There’s a long-running discussion about the merits of broadcasting games on cable sports channels versus over-the-air broadcast networks. That pendulum has swung in favor of broadcast networks in remarkable ways over the past few years. And the latest case there is with the Canadian Football League’s English-language broadcasts in Canada.
For the first time since 1982, those broadcasts which will include games (including playoff games and the 111th Grey Cup championship this fall) on broadcast network CTV. And for the first time since 2007, those broadcasts will air on outlet beyond just cable network TSN (which is also owned by CTV parent Bell Media, a subsidiary of BCE Inc.). Here’s more on that from a Bell Media release:
New this season, the CFL comes to CTV this fall, with exclusive 3 p.m. ET Saturday games beginning Saturday, Sept. 7. CTV also joins the CFL ON TSN to showcase afternoon playoff matchups, and the networks combine to deliver Canada’s biggest single-day sporting event – the 111th GREY CUP, live from BC Place in Vancouver on Sunday, Nov. 17 (visit TSN.ca for the complete CFL ON TSN broadcast schedule).
This is a major move. And while this fits with some other moves we’ve seen from cable to broadcast in the U.S., both nationally and locally, the CFL’s Canadian broadcasting setup (it will again be on CBS Sports Network and free CFL+ streaming in the U.S.) stands out on many fronts. For one thing, it’s only a nine-team league (at the moment), so every game is broadcast nationally. For another, it has quite a broadcasting history.
The CFL as an official league has been around since 1958. But that league has basically existed since the Ontario Rugby Football Union’s 1954 withdrawal from Grey Cup competition left just the Western Interprovincial Football Union and Interprovincial Rugby Football Union, the forerunners of the league’s West and East Divisions. So 1954 is usually seen as the start of modern Canadian professional football.
But Canadian football overall and some of the teams involved here (including the 1873-founded Toronto Argonauts) date back much further, beyond even the first Grey Cup in 1909. And the Grey Cup alone has been broadcast on radio since 1928 and on TV since 1952. On English-language TV, it’s gone through many incarnations: public broadcaster CBC (initially just with their Toronto CBLT station, soon with their whole network) from 1952-2007, private broadcast network CTV in a simulcast with CBC from 1962-1986, private broadcast consortium The Canadian Football Network in a simulcast with CBC from 1987-1990, and TSN alone from 2007 until now.
As noted there, private broadcast network CTV carried CFL games for more than two decades. Private cable network TSN has broadcast CFL games since 1987, taking over much of what was the CTV package. In 2001, CTV took over most of TSN: currently, 70 percent of TSN is owned by current CTV parent BCE Inc., with 30 percent owned by ESPN. And in 2007, TSN took over the Canadian English-language rights for all CFL games (with French-language rights moving to their sibling RDS) exclusively.
At the time, and in the decades since, that led to a lot of hue and cry from those who missed watching the CFL on free over-the-air television. And it led to suggestions that TSN’s corporate parents should simulcast the Grey Cup in particular, and perhaps other games as well, on CTV. But there was some notable pushback to that on several fronts.
For one thing, the move to TSN exclusively after a CBC/TSN split came with massive additional money from TSN. It also came after many indications that the CBC did not particularly value the CFL, including in 2005 when they didn’t resolve an announcer strike for several months of the CFL season, leading to many games airing with no announcers.
That also came at a time of major financial uncertainty for the CFL and many of its franchises. That included multiple ownership messes in Toronto in particular and then-B.C. Lions owner David Braley secretly helping to fund the Argos. Around all that (and around previous uncertainty, including the CFL USA teams folding or moving after the 1995 season), the TSN money (first from the shared deal, then from the exclusive deal) was vital for the league. And many argued that TSN saved the CFL.
But that was not wholly altruistic on TSN’s part. Taking all CFL games, and the Grey Cup in particular, was huge for their prominence in the cable/multichannel video programming distributor market. And that was particularly important at that time, as that’s when they were facing competition.
The current Sportsnet was launched in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV/TSN parent Bell, competitor Rogers, and U.S.-based Liberty Media, But CTV was forced to divest from that after buying a majority stake in TSN (which had previously been mostly held by Labatt’s Brewing, which had to divest after Interbrew, now Anheuser-Busch InBev, bought it in 1995) in 2001. That led to Rogers becoming the full owner of Sportsnet in 2004 and heavily competing with TSN for rights, MVPD placement, and per-subscriber fees.
And exclusive rights to the CFL, and the Grey Cup (typically a top-10 broadcast by viewership each year in Canada, even on cable) were a big part of that for TSN. And they got even more important after Rogers took national NHL rights from TSN in 2013 (for a deal starting with the 2014-15 season), leading to TSN focusing more on football.
Thus, the discussion around putting the Grey Cup on CTV as well as TSN got stuck in some loops. Many fans argued “They should do it, it will get more viewers!” The analytical response was “Well, yes, but getting more viewers isn’t everything; it would probably lose them money overall by reducing TSN’s carriage and per-sub fees.” And to this point, CTV and TSN leadership seemed to agree with that latter take, keeping those games on cable only. But now that’s changed.
As noted well above, there’s a larger conversation here around similar U.S. moves. Perhaps the most similar is what’s happened with ESPN (which, again, owns 30 percent of TSN) and the NFL’s Monday Night Football. Around the writers’ strike last year, ABC (also owned by Disney) simulcast MNF games all season, a big jump over the limited numbers of games they’d previously broadcast. And that infuriated MVPDs, and Disney reduced the numbers of ABC simulcasts for this coming season.
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In many cases, teams and leagues are deciding that they really value over-the-air broadcast reach. And that’s true even if those deals might not bring in the straight-up revenue they used to get from cable deals. As Suns/Mercury owner Mat Ishbia said last year, “You don’t want to have less fans watching your product,” arguing that he could make the lost revenue back in increased gate/merchandise/concession sales and more.
And media companies are also finding they’re getting a lot of value from sports on their broadcast networks, not just their cable ones. ESPN has used ABC for more and more prominent sports matchups in the past years, including women’s sports, and Fox is also doing that extensively. And NBC really went in hard here when they closed down NBCSN, meaning that their sports now live mostly on broadcast NBC, on streaming service Peacock, or both. (There are exceptions where things wind up on some of their other cable channels, but they’re rare.)
But the Canadian media environment is quite different from the U.S. one. And just because things work in one area does not mean they’ll be immediately adopted across the border. (It’s notable that both TSN and Sportsnet launched full direct-to-consumer streaming services almost a decade ago at this point, and ESPN still hasn’t gotten there.)
And it’s far from clear that this move will work out for BCE. Yes, Saturday games and a Grey Cup also on CTV will certainly boost audience, but will they do so by enough to overcome an expected loss in TSN MVPD revenue now that the network is no longer the exclusive home of the CFL? We’ll find out. But this is certainly a nice move for Canadian CFL fans, who will no longer need a MVPD or DTC package to watch this year’s Grey Cup.
