During my sophomore spring, my high school best friend and I — both sports editors of our respective campus papers at the time — compared our processes for reporting on games. As a Division I journalist, he viewed the action from the private media section and had to filter his post-game questions through the team’s PR manager. Meanwhile, as a Division III reporter, I would just plant myself in the stands right next to the players’ parents, walk onto the field and grab a few players for an interview.
This is why I love sports at the 5Cs: They’re the most accessible higher-level sports you may ever get. Every student can watch hundreds of live games among over a dozen sports from two of the top DIII programs in the country — for free. And when I learned that this extended to free streaming for all sports, I thought I was set for life.
But that was until this year.
Last summer, the SCIAC signed a five-year contract with FloSports to make the platform its sole streaming home, effective this season. FloSports is a streaming service with a dubious history of data collection and privacy violations that houses several DI, DII and DIII conferences in addition to a number of niche sports. However, this means that instead of watching every game for free, students are now being charged $9.99 a month, or $5.99 if they commit for the whole year. For parents, alumni and everyone else, it’s even worse, coming in at a whopping $19.99, or $8.99 if you subscribe for the whole year.
Why make this move? Well, if you ask SCIAC Commissioner Jenn Dubow, it’s all about a new “quality streaming experience.”
“FloSports has demonstrated a significant and sincere commitment to providing funding and exposure for small-school college sports in a collaborative way that can help each of our institutions’ unique approach and goals to streaming and athletics communications,” Dubow said when announcing the partnership last June.
As my available time for attending games progressively diminished throughout college, my reliance on SCIAC streaming surged. Lacrosse during Wednesday night classes, baseball during beer league and football at house parties — I was locked in and I loved it.
This year though, I have not streamed a single game. That’s because, as I’ve said before, paying to watch DIII sports directly opposes why they are so great. Yes, subscribing also comes with the entire FloSports package, including plenty of college and other obscure sports goodies — but I don’t care about those. I care about the teams of people I go to school with: my friends and the parasocial relationships I’ve developed with athletes I’ve never met.
The SCIAC should know that the nicer camera angles would do little to wow me because DIII sports have never been about the comfort of the viewing experience. One of my favorite teams to watch is Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) women’s soccer, and their field has no actual seating, just a big hill 100 yards away from the farside goal. Even still, I’ve been able to see enough to have my heart broken there as a fan two years in a row.
This is not a move made with students in mind. If a 5C sports sicko like me, who borrowed the ESPN+ account of a friend’s dad just to watch the P-P football team in the NCAA playoffs, is not willing to fork over the cash to FloSports, I am incredibly convinced that there is almost no one else who will.
The SCIAC made this plainly clear in their press release announcing the partnership.
“It’s more important than ever to provide a platform to these programs that will give them national and international reach with a vehicle to provide exposure for their many athletes,” Kolby Paxton, rights and acquisitions manager for FloSports, said.
I’m curious: Beyond those with a direct connection to these schools, what could possibly be the national or international market for these teams? With thousands of games playing simultaneously and on-demand across the FloSports catalog, why would a random person be tuning into these games? And if it’s for scouting, wouldn’t they already know the program and be able to watch the games for free anyway?
I know from being the only person at many games with no personal relation to any of the players on the field that there isn’t much of a sports culture across the 5Cs. Even when people show up for big Sixth Street matchups, it’s more of an excuse for liberal arts students to cosplay as rowdy Big Ten fans than about anything on the field. Still, to see the SCIAC acquiesce to FloSports feels like a concession to a dead sports culture in the conference.
If I were a parent or family member who couldn’t come to games, yes, I probably would spend some extra cash to get a better view of my child. But the issue is that now you have to pay to watch them at all. If this was simply an optional add-on for higher production and bonus content, I would not be writing this piece. Instead, this is a monopolization of many people’s only way to watch these games.
I get this is about money. I’m not ignorant. Those chartered flights for the P-P football team and the new Claremont McKenna College Sports Bowl — which you can name for just $75,000,000 — won’t pay for themselves. I know it is a better look for the conference if their highlights look better. I also know college sports have never been the morally righteous party when it comes to squeezing as much cash as they can from students already paying their schools tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.
However, DIII sports, especially programs like CMS and P-P, have had this capitalist influence significantly reduced from their big siblings in the Big Ten. For nearly every athlete at the 5Cs, there is no “Name Image” and “Likeness” money, no post-graduate professional or Olympic career and not even the thrill of being an on-campus celebrity (you’re all famous to me, though). They are playing here for the love of the game. And while I think they deserve to be loved back by us non-athlete regular people, I would much rather do that by cheering than handing over $70 a year to FloSports.
For CMS and P-P, this is a condemnation coming from your self-proclaimed biggest fan. The end of the FloSports deal won’t be until the class of 2029 has graduated — students who aren’t even in college yet. By that time, no one will remember that streaming sports here was once free.
But maybe it can be again.
I call on our athletics departments to remember that what sets us apart from many others across the country is simply our financial accessibility. I love these sports and always seek to share that love with my community. Unfortunately, it seems that this love is auctionable at under $5.99 a month.
Ben Lauren PZ ’25 is the former editor-in-chief of TSL and likes to think of himself as the biggest 5C sports fan on these campuses (he can say that confidently because Ansley Washburn SC ’26 is abroad).
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