Letter from Director of Broadcast Operations

Dear WFTDA.tv fans,

As you know, we experienced an outage of the WFTDA.tv website during Division 1 Playoffs in Fort Wayne. As the Director of Broadcast Operations for the WFTDA, it’s my job to make sure the entire project runs smoothly. So when we encountered a site bug during one of the most dynamic, hard-hitting games of the weekend, you can bet I was just as disappointed as you and set about doing what we could to remedy the problem.

In my eyes, the most important thing is that the broadcast go on, no matter what. We needed to find a way to get these games back on viewers’ phones, laptops, and tablets as soon as possible. The best way for us to do this without causing more technical roadblocks was to open the stream for all through a different link.

Obviously, this is not how we planned the weekend to happen. But my priority was to make sure that our loyal WFTDA.tv fans got to see all of the work that our skaters, tournament officials and host league put into the 2013 WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs in Fort Wayne. My thanks to Blaze Streaming Media, our awesome production company, for making this happen and making sure our fans didn’t miss a hit.

So, what went wrong?

While everything seemed to be running smoothly during testing, when a large number of people logged on to watch the London Rollergirls vs. Rose City Rollers on Friday morning, it caused a massive crash of the server that hosts our site. This was not due to insufficient server capacity but due to some bad code that was embedded in the paid viewing passes.

We initially thought this would be a very temporary situation until the code and server could be repaired. However, we are still making repairs as we speak to ensure that any corrupted data has been purged and that we’re able to continue offering you the amazing broadcasts through WFTDA.tv for the remaining tournaments.

All week, the technical elves have been working 'round the clock to make sure the site is healthy and functional for the next round of D1 Playoffs in Richmond this wekeend. We hope you’ll join us, because, if Fort Wayne is any indication, this could be another tournament of upsets and firsts.

On a final note, I wanted to thank so many of you for being so supportive during the weekend.

I had the great opportunity to personally interview a few skaters who competed in Fort Wayne. One skater in particular skated off the track, beaded in sweat, eyes gleaming after losing a game. But smiling nonetheless. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for doing all of this. My family is watching at home and this helps them to understand what all of my hard work is for.”

I assure you, WFTDA.tv fans, I do not take that lightly. I volunteer my time and energy as the Director of Broadcast Operations because I believe every skater should feel like a star athlete. The tremendous volunteer team that makes the WFTDA.tv project possible gives countless hours of their time because of their passion for sharing this incredible sport with the world. We are the WFTDA. And we will continue to donate our time and energy to make WFTDA.tv worth your while.

Sincerely,

Double H, Director of Broadcast Operations