United States disc golf championships

[klodkrawler05]

"stemmed from an automated system response meant to protect the broadcast from an attack triggered by the spike in viewership, subsequently stopping the stream for some viewers. We will know more soon. We have heard varying reports of the length of time before viewers were able to find the stream again"

I could conceivably see how this played out at least as it pertained to me. I was at a tournament Saturday and our second round finished about the time Kyle Klein got to hole 15. Since he's the local hometown hero everybody that had paid for PPV had their phones out and pretty much the entire tournament was watching. When the stream went down right before the playoff it went down for pretty much everyone in attendance, which makes sense if the Vimeo system thought there was an attack on the broadcast and kicked all of the most recently joined viewers of the stream off?

I'm not in IT or really that computer savvy, so that might be totally wrong, but at least it seems like a somewhat rational reason why everyone in our group got booted since we joined on late rather than having the stream play the whole time.

 

[davetherocketguy]

Give me the nice post-produced content that we've come to expect from Jomez any day. A half hour for half a round is perfect, and I'm pretty good at avoiding spoilers for a day or two. I can sneak in a video whenever I want. The USDGC wants me to pay $20 to watch how many hours of this live, where you sometimes can't tell if a drive is good or not on this bland course, and to boot, it has many technical issues and can be unwatchable at times? I've got a job and kids and stuff to do! Power to you if it's your thing, but there's no way I'm going to ever pay and sit for this.

THIS THIS THIS!!!

:hfive::thmbup::clap:

Could not have worded it better myself.

 

[dehaas]

"stemmed from an automated system response meant to protect the broadcast from an attack triggered by the spike in viewership, subsequently stopping the stream for some viewers. We will know more soon. We have heard varying reports of the length of time before viewers were able to find the stream again"

I could conceivably see how this played out at least as it pertained to me. I was at a tournament Saturday and our second round finished about the time Kyle Klein got to hole 15. Since he's the local hometown hero everybody that had paid for PPV had their phones out and pretty much the entire tournament was watching. When the stream went down right before the playoff it went down for pretty much everyone in attendance, which makes sense if the Vimeo system thought there was an attack on the broadcast and kicked all of the most recently joined viewers of the stream off?

I'm not in IT or really that computer savvy, so that might be totally wrong, but at least it seems like a somewhat rational reason why everyone in our group got booted since we joined on late rather than having the stream play the whole time.

I'd agree with this about after the coverage initially dropped or people tuning in late or whatever. The thing is though, this is what Vimeo does as a business, and surely they provide services for feeds with more viewers than what USDGC had? Maybe somebody with more expertise can chime in, but it almost seems as if an agreement with them would include an estimate of viewership numbers so an appropriate amount of bandwidth/price is established.

Just seems odd that they'd charge a fixed amount for a service with no cap as to what they are providing on their end. So either they overshot their estimates of viewers (not necessarily a bad thing) and didn't pay for enough "service" or after a legit hiccup in service enough people bombarded the feed and Vimeo's algorithm thought it was an attempted hack? I understand them having something behind the scenes that looks at a ratio of viewership and attempted new connections, but again, they provide the same services for a ton of other people too. Surely they've had issues with feeds in the past and had people try to reconnect and should know it's not an evil attempt at anything? Or within their industry their service is hot garbage but best bang for the buck on a DG budget?

Regardless of the reason they're going to hit a point where a larger investment in live broadcast is necessary. They've chosen live coverage as the path of the future, which is fine, but any growing pains will have a much more immediate impact to the product. I'm sure they understand that and it's not a continued trend hopefully.

 

[glassila]

I apologize to anyone who thought my post (#333) was an actual statement from DGN or the USDGC. It was complete sarcasm on my part. I was not happy that the cost to view the event was $25 and wanted to make a point about it.

original post...
Official statement: "We apologize to the handful of viewers who lost video coverage for a few seconds during the tournament. We will be raising the viewing fee to $30 in 2022. Thank you for your support."

 

[Horsman]

So when do we think uDisc is going to go behind a paywall for USDGC. So that you have to pay if you want to know the scores.

 

[nothinbuttree]

So all those folks that paid big bucks to attend in person supposedly also paid an extra $25 for the live stream? Or did that come for free with the spectator package?

What other sporting event gets a large increase in viewership during the last 10-15 minutes of the event? "Well, looks like its the 9th inning, guess I will start watching". Not really buying that. Seems like spectators, if they also had the live package, would have been watching throughout the day as well.

 

[chevis]

I think if people knew there would be post production today the reaction after the live feed issues yesterday wouldn't have been as severe?

yes. when ppl watch anything live & it cuts out there is an (irrational) anger that comes out. so many times ive been watching some sporting event on tv & it cuts out & i swear, throw stuff, send angry emails, threaten to cut ppl... it takes a while before i calm down & remember it doesn't matter.

I'm in the camp of people who don't have the time or attention span to sit sedentarily for 3 or more hours watching other people wearing pajamas chase each other and a projectile around while drunk people yell at them from the stands. I thank the Ford family and their abominable Detroit Lions for helping me realize over the years that watching football, and eventually baseball too, is a waste of time, something better suited for a century in our rear-view mirrors.

Give me the nice post-produced content that we've come to expect from Jomez any day. A half hour for half a round is perfect, and I'm pretty good at avoiding spoilers for a day or two. I can sneak in a video whenever I want. The USDGC wants me to pay $20 to watch how many hours of this live, where you sometimes can't tell if a drive is good or not on this bland course, and to boot, it has many technical issues and can be unwatchable at times? I've got a job and kids and stuff to do! Power to you if it's your thing, but there's no way I'm going to ever pay and sit for this.

i really like my mondays that have post production disc golf waiting for me... today all i get is this thread (and a few highlights).

 

[davetherocketguy]

Received today around noon.

USDGC PPV Viewers,

(blah blah blah)

Holy crap what a long winded explanation. That email should have been like 3 sentences long - tops: "DGN is truly sorry for not delivering on product you paid for. Here's what we're doing to make it right. If you'd like a more detailed explanation of what went wrong please click here."

That thing sounds like a bunch of excuses. If DGN wants my $$ next year they need to outline publicly what they are doing to make it right with consumers now. As it stands, there is no way I am plunking down ANY money if there is an off chance my stream will be randomly dropped.

 

[DavidSauls]

So all those folks that paid big bucks to attend in person supposedly also paid an extra $25 for the live stream? Or did that come for free with the spectator package?

What other sporting event gets a large increase in viewership during the last 10-15 minutes of the event? "Well, looks like its the 9th inning, guess I will start watching". Not really buying that. Seems like spectators, if they also had the live package, would have been watching throughout the day as well.

I don't know the answer to the first question, but I know people who attended on one of the days, but bought the streaming to watch on the other three days. Plus, I was there live on Day 3 with one of those people, and sometimes in slow moments we'd use the streaming to look in on other cards.

I don't know the answer to the 2nd, either, at least as far as "how many". I tune in a lot of events in other sports near the end, to see how they come out and watch any last-minute dramatics. Including this year's USDGC -- which was streaming next door -- I spent much of the day outside doing stuff, but came in to watch the final few holes.

Add any any spectators who had the streaming, watched live until the 18th hole (where they couldn't secure a vantage point), and may have streamed at that point.

 

[Harold Duvall]

Hi Dave,

We're in the middle of a 2-year plan to improve the viewership around 18's green. We've started carefully removing some of the invasive understory trees while preserving the English Ivy ground cover. The goal is to allow spectators to look up into the green from the road. I think we are off to a good start. The changes will not accommodate all of the crowd, and yet, I think it will be a meaningful improvement.

Hope all is well at Stoney Hill,

Harold

 

[DavidSauls]

Hi Dave,

We're in the middle of a 2-year plan to improve the viewership around 18's green. We've started carefully removing some of the invasive understory trees while preserving the English Ivy ground cover. The goal is to allow spectators to look up into the green from the road. I think we are off to a good start. The changes will not accommodate all of the crowd, and yet, I think it will be a meaningful improvement.

Hope all is well at Stoney Hill,

Harold

I was going to suggest that, but assumed it would be impossible to get permission. It would certainly help a lot. (I liked the jumbotron idea, myself).

As I said earlier, it's a conundrum -- a great finishing hole, a tough hole to watch.

All's well at Stoney Hill, where we're happy to have no crowds, at all.

 

[autocrosscrx]

What other sporting event gets a large increase in viewership during the last 10-15 minutes of the event? "Well, looks like its the 9th inning, guess I will start watching". Not really buying that. Seems like spectators, if they also had the live package, would have been watching throughout the day as well.

You don't see the numbers a lot, but it is actually a thing that happens across the board. Something gets popular on twitter/wherever if it is a really good game, then the viewer numbers blow up. Heck, it even happened with the Pacer/Pistons Malice at the Palace game in 2004. And that was driven by people calling their friends and telling them to change the channel.

 

[Ryan P.]

You don't see the numbers a lot, but it is actually a thing that happens across the board. Something gets popular on twitter/wherever if it is a really good game, then the viewer numbers blow up. Heck, it even happened with the Pacer/Pistons Malice at the Palace game in 2004. And that was driven by people calling their friends and telling them to change the channel.

Social media has simply amplified that.

 

[mattw]

You don't see the numbers a lot, but it is actually a thing that happens across the board. Something gets popular on twitter/wherever if it is a really good game, then the viewer numbers blow up. Heck, it even happened with the Pacer/Pistons Malice at the Palace game in 2004. And that was driven by people calling their friends and telling them to change the channel.

Disc gold is also a little different than other sports in that a large portion of the viewing audience is active in weekend tournaments across the country. How many of those tournaments finished up and people logged on once they heard of all the activity at the top of the leaderboard over the last few holes? I would think that could cause a late surge in viewers.

 

[teemkey]

Surely you arent referreing to this? Did someone really think it wasnt made up? (Well in my emotional state i did, for a tenth of a second)
...

I was, but not as if that quote was from DGN, Jeff Spring would craft a more professional response (as he did), but others in the organization might offload the blame, state they did everything they promised, and that more reliable delivery technology would require a higher price. All of which is probably true. None of which gives the subscriber what they paid for.

 

[Flick Maniac]

Even so, ALL the viewers were paid viewers, i.e. a number that must have been known before lead card hits #17. So lets say they go to the service provider, "we estimate based on last year, and the boom of the sport that this year we will sell x number of packages, and obviously expect all of them be live at the same time at least for end of final round". If the sales exceed that they could realisticall be expected to update the service provider with a new number.

Dont tell me a surge of people BOUGHT the package for the last 3 holes. And if the Vimeo platform interprets all sudden spikes as ddos attacks then they are insane.

 

[Ryan P.]

If Paige had shot even in the back 9 round 3, there would have been a playoff. Oof.

 

[Innova63]

All's well at Stoney Hill, where we're happy to have no crowds, at all.

Could this happen??


:thmbup::thmbup::thmbup:

#USDGC@Stoney???

 

[DavidSauls]

Could this happen??


:thmbup::thmbup::thmbup:

#USDGC@Stoney???

Ha, ha. Those guys would shred our course, and thus our egos. Even the amped-up layout
we're thinking about putting in.

Our quarter-of-a-bar cell coverage out here in the boondocks might be problematic, too.......

 

[DavidSauls]

....plus, I have nightmares for weeks before hosting a charity XC-tier. I can't imagine what they go through on the scale of the USDGC production.