trackgopher

The issue is that once you got into 16 (wo)man brackets, there is the possibility of them wrestling more than 5 times, as is the NFHS rule. What happens when the IHSAA (while you probably do not know how involved they are) says that 16 man WB-5th Place 6 is the way we have to compete because of the too many matches issue? I do not have insider information, but that is what it seems happened.

I can agree with this. Again, if anyone wants to volunteer to do things like these, we would be more than happy to try to work something out.

It is far from a done deal. It is just becoming more and more apparent that more needs to be done. We are working to figure out what the best course of action is going to be, but can tell you that something has to change. We had fifteen messages sent through from TW about the issues at a couple tables. Unfortunately they did not respond with the actual table numbers. Here is the biggest issue. We have to beg people to work the tables. Teams turn in a list of people and then for some reason they are unavailable to do the jobs so we have to ask the general public to assist. There was even a point where I had to sit at a table as one of the event management. And hopefully there was no issues with talking at the 3A finals match. If there was, I am probably in trouble myself. Haha. Honestly I love working tables, as evident that I work Big Tens and NCAAs (volunteer). But for me, running tournaments and coaching still have my heart more.

Unfortunately they were told to begin the day, after reports of a couple of people trashing a teams coaching staff, and again later in the day when TW sent us a message about another issue. That was why I was asking for mat #s if possible. Unfortunately we are at a point where next year we will have to strongly question if the audio will be live due to these issues and lack of knowledge of who was causing the issues. This helps us know the mat that was being ran due to giving specifics! So thank you! The MD-Cathedral stream was a little shaky for a while, but it should have resolved in the middle of the dual. We stopped streaming and started again, and it was showing that it was working as it should. We logged in as a user to closely monitor. For the lets go xxx, those were the schools managers that were also at the table. This is no different than any other event. It is always good to have checks and balances and there were a couple of instances that the checks and balances were utilized for discrepancies with the scores and such. The managers will still be allowed at the tables, but we may move the cameras so that they are heard less. There was one large issue in the middle of the meet as a wrestler fell into a computer and ultimately took down the entire event's streams. But it only should have been down for at most 2 minutes. We do apologize for this issue, but there wasn't much we could have done about it! We are also aware that mat 1 was having some issues throughout the day with freezing. We kept that mat up, but know that some matches were missed due to the freezing. We regret that it happened, but we were trying to monitor it closely. If you guys do still have more comments on how to make it better for those at home, please let us know! I am compiling the responses for the TW extraordinaire Pat Culp and she is always willing to try to make things better.

Any clue what dual might have been occurring for all of this? Let us know any complaints. We want to run the best tournament we can but need your feedback with that kind of info to get us to bring the best back! Thanks.

That is not what I thought you were talking about! I thought you were talking TrackCast, and I apologize. Now for that, this match is over is triggered by the matside controller. And the ads are ran on a x number of minutes interval. Unfortunately, I am not sure if much is going to change here as that is what the Gold Membership fixes.

1st Paragraph: TW prides themselves on prompt and personalized customer service. Sure there are FAQs for situations where the issue happens a lot and they just use that 'canned response' so to say. 2nd: TW no longer has a contract with USAW since NBCSE took over. 3rd: Andy Hamilton (Director of Wrestling Information or something to that effect) was hired to highlight more events. They also have hired Eric Olanoski and a couple other sports journalists to cover more events. This part of the business is getting off the ground, but they are not trying to compete on other things with Flo. This year was the first time that TW went through the conferences and did conference and NCAA previews. They will get better!

And to answer a question a question that some might have, if they know who/what I am about. I am 100% for TW, but I am further 100% for wrestling in general. I have watched events on Flo, their FloDocs are great. I just would never use them. But that is because I am who I am. I do not hate anyone for using them. Also one other thing to clear up, Track and Flo had a great relationship. If you search Justin Tritz on Flo, you get an interview of the CEO of TrackWrestling. There were some issues that occurred and Flo began Arena and the whole relationship ended. There is much much much more to the story, but if anyone remembers events being on Flo for video and Track for administration it was working just fine. I am also more than willing to still run IHPO for Joe even though he is working with the dark side here. (Hopefully I don't get thrown out again this year by a guy I have nothing but respect for). In this instance, Joe believes that Flo has a better product and platform to show the world what Indiana has. I disagree, but that does not mean I am right or Joe is. No hard feelings there. Last thing, if anyone is willing to teach me how to run a wrestling tournament, I would kindly accept that help. I was told this year that I did not know how to run a wrestling tournament by a parent at Frosh-Soph State North Qualifier. If that person wanted to show me how to run a wrestling tournament I would be more than happy to accept that training! Just wanted to throw that out there. -That nameless Portage guy that everyone has seen, but no one knows.

*This is not a statement made by TrackWrestling or NBC SportsEngine* TrackGopher is not a full time TW employee and truly does TW Support for the love of technology and wrestling. I obviously have a bias on this matter, but also have a knowledge of what both platforms bring to the wrestling world. Here is the issue...what .02 said is actually how it is supposed to work. (Though in Indiana, I try to turn off all of the ads between matches when I am running the tournament. Though sometimes there is human error and sometimes I am not able to shut off the ad volume either (sorry again)) I do not see the production from a user side (I am typically the one running the tournament). That segment is traditionally 15 seconds long and it is triggered by the user at the computer clicking save result on the matside controller. Unfortunately we have situations where untrained table help does not select correct winners or winners at all and some issues do occur. I know that TrackWrestling as a whole apologizes for issues like these! They have worked quite hard to get as much wrestling as possible to as many people as possible. If you guys do have more suggestions, feel free to let me know and I could pass them along. I am not looking for a raise or promotion other than the promotion of our sport, but I do know Justin (CEO), Shane (COO), Tommy (Chief Developer), Ryan (Senior Support), and Tiffany (Senior Support) pretty well and they do typically listen when I or Mark Durham talk. What I can say is that there will more than likely NOT be a season pass for TrackCast. This is to ensure that the events are getting the money for their streaming. I would love to talk to whomever about suggestions. And hopefully you have all enjoyed the changes that have occurred over the years.

The wrestlers get a total of 4 lbs. But must weigh in with a singlet and shoes on! @redcobra typically imports the qualifiers during this week, but with State and Indy Nationals coming up, it may take a little longer.

I know these aren't duals but Portage and Avon also wrestled Ohio and Michigan teams at Brecksville and both finished in the top 6 of the 48 team tournament. Again, I know this does not fully show what both teams would do in duals, but it is still important to look at nonetheless.

The AD at HC is a former Portage AD, probably part of the reason it is on TW, which I know I can celebrate!

Yep, it is currently streaming if you want a watch.

Not sure that Rioux losing to Campbell twice, Walendzak once, and Peele once is a source of worry. Same with Conley with B. Lee twice, the Columbus East 160, and DJ Washington of Portage.

Hopefully you guys are aware, EMD Holiday Classic is STREAMING for $8 throughout the entire competition. NO ARCHIVES will be available. Thanks!

The answer, in short, is that the IHSWCA did not desire for the event to be streamed, so TW will not archive anymore matches unless the coaches association changes their mind in the next few days (the videos will be deleted).

We are looking into it for sure. Technically they were only accidentally archived because of the IHSWCA asking for them not to be. We shall see. I have TW working on hopefully a solution to the issue.

So a couple things in Re: to the streaming at the Team State Duals. I am going to put it all together in one place since there are a couple of posts regarding videos from team state. First, it was a hectic time as we had different camera/computer/table set ups at each table. TrackWrestling set up a standard for using TrackCast, and unfortunately only 7 of the mats that were streamed had the full TC equipment from TW. The week before, Mark Durham had rented TC kits (as well as used his own 6 computers) from TW for the DII grind of a tournament, Midwest Classic. Those computers and streams had very little issues. Unfortunately for this tournament they used some ISWA computers and video cameras that caused for some spotty video. For those that were complaining about Mat 10 during the event, this was one of the locations where the computer/camera combo were failing us and we had to put a new setup in mid event, which hopefully helped. The good news in this is that we streamed the event, still had many colleges looking at the videos based on the paywall, and it seems like the tournament admins want to rent video equipment from TW for next year. Second, the archives. We were told that archives were not supposed to happen, unfortunately it is automatically archived on TW and when we found that out we had to contact them to stop the archiving of matches. So this means that the first 2-3 rounds (depending on teams) are archived and available to watch for free. This is a major college recruiting tool that has helped Indiana kids get offers from schools. If the tournament hosts do not care, I can archive the rest of the matches. It is hard to see how this is a bad thing for our wrestlers because of scouting. If you know anything about high school wrestling then you should know that coaches trade film to scout. In this case, at least you have the ability to watch all of the matches. Third, not having anyone manning the cameras. We knew this was going to be an issue. There are a couple solutions that we have went through on how to make sure that the cameras are focused on the action. Having a manager from one of the teams run the camera, getting more help for the tables, whatever we need to do. We know there was a water bottle in the view of the Brownsburg v. Portage match, unfortunately. We are working to fix as many issues as we can while hoping to be able to bring streams to the Indiana Wrestling community next year. No solution for this yet, but we are working toward finding a solution. The mats were setup for 1-6 (finals and 3rd place mats) to have the best streaming equipment (the ones that came from TW). That is why the 3A schools were having the spotty computers/cameras. This is something that was decided while setting up and honestly it was probably for the best that we kept those cameras there as it would have delayed the tournament even more if we hadn't. Next year, we are hoping to rent another 5 video kits so that the streams are corrected. I am sure there are more things that you would like answered, so if you would like, go ahead and ask and I can help.

This has been on the table for a few years with the IHSAA and TW. The issue as it stands today, is that Indiana only has two individuals that run the Semi States that are comfortable with running TrackCast systems. The IHSAA would also have to rent TrackCast setups for the events, and they would have to be rented early. One other issue is with using high school gyms, rarely do they have enough bandwidth to stream effectively (EC Central). The IHSAA has stated it is an all in or all out system at this point. We are trying to work with ECC to see if we could stream there!

Lots of action this weekend!

Resent

Both of these have been resent.

I do not want to hijack this thread more than I already have. I understand your frustration with the cameras. And believe it that the employees at TW do too. There is nothing worse than having customers complain about a product that you are producing, but sometimes while trying to grow the sport as much as they can stuff happens. But please understand that the only event that Flo has interest in covering in Indiana is IHPO. And you will continue to see that Y2 utilizes TW for this event. They contact him every year to ensure that he has all the help he needs. Also the first event that had every match archived (yes, before Flo) was IHPO 2 years ago. TW was also on site for the tournament last year utilizing their production studio to stream the finals. This past IHPO, they had two employees onsite to ensure the tournament went off without a hitch as well. Track will allow any tournament to stream their event if they want. Now granted the quality of those streams are messed up by inexperienced individuals or bad internet within the venue, but TW is covering youth events every weekend, while Flo only cares about the big events. It appears to me that all Flo cares about is money, while TW cares about customer service and growing the sport. I believe that is why the NCAA utilizes TrackWrestling for all of it's big time events. (NCAA DII, DIII Super Regionals) (NCAA DI, DII, DIII National Championships) As well as the 35 states in the country that utilize TW for their state finals. Again, I appreciate that you are ranting because of lack of good experiences, but from where I stand Track actually cares and will do whatever they can to keep a customer happy.

It ticks you off that they don't charge you for things that you don't care about and 95% of the money that is raised while streaming an event they send to the tournament? Below is a response that is sent out if the stream does not operate to the customer's expectation. Try getting that from Flo. Here at Trackwrestling our platform allows individual wrestling tournaments to stream their tournaments, using their volunteers, and their equipment, to further increase the exposure of the sport of wrestling. In doing this, we understand their is a risk that the product is going to vary from event to event, and even from volunteer to volunteer within each event. We accept that risk as part of growing the sport and continuing to put wrestling in front of as many viewers as we can. We are continuing to work diligently to make the process as easy as possible for volunteers and tourney workers, however we cannot control the whole process without severely limiting the number of tournaments we cover. On top of all of that, the tournaments themselves rely on the internet service in the venue they operate to stream the matches. In choosing a venue, many times the quality of the internet service is not top of the list for a wrestling tournament. Having said all of this, if you feel you did not get the product you paid for, we will refund your subscription in whole and remove your subscription. We want you to have a great experience when working with Trackwrestling and the tournaments that are broadcast on Trackcast. If you would like us to proceed with the refund just let us know. How are they still in business? Well they run over 8,000 tournaments a year and are owned by NBC SportsEngine. They run all of the seasons teams for College and many high school states. This include the NWCA OPC that 31 of the states around the country utilize. Have you ever had an issue with big events within Indiana having issues with archives? My guess is you haven't as we have some of the best TW Experts around the world who take streaming our events very seriously. The issue for now, is that some of our associations will/would not let those people stream our big events.

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