medalist last week)

How does flowrestling get paid for such great coverage? Does USA Wrestling say Thank You and please do World Trials (the part that is not on ESPU -which nobody sees anyway), or how bout National duals or Fargo. No they say and I quote "we will not be able to allow you or anyone to film matches at any USA Wrestling in the future." Kinda harsh and final don't you think? How about in 3 years? or 10 years?

According to Larry Nugent, USA wrestling has a contract with Live Sports Video (LSV) that reserves them the right to essentially all but 3 USA wrestling events. The problem is that Live Sports Video doesnt film anything and when they do it the quality is hit or miss and it is pay per view. Can wrestling afford to be pay per view at this point? We need to get wrestling out in every imaginable way.

You might be saying "well get used to the game this is how it is played." I disagree. We, by chance have another site called Flotrack. So we can compare wrestling to Track and Field. Flotrack is about 6x the size of flowrestling due to the participants (remember track has integrated women a while back thus increasing their numbers and influence). Track and Field is well sponsored by the likes of AT&T and Nike and everything in between. The track community has been great at allowing Flotrack shoot races at their events where NBC, ESPN and ESPNU are at. For Example we did just about every race at Track and Field's Trials and Nationals (they are the same). Remember Track is 20x as big as wrestling at the pro level. The sponsors like AT&T, Nike, Reebok, Adidas and Asics love us. Why? Because we promote their athletes by just filming the races and doing interviews!

High School kids can see Allan Webb and now the millions of dollars Nike is paying him is worth it. How much does the best college wrestler get coming out of college? $3,000 is a typical contract.....per year. Add that to the $7500 you can get if you make the world team and you can make a whopping $10,500. Tell me how much more exciting and fan friendly is track compared to wrestling? Did anyone go to the NCAA tournament last year? Wrestling is the most exciting sport on the planet, but there is a reason why there is not much compensation in it.

Well what is the contract for LSV cost? Well I get conflicting reports, some say that USAwrestling actually pays LSV!, while USAwrestling eluded that it was the other way around. They wouldn't tell me because, well I dont know. Everyone knows how much Fox pays for the Superbowl or NBC pays for the Series....but somehow this is super duper confidential secret. Either way no amount of money is worth the deal that USA Wrestling or LSV is paying.

How many people saw National HS Duals on LSV....Lets see a show of hands, come on get em up! Oh No one...huh. I guess you couldn't be a fan of that event unless you went to Oklahoma, but what about World Trials or Senior Nationals in Vegas...Come on all you guys and gals must have ESPNU at your house for the taping of 10 matches. You must have been watching it at home because about 35 people were in the stands for the biggest wrestling event of the year. You mean to tell me that you couldn't be a fan for that event either. Wow!

This is a wake up call for USA Wrestling and NWCA. People dont want to say it, but it needs to be confronted. USA Wrestling needs to make all their events open for anybody and everybody to film. The more it is out there the better. I'm sure it helps their egos to say that the rights are reserved for this that and a couple of squirrels. But it doesn't do their wrestlers any good and any would be sponsors to have no one watch an event on ESPNU. It is the new age and USA wrestling and the NWCA should get on with it. For wrestling to survive they must begin to open up their outlook on media and never mutter the words "Title IX" again.

Now Jim Ravannack is USA Wrestling's President. He is a business man and entrepreneur and founder of the Gator Wrestling Club. I hope he can pull wrestling out of the dark ages. It will be a very critical couple of years. He is going to have to make some serious cultural changes at USA Wrestling. We can only hope that if Jim Ravannack decides to make changes that Mike Moyer and NWCA are not far behind.

Schlottke

Staying away from the Title IX stuff for the most part- here is my opinion on this:

"For example in the past instead of opening up results and sending them to newspaper publications and media outlets across the country, the NWCA (the rule making body for NCAA wrestling) has decided the only site good enough for the results was intermatwrestle.com. I think it is a huge conflict of interest for our governing representative at the NCAA level to control the results. They help pass rules that mandate NCAA wrestling programs to enter their results it into their system and then conveniently only share those results with intermat."

The NCAA makes the rules, NWCA educates the coaches on them, among other things... As I am told, The NWCA does not make the rules.

"Look for example at the program that is replacing wrestling at Oregon...Baseball. Do they have open results for media publications to use..absolutely! Go to http://ncaasports.com/baseball/mens/stats . You can see who is the hardest to strike out, batting averages, wins, losses and everything in between. And remember how much more difficult it is to keep track of baseball than wrestling. There is an infrastructure and a culture that is friendly to the media."

This is the NCAA media website, not the Coaches Association's website... http://www.baseballcoaches.org/ Does not carry results at all.

"Let me give you another example. I fly around the country sometimes in a plane and sometimes in the white pearl (our conversion van) on my own ticket. No one pays flowrestling. I went and filmed University Nationals put on by USA wrestling. It was a great event and we got hundreds of emails from people in response. People were able to actually watch the event. (I still get people thanking me for it like John Peterson Olympic Gold Medalist last week)

How does flowrestling get paid for such great coverage? Does USA Wrestling say Thank You and please do World Trials (the part that is not on ESPU -which nobody sees anyway), or how bout National duals or Fargo. No they say and I quote "we will not be able to allow you or anyone to film matches at any USA Wrestling in the future." Kinda harsh and final don't you think? How about in 3 years? or 10 years?"

USA Wrestling owns the rights to the videos, why would you expect someone to make money by flying on a $300 ticket to an event with a camcorder. If that was legal, I'd be at every popular movie release and PPV fight on the planet with my camera. It might be nice from the perspective of an outside company, but USA Wrestling owns the event's content.

"According to Larry Nugent, USA wrestling has a contract with Live Sports Video (LSV) that reserves them the right to essentially all but 3 USA wrestling events. The problem is that Live Sports Video doesnt film anything and when they do it the quality is hit or miss and it is pay per view. Can wrestling afford to be pay per view at this point? We need to get wrestling out in every imaginable way."

I agree that wrestling is in need of visibility, however, they have a contract with Live Sports Video, which undoubtedly is an exclusive contract- which would really irritate them if someone was releasing their content free on the Internet.

"You might be saying "well get used to the game this is how it is played." I disagree. We, by chance have another site called Flotrack. So we can compare wrestling to Track and Field. Flotrack is about 6x the size of flowrestling due to the participants (remember track has integrated women a while back thus increasing their numbers and influence). Track and Field is well sponsored by the likes of AT&T and Nike and everything in between. The track community has been great at allowing Flotrack shoot races at their events where NBC, ESPN and ESPNU are at. For Example we did just about every race at Track and Field's Trials and Nationals (they are the same). Remember Track is 20x as big as wrestling at the pro level. The sponsors like AT&T, Nike, Reebok, Adidas and Asics love us. Why? Because we promote their athletes by just filming the races and doing interviews!"

I'd have to say that its 20x larger due in large part to the fact that there are a ton of female participants, and there is a much more diverse set of events... not because they film races and release them free.

"High School kids can see Allan Webb and now the millions of dollars Nike is paying him is worth it. How much does the best college wrestler get coming out of college? $3,000 is a typical contract.....per year. Add that to the $7500 you can get if you make the world team and you can make a whopping $10,500. Tell me how much more exciting and fan friendly is track compared to wrestling? Did anyone go to the NCAA tournament last year? Wrestling is the most exciting sport on the planet, but there is a reason why there is not much compensation in it."

Obviously you're going to be a little biased ("most exciting sport on the planet"), but I'd say probably only 1% of the world would agree with that. That thinking needs to change before top wrestlers pull down compensation packages of $500,000 on the regular.

"Well what is the contract for LSV cost? Well I get conflicting reports, some say that USAwrestling actually pays LSV!, while USAwrestling eluded that it was the other way around. They wouldn't tell me because, well I dont know. Everyone knows how much Fox pays for the Superbowl or NBC pays for the Series....but somehow this is super duper confidential secret. Either way no amount of money is worth the deal that USA Wrestling or LSV is paying."

There are literally hundreds of reasons they wouldn't tell you. Against a clause in the contract, would be a pretty simple one. Heck, they are a NPG- their financial documents are probably Online somewhere.
"This is a wake up call for USA Wrestling and NWCA. People dont want to say it, but it needs to be confronted. USA Wrestling needs to make all their events open for anybody and everybody to film. The more it is out there the better. I'm sure it helps their egos to say that the rights are reserved for this that and a couple of squirrels. But it doesn't do their wrestlers any good and any would be sponsors to have no one watch an event on ESPNU. It is the new age and USA wrestling and the NWCA should get on with it. For wrestling to survive they must begin to open up their outlook on media and never mutter the words "Title IX" again."

Even if they did release all of the videos free to their audience, which would not only be a huge expense to host all of the files on their server (*You know the costs associated), but they would then probably even further limit the use (as it would drive more traffic to their site.) So rather than simply asking you not to tape- they could sue you.

I want to make it abundantly clear that I think flowrestling is extremely useful, and I would have to say its the first Web 2.0 wrestling site I've seen. On top of that, these are the views of Me (Jacob Schlottke) alone, and do not reflect the views of TheWrestlingTalk, MatFish, or any other website owned, operated or managed by DRS Solutions or JDSign Interactive.

- end disclaimer

Dart Shark

Considering there are so many errors, and falsehoods in the blog, I guess writing a Title IX story and then trying to throw the NWCA under the bus seems to go hand in hand, right?

Even the replies are way off, which leads me to believe its nothing more than "buddy buddy" chat.

So many things are wrong with that, and it's not exactly something that's only stepped foot in the NWCA office ONCE would even know about.

__________________

The Salad Monster would dominate the Cookie Monster.

fanforlife

I agree with Dart Shark. I also would like to know how a blog about the University of Oregon dropping wrestling, ends up as an attack on the NWCA and USAW?

It should be aimed at why it is being dropped and what we can do to save it!

__________________
Champions are made while no one is watching.

Schlottke

My replies? lol

Schlottke

Here are the replies to the post on Martin's Blog. (from over there)

lowsingle99 said... Well said!
7:37 PM
Shoney Bear said... Preach on!
9:56 PM
bluestater said... I'm sorry, but you could not be more wrong on many different points. First of all, the NWCA is not the rule making body for the NCAA, USAW, or anything else. Secondly, the Mat, InterMat, and every other media outlet gets their results by calling SIDs, compiling turned in results, etc. They don't gank them from other sites.

Listen, anyone who knows me knows I'm not crazy about USAW. But rambling posts that are supposed to be about Oregon are not the place to grind your axe.

Hmmm, I wonder if this post will be "deleted by its author?"
10:05 PM
Martin said... First off, Bluestate Im glad your a fan of the site!

Second, Bluestater do me a favor and call the NCAA at 317-917-6222 and ask them how you go about changing a rule in wrestling and see what they tell you to do.

They will say "go through the NWCA." Call NWCA whatever technical thing you want but I call a spade "a spade."

Second Intermat has an exclusive deal with its owner NWCA at getting all the results that SIDs enter from across the country. If you think Im making this up ask an SID if they enter results in the NWCA system. And if you think that the NWCA doesnt share the results with intermat you are totally misinformed or trying to misinform.

If you make such an inaccurate post again please put your real name so there can be some accountability to your ignorance.

Martin Floreani
3:06 AM
bluestater said... Martin, I post on most wrestling message boards a bluestater, and people who actually know me from wrestling know that bluestater = Maggie Hendricks. More people would probably recognize bluestater than Maggie.

As the NWCA is the coaching body; the coaches are the ones who propose rules changes. You, as a fan, or a member of the media, have no power. Sorry. So the reason someone at the NCAA said to call the NWCA is because they have the resources to mobilize coaches, but Pat Tocci (nor anyone else from the NWCA) has no authority to propose a rule change at an NCAA wrestling committee meeting.

I worked in sports information offices for five years at two different schools, and for PR for the past ten years. The SIDs have no such deal-they're not even that organized. (I know about Co-SIDA, but they don't have the power to strike exclusive deals with the media for their member schools.) It would make no sense! You want your results in as many places as possible. Some SIDs probably have Intermat as the main Web site that they send results to because they want to make sure that the Internet media they work with is reputable and not fly by night. How long has your site been around? I'm sure it will be around a long time but the SIDs don't have time to send results to every blogger. Entering results in the NWCA system doesn't mean that you can't call up the Iowa State SID after their duals and ask for results; you have to build credibility before the SIDs will automatically send them to you.

I think what you have done is taken your anecdotal experiences and applied them to the NCAA and NWCA as a whole. I'm not saying that you didn't have these experiences, but you are just wrong in too many cases.
6:32 AM
Mooseman said... I agree with much of what you say! The wrestling powers that be tend to make getting results an ordeal. Getting results from D1 events is hard enough but getting results from world level events such as Universities or Juniors is most times easier to get from the message boards than it is from USA wrestling. It is also very tough to get D2, D3 and NAIA results in a timely manner.

One of my bigger pet peeves is when there are pics of events such as WTTs or the NCAAa and the photos are not labled( Flo Wrestling is guilty of this as well as USA and others)










)
12:40 AM
Mooseman said... I sense some well founded animosity towards the NWCA and I feel as though the once well meaning organization is getting too big for its breeches.

The NWCA has forgotten that they should exist to help wrestling coaches. Instead they have increased the burden on the small time coach.

The NWCA weight management program( with mandatory participation per NCAA) is a serious pain in the neck. For the coach with 50 kids in the room with 1 part time assistant and a very understaffed training room, the process is way too cumbersome.

Same goes for the 24 hour rule for recording results on their reporting system. Lots of SIDs have no clue how or why this needs done so it is left up to the coach to do.

The NWCA forgets that the majority of the college coaches in the world are not NCAA Div I.
I was at a meeting regarding a venue and date change of the National duals where there were 47 of 48 coaches in agreement on a proposed change (all coaches were D2, D3 or NAIA) and the powers that be had to wait for the input of the 16 D1 coaches. Of course the 16 D1 coaches over ruled our 47 votes.
1:09 AM
Jesse said... I am not 100% sure on this but I do believe the NWCA is trying to make it mandatory for all D1 schools to enter their results into their system. It has to do with this weight management system they are doing. Bluestater...I do agree that you have to go out and get those results but I also think that Martin is partyly right here in that the NWCA aka Intermat have a corner on those results with this system they are trying (or have already) implement. I know first hand how hard and long it takes to get results and get them entered. Now if one site in particular had the schools doing it for them it would save a TON of MONEY and TIME. If the NWCA aka Intermat would have a system where we could just tap into that system they have and have it feed our sites it would be a lot easier for all of us and also benefit everyone as sites could take all that time and money they used to put into results and put into more stories or more coverage. I do think the NWCA doesn't want anyone else to get those results faster then them so they can keep subscribers to their site. Just my 2 cents.
9:48 AM
Jason Bryant said... Martin,

Having initially read the blog while relaxing on the Jersey Shore this weekend, I find it completely troubling that being impatient has caused you to write such an error-filled blog.

Everyone’s got issues with certain entities, and you’re not alone in that regard. There are things I’d love to do, but can’t because we honor contracts and professional media stipulations.

There’s been a few things posted on here that are quite false, and posting such things without any verification or input from the companies you seek to topple is unethical and unprofessional.

I have stated time and time again, to you and to others, that flowrestling’s video content is outstanding. I’ve watched several featurettes and interviews during the season. I have told you this via e-mail and in person.

You harp about results, which we have been in discussion about for a couple of months. I’m sorry we can’t move as fast as you want us to, but going around to coaches and telling them you should be doing results instead of whoever is backbiting and again, unprofessional.

Since you brought out several erroneous things about the NWCA/InterMat as it relates to results, let me educate you on how InterMat gets results to the web. Every explanation and theory you have offered here has been false, completely false.

Each fall, I e-mail all my wrestling SID contacts from every wrestling division – I, II, III, NAIA, Junior College, California Community Colleges – all of them. I ensure to get the proper wrestling contact, request that InterMat be added to their release list (if we’re not already on it), and update my own lists.

This is the part I’ve explained to you time and time again, yet you omitted this piece of dialogue from your blog.

I then enter all the dual meet results into the InterMat system manually. I get the results emailed to one of four different InterMat accounts and take the box score, pull up my system and enter them. It takes about 2-3 minutes a dual. That information is sent to me by e-mail and I have to re-work it into our system.

Sometimes a co-worker helps, but 95 percent of the dual meets are entered BY HAND, by me. The NWCA Optimal Performance Calculator (OPC) is what oversees the weight management.

Yes, there is a requirement for member schools that use the OPC to have their weigh-in and results recorded within 24 hours of the completion of the dual. Why? Because there are guidelines with how much weight one can lose in a week, between competitions, etc.

Being someone that knows a bit about databases, I would expect you to realize that the systems are not the same, don’t have the same intent and are very very troublesome to tie together.

Are those results from the OPC “shared” with InterMat? Absolutely not. I enter them myself, often times staying up until 3-4 in the morning to make sure that Portland State’s dual meets are on the web page before people wake up in the morning.

Why does InterMat get the results faster and quicker than anyone? Because that’s what I do. People come to InterMat for results first, not because the NCAA or anyone requires them to be sent to us (which again, isn’t the case), but because usually within 30-40 minutes of a dual being over and release being sent, I have it up on the site.

That’s long before any college coach or SID sits down to enter the OPC weigh-in forms.

We have talked about my goals in providing a results component for wrestling web sites that is uniform and complete. What I don’t like is the fact I’m paid to do a job, I care about that job, and I try to do my job to the best of my abilities and yes, that means “beating” the competition on results.

But when that competition knowingly pirates those results (I have at least 10 documented cases where flowrestling has pulled the exact results from InterMat) and then pass the work off as their own, I have a problem.

You also concentrate solely on Division I results – I enter D2, D3, NAIA and JUCO results too. Division I only encompasses less than 35 percent of wrestling programs. What’s the point in covering wrestling if you’re not going to cover the entire sport?

You want the results? Put in the time that I do and you’ll get the results. This isn’t about me and my ego or down talking anyone. I’ve had a pretty good relationship with everyone in the wrestling media for the last 10 years, specifically the last two and a half I’ve been here at InterMat.

If I wanted to sit on my ass and wait for college coaches/SID’s to put stuff into the OPC and have it magically post to InterMat, I’d have a lot of angry wrestling fans that wouldn’t see their results the day of.

To clarify, the weight management data and results do NOT post to InterMat.

While you are saying “Jason Bryant does a great job” you then go out of your way to pass off false information as fact, when I’ve told you time and time again what the deal is.

I guess framing the argument as “Little flowrestling” vs. the “Big Bad Wrestling Organizations” might be viewed to get some rabble-rousing going, but you know me, we’ve had cordial conversations, we’ve told jokes and goofed off, but for you to write something as error-filled as this really leaves me scratching my head.

I’m about the easiest going guy in the world to get along with. I see no point in continually trying to be confrontational.

I thought you were willing to work together? I thought you wanted to help wrestling? I thought you were strictly in this not to make money and give back? Yet, when we don’t respond to your demands, you try to flatten us on a blog.

The last thing I’ll speak to is the lack of professionalism being displayed. I told you in Las Vegas that I wasn’t blowing you off and we had other things on our plate at the time. I told Andrew Hipps at RevWrestling and John Sachs at Tech-Fall.com the plans about the results component.

Calling me after high school nationals and ripping into me for things that went on at National Duals was unprofessional, especially since I sat next to you at HS Nationals for three days and you never said anything about it, yet as soon as I leave, you blow my cell phone up.

Not abiding by the primarily laws and ethics of being media and being a journalist are two big pet peeves of mine. You don’t want to follow them because “wrestling needs this and wrestling needs that.” There are still rules to be followed. The things you try to rant about would not go over at any major NCAA or professional sporting event – with the notable track & field exception, which I will defer to you because I have little knowledge about the coverage of that sport.

What I do have knowledge on in relation to covering sports is baseball, basketball, football, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, wrestling, tennis, ice hockey to name a few. There are professional rules to be followed and you continually pass those off as “restrictions put on flowrestling” by those that want to “discriminate” against you.

I have no problem with Flo’s content, I’ve said that since the onset. I do have a problem with someone pirating someone else’s time and effort (my hours on entering results for the wrestling community), taking shots at people because we don’t work “fast enough” for you and a general disregard for anyone other than your own web site.

Other notes: The NCAA is not governed by the NWCA. I urge you to call Randy Buhr rather than someone that answers the phone at the NCAA. He’ll set you correct, since you don’t want to listen to those of us that know.

The NCAA doesn’t have any license with us regarding the entry of results. Why are they up on InterMat faster than anywhere else? Because I work that much harder to get them up for the wrestling fan. My goal is to put InterMat as the leader in wrestling news, results and information – I did the same when I was running my Virginia web site.

One poster said results dealt with subscriptions. That’s not the case. All current year results on the web are free and do not require a subscription. They have not been “Premium” since the advent of collegesports.com websites and that information has become free anyway.

I work directly for the NWCA and my main duty is running/operating the InterMat web site. I would urge you to please actually fact-check your statements before posting.

I always thought we were cordial and had a professional working relationship. I guess you feel differently.

Rules apply to everyone, don’t think you’re the only one that has to abide by them.

Sorry for the length of this, but passing around mis-information is continually unprofessional. If you want to be taken seriously as a legit media outlet, please act accordingly.
12:09 PM

fanforlife

I am beginning to wonder what their next statement may be?

__________________
Champions are made while no one is watching.

Champ Kind

Its funny when the pot calls the kettle black.

__________________
I will smash your face into a car windshield and then take your mother, Dorothy Mantooth, out to a nice seafood dinner and never call her again!

Tell me about it, this morning, I woke up and I shit a squirrel, but what I can't get is the damn thing is still alive. So now, I've got a shit covered squirrel running around my office and I don't know what to name it.