Wrestling Blogs - Martin Floreani

It is 7 am on a Sunday and the roosters are crowing outside our new world headquarters in Austin, Texas. Our neighbors have roosters and our other neighbors have bunnies. IT is kinda cool for a guy like me who grew up and went to high school in Chicago, to have a bit of the country life even in Austin. Im really excited about the new office we have. It is a two story building that is a house converted to an office. I believe here we can continue to work day and night to make dramatic and creative changes in wrestling. Im not looking to make changes in wrestling that will bring wrestling on par with other sports but to do cool things with wrestling that no other sport has. I think Flowrestling is well on its way.

One question I always get that makes my stomach turn is "How do we make money?" I get this question a lot! Im so sick of stumbling over my words when I get this question. (Sometimes I sound really dumb when answering this question to really important wrestling people) Well to make a short answer long I will tell you...
About two years before I started Flowrestling I had talked with Cody Sanderson and his father at Utah Valley State. One thing that stuck in my mind about that afternoon was how little the Sanderson family and parents placed on winning and how much they placed on wrestling. Kinda ironic that the winningest college wrestler of all time didnt place a high value on winning so much as wrestling. Cody (Cael's brother) would tell me that Cael, after teching or pinning somebody, would be angry in the locker room because his defeated opponent may have ridden him 10 or 15 seconds longer than he should have. That stuck in my mind. Cael was competing against himself or something larger than anyone else could imagine. He wasnt going out to win he was going out to wrestle. There is a difference.

Well that stuck in my mind for a couple of years, along with other interactions with great wrestlers, and when we started Flocasts I tried to use that same concept for my business. Im not here to compete and cover a bottom line. Sometimes I get told, by good hearted guys, that I have to figure my overhead and start chipping away at it, find revenue streams and begin to chase down the overhead until the revenue streams win. That sounds a lot like trying to go out and win instead of wrestling. It takes our focus from our product and places it on something different.

You have to make a great product in what every you do. That is first and foremost. That holds true wether your wrestling, an artist, a manager in a business, or a doctor or lawyer. Your product is sometimes just your skills and sometimes it is something tangible like a painting. Whatever it is that should take up the majority of your focus and energy. For me the product is Flowrestling, not ways to make money to incorporate into Flowrestling.

There is no way I could have done Flocasts alone. No way in hell. Im very lucky in that regard. There has been a lot of people who have lifted me up. I eat because of my savings and some faith that everything we are doing here will work itself out.

So how so we make money again? Well we dont. I first and foremost want Flowrestling to be about the fans and the wrestling community. And although there may be a time where we have to cover our expenses I will promise you a couple of things: We will never charge for Flowrestling, and never riddle our site with banner adds blinking and doing what ever else to grab your attention away from our content. Personally I dont think our site is anywhere near good enough to even think about making money.

Martin

P.S.

It should be interesting what decision the NWCA made on opening up results to the wrestling community. I am told that a decision has been made and will be available this week. I will keep all of you updated because a big part of the future of wrestling hangs in the balance