Milesplit

Experiences will vary from State to State, but being a webmaster takes more time and effort than you might think. MileSplit hires webmasters to work for them. They prefer to hire people involved in the sport who want to be part of the coverage and are willing to do it for low pay.

It works OK for some webmasters, but some States don't get support equal to others. Florida and Texas get lots of support. New York and a few others get support. It is possible for an ambitious webmaster to become frustrated over hours of effort, low pay and less than adequate support. Webmasters are hired to support MileSplit which is known by all.

Some webmasters become disillusioned when they realize they have signed up for more work than they are willing to do, so they resign. Personality conflicts have caused resignations. Differences of opinion cause problems. Being a hired webmaster is not for everybody.

If they want to become a national authority they should make a better play for more states. Ignoring the small states is what Dyestat did and they died. The more Milesplit does this the more they open themselves up to get beat.

Oh man yes, the pop up ads at MileSplit are incredibly annoying and you get them whether you're a member or not.

We've had the same state guy since day 1, but our state site has proved to be a huge disappointment. What started as a free site with a place to read results and even get some rankings, great for track, has transformed into an overpriced membership site that becomes a resting place for pics and video, but no real content at all.

You get crappy interviews with basically the same people that ask all the same trite questions. There's stupid CC rankings based on time that are totally useless since its across courses, and "meet summaries" that say nothing other than provide a few top results - as though people can't just look at results and figure out the top results w/o help.

I've looked at some of the state sites and found some pretty decent articles. Our state site does none of this, basically just passes along whatever comes from the national site coverage. We had a national HJ champion at NB and our state guy said nothing. Nat champion may be common in some states but is rare in our state. The site master didn't post anything for almost a week after the meet and then just passed on an interview that the national site did at NB. The closest thing we've got to a real article that had any content whatsoever was where the site guy posted something about one of his former pet HSers looking at transferring colleges - which only said he's transferring, no interview or anything that might have actually said something.

I can only assume that the big membership fee is going to the national folks, that our state guy gets pennies on the dollar from all that money and doesn't give a flying f#ck about doing anything that requires thought or effort. It's too bad because there's plenty of positive stuff to talk about in our state.

No organization is perfect, but the problems go far beyond personality conflict.

My best friend worked as a webmaster for almost year. He never saw a penny of compensation despite promises from national that he would. When Flocasts bought them out he was offered $100 per month. Yes, $100 dollars. At the 25 hours per week he was putting in that works out to less than a dollar an hour, even before expenses. He asked for $400, still below minimum wage. They refused to consider it.

I would never work almost a year without getting paid. He wanted to trust the Milesplit national folks and found he couldn't. Since Flocasts has come in I hope they have at least started keeping their word about actually paying people, though I've heard that still doesn't always happen. Even when it does Webmasters work for far below minimum wage.

If anyone from Milesplit is reading this, I would hope you back pay my friend, even at the low wage. Not being able to keep your word is absolutely classless.

Wow....no wonder they quit.

If AZ had more paying subscribers then the webmaster position may actually pay something. Without a good webmaster providing valued state content it will be difficult to grow the subscription base. With the subscription base Milesplit is not going to spend more money on coverage in the state.

Some states have 10x or more paying subscribers than other states in their region. Wonder why PA had a professional crew with multiple cameras contracted by Milesplit for their state indoor meet while other states indoor championships were lucky to have one or two commentators with a single camera. It is the paid subscribers. I do not know what the PA or OH webmasters make but they have many more paid subscribers and many more hits for articles and videos than other states where webmasters have come and gone sometimes due to little pay for a lot of work.

And you know this how? Subscription info is not published.

DyeStat died because they sold it to ESPN. Then they ruined it and quit.

MileSplit is good but will require a lot of local help to make a state site any good. It's a good start up but has a lot of work to do.

The Donger wrote:

DyeStat died because they sold it to ESPN. Then they ruined it and quit.

MileSplit is good but will require a lot of local help to make a state site any good. It's a good start up but has a lot of work to do.

milesplit has been around since the 1990s. I got results, rankings, and articles from milespllit when I was in hs!

You're probably right. It was probably view/hit counts and not subscriptions. That information is not published either. 10x the views would likely mean more paying subscribers. More views would also create more ad revenue. The information regarding being able to afford to provide better on-site live streaming in some states based on subscriptions came from someone there. That information should be surprise anyone.

I think MileSplit is trying to improve with the hiring of more employees and with more live streaming and more travel of employees to meets for interviews. Do they provide high quality journalism--no. Do I dislike their ads--yes. Do I think there is room for improvement--yes. Do I think other websites provide higher quality content--definitely. Do I think other website provide as much coverage---no.

MileSplit sold out to Flocasts. Many independent websites that covered high school cross country and track & field within their states have sold out to MileSplit or others over the years. I don't know if anyone actually made any money when they were absorbed by MileSplit or others or if they just hoped to get a share of ad revenue. My concern is that Flocasts may be trying to grow the business enough to eventually be able to sell out to a bigger media company who will change it for the worse before shutting it down. I just don't think there is enough interest across the nation to get the number of subscribers or the hit counts to be able to sustain the company long term especially with their travel expenses and additional employees. I hope I am wrong.