Despite my earlier statement, I will be watching the 2010 WFTDA Western Regional Tournament first hand this weekend in Sacramento. After all, not only is my home team competing but, according to some, Westerns this year could boast the best competition of all the 2010 Big-5 tourneys. While I’ll be in Sacramento and don’t have an opinion on the matter addressed in this post, I am curious to hear what you all think…

I’m a derby cheapskate. In my 5 years with the Rose City Rollers I can count on one hand the number of home bouts I’ve paid to attend. While I’m always happy to shell out to purchase a ticket to a bout, I’m first gonna work every angle I can to get in on your coaching, officiating, announcing, or volunteering crew. You think I enjoy helping with the production? That’s valuable time I could be drinking and shouting at your referees! I’m that guy you’ll find digging through the bargain bin of your merch booth buying t-shirts from last season. I’m the fan who smuggles in his $1 PBR’s because the venue’s $2 rate is an outrageous price. I put the cheap and the skate in cheapskate.

The High Quality Sample* (pre-recorded) gives a taste of what's available for your cash.

Which is why this year’s Western Regional tournament broadcast coverage has me stymied. “Pay Per View” you say? As in I pay to view derby? From the comfort of my own couch? Like I need to be part of your capitalist economy? Heresy! In all my years of derby fandom, I’ve never paid for a live bout feed! I don’t even pay my cable bill!

To be fair- a free stream will be offered as well. The event is offering a “standard quality” free stream along the lines of what you’re used to seeing out of UStream or Justin.tv. The Pay Per View is promising “larger, clearer video” and ad-free viewing, something you don’t get with either of derby’s go-to derby distribution channels. So at the cost of $9.99/day I don’t have to leave my couch to close the pop-up ads for video games and male enhancement supplements (targeted marketing fail- I already own plenty of both). As for superior image quality, we’ll have to see- sometimes guessing at the names and numbers on jerseys is fun (makes a great drinking game) so I’m curious if this larger and clearer promise means we’ll get to see the details we want to see.

This is the second offering of paid viewership for a flat track tournament to come out of the West this year (second that I know of anyway). In August RCR’s Hometown Throwdown was presented in a similar manner- with options for free and ppv streams. People all over the world got to watch Gotham mob up on the PacNW’s finest- some on the free and fuzzy UStream feed and some on the higher quality paid stream. The price tag was half as much per day ($5 for Throwdown, $9 for Rollin’), but for only about 1/3 of the content (6 bouts at Throwdown, 17 at Rollin’). And considering it’s the same video production company for both tournaments, I think you’ll be able to draw a lot more similarities between the two streaming offerings.

The Price of Freedom

The High Quality stream sales pitch boasts “People who choose to purchase this stream are also helping cover the Internet and production costs.” Interesting approach in the DIY grass roots world of modern roller derby. After all, leagues often swallow the whole cost of recording and broadcasting their bouts. This comes directly out of bout revenue (tickets sold and sponsorship dollars). In the model presented for Rollin’ on the River you, the consumer who didn’t buy a plane ticket and weekend admission, get to help share the burden and your money goes directly to the event.

How does that Ustream.tv ad taste? Clicking the X on these pop-ups gets in the way of my "official timeouts" drinking game.

Ustream and Justin.tv among other services cropping in up recent years have been a boon for small fry & hobbyist streamers because they offer mass distribution of your content with little or no cost to the creator. Thus far the derby world has taken full advantage of this by sending feeds to distributors instead of incurring their own costly equipment and bandwidth expenses. The hosting distributors make it up on their end, though, by bombarding you with ads and pocketing ad revenue that never makes it back to the derby community.

How many of your bought a Toyota after watching Eastern Regionals? (Justin.tv intro ad) Toyota is not a roller derby sponsor.

The major content producer in the derby broadcast world- DNN- supports their production costs (video equipment & travel) through viewer contributions/donations and advertising geared toward the derby community. A cost offset to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per year. How much of their funding goes to their production and how much gets back to the event & hosting league is hard to say as those matters are private and it’s hard to put a price tag on exposure. In this funding model everyone enjoys the same quality of product though only some viewers foot the bill.

Rollin’ on the River contracted with Blaze Streaming to deliver a weekend of coverage with a funding model (read: your wallet) that promises a direct pay out to the cost of the event, lowering the financial burden of the hosting league. The goal, as I understand it, is to deliver a high caliber of derby coverage with a sustainable method for paying for it. After all- delivering high quality coverage aint cheap and until Coca-Cola starts footing the bill we’re kinda on our own for making that happen.

Buy It?

So what’s the consensus derby world at large? Is derby at home worth paying for? Is this an approach to funding you can get behind?

I’d love to hear from someone who purchased the Hometown Throwdown coverage- was the quality boost worth your $10?

And what about the price presented for Rollin’ on the River? $20 for the whole weekend (pre-sale) or $9.99/day.

• • *Reference:

Rollin’ on the River Live Stream page
*High Quality Sample link
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