Petition: USA Gymnastics recently announced a five-year partnership with FloSports. Their gymnastics branch, FloGymnastics, will have access to various competitions, which will be streamed behind a paywall. A paywall that many gymnastics fans cannot afford, and FloGymnastics does not care about that.
Putting this kind of content behind a paywall will serve no purpose other than to make money. This will further alienate fans from the sport because they will have no way to follow it. Certain gymnastics disciplines already don’t have big followings, and this will only make things worse. This also goes against what Morinari Watanabe (President of the International Gymnastics Federation) wants. His goal is to make gymnastics more accessible. This does the opposite.
Far more important is an incident with FloGymnastics in 2014. Olympic and World Champion McKayla Maroney was one of many celebrities whose iCloud was hacked and various explicit photos of her were posted on the Internet. Not only that, but she was also underage in those photos. FloGymnastics posted an article about the hack, which included a link to a thread on 4chan, which contained the explicit photos.
This, thankfully, did not go unpunished. After the article was reported to USA Gymnastics, FloGymnastics had their journalistic credentials revoked. But only temporarily, only for a year. And now, USA Gymnastics has decided that they are the best people to have access to their content.
Given USA Gymnastics’ current rebuilding in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal, this partnership is completely inappropriate. Current President and CEO Li Li Leung’s constant reassurance that they are “committed to change” means absolutely nothing here. This partnership basically proves that USA Gymnastics - STILL - does not care about the safety and well-being of their athletes.
Do the right thing, USAG. Revoke the contract. Prove that you actually are committed to change.
Flo response: We at FloSports recognize the importance of learning from mistakes and working hard to make sure they are never allowed to happen again. Seven years ago while reporting on gymnastics, a content editor posted a link in a story that was wrong and in terrible judgment. When discovered, the link in the story was immediately removed and the story was ultimately taken down. Public apologies were made at all levels of the organization online and on social media and we restate those again today. FloSports did not believe this editorial decision was right in 2014 and we still believe that to this day. People and companies make mistakes but we remain dedicated to improving our business each day. Significant editorial staff and organizational changes have been made since 2014 and enforcement of new editorial policies has been strengthened to ensure such incidents can’t happen again in the future. FloSports and USA Gymnastics share a common goal of increasing the reach of this sport at all levels. We will work to empower athletes and amplify their voices. And we have committed to investing in the enhancement of health and wellness resources available to USA Gymnastics members.