Canadian Olympic soccer spying scandal sees remarkable ‘Mafia sports media’ conspiracy theory

One pattern that’s often seen in sports is fans going after journalists who report information suggesting a team has broken a rule. Another one is fans expecting journalists who cover a team to be supportive of that team, with that perhaps particularly ramped up when it comes to national athletes or teams. And the combination of those two factors is leading to some particularly strange dialogue around the Canadian women’s soccer team at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

First, a quick refresher on what’s going on with #MapleSpygate here. That Canadian women’s team is the defending gold medalists from the Tokyo 2020 Games (actually played in 2021). And while they came into this tournament eighth in the FIFA women’s rankings (and without some figures key to that last title, including all-time FIFA goal-scoring leader Christine Sinclair, who retired from international soccer in December), they were still seen as strong contenders. But that’s taken quite the twists and turns since Canadian analyst Joseph Lombardi was caught by French authorities operating a drone to observe New Zealand’s practice ahead of the first match of these Games.

With that move, Lombardi did something both against French law on drones (which led to an eight-month delayed sentence for him) and against FIFA rules on observing closed practices. That led to him and assistant coach Jasmine Mander, who he reported to, both being quickly sent home. Head coach Bev Priestman also withdrew herself from the opening match.

But the scandal grew from there, particularly with reporting from famed TSN investigative journalist Rick Westhead on the prevalence of closed practice observations (again, against FIFA rules) by both the Canadian women’s and men’s teams over the last decade (including during the 2020 Olympics). That led to Priestman being suspended and sent home, to Canada Soccer commissioning an outside investigation, and, most notably, to FIFA acting quite quickly and handing down a six-point penalty in the group stage to the Canadian team.

That penalty seemed to make it highly likely the Canadians wouldn’t make it out of the group stage. But they managed to do that, winning all three of their games and finishing second in the group (behind France, ahead of Colombia on goal difference) despite the six-point penalty. That has them set for a quarterfinal match against fourth-ranked Germany Saturday.

Ahead of that, though, and throughout this, there’s been an incredible amount of commentary from fans on X/Twitter shooting the messenger. Those fans have gone after journalists (and particularly Westhead) for daring to report on the scandal. One particularly vitriolic post there even called TSN “the media mafia” and accused them of doing this to…damage the rights market for Canadian soccer so they can broadcast it more cheaply?

I fully agree with Luis’ tweet but maybe there’s another way of looking at this. Many of us have seen it a long time ago. Just sharing..

PS: Noticed I got blocked by Rick Westhead in the past few days after never having interacted with him or followed him
#CanWNT #CanMNT #CanPL https://t.co/RxxqROdo5n pic.twitter.com/tlEzcQuB3P

— Legacy Futebol Fan (@__RobH__) July 30, 2024

The first page of that post claims “TSN is a part of the MSM which carries a lot of weight and influence over the Canadian sports scene. If you do not know what MSM stands for, in the sports broadcast business, it is ‘Mafia Sports Media.’ Yes, you had it wrong the entire time.” And the third page of that post (after a whole bunch of using Greek words to try and make this argument seem more erudite and cogent) goes further still:

“The real story here is that TSN is basically the media Mafia. They use their influence and reach not just to control potential competition but also to set market pricing for Canadian sports content. The shakedown is real.

“Be it CEBL, PWHL, or NSL (new pro Canadian women’s soccer league), NO ONE IS GETTING PAID. This is the biggest open secret in the business. You want “exposure” from TSN, well, that will cost you a zero-dollar rights fee. These are the frauds that invented ‘I will pay you with exposure.’ Hence no CPL standings, highlights, etc…

“And for the journalists out there who think they are taking the moral high ground, by coming in to defend their colleague, why are you not calling out this bull**** in your own industry? Why are you not coming to your colleague’s aid as he’s clearly getting used, for his history of integrity, by an entitled and ‘Madurista’ type operation that has Canadian sports by the literal balls?

“You all speak of the gatekeeping that holds back the sport of soccer but never mention the biggest gatekeeper of them all. The corrupt, centralized, and public broadcast license enabled monopoly that shakes down domestic sport.”

That’s a bizarre take on several levels. The first, and most obvious, is that TSN has nowhere close to a “monopoly.” The Bell-owned cable network is one of two main cable sports networks in Canada (with Rogers-owned Sportsnet), and there are also sports broadcast by public broadcaster CBC (which has the main Olympic rights, sublicensing some events to TSN and Sportsnet) and by some other platforms.

On the soccer front alone, other broadcasters include higher-tier cable (only on Telus, though) and streaming OneSoccer, DAZN Canada (UEFA Champions League, Europa League, Nations League & Bundesliga), Fubo (Premier League), and more. Yes, TSN and Sportsnet are the two main bidders for rights on most sports fronts, so there’s sometimes less competition than you’d see in other markets like the United States. But that’s not a monopoly, and soccer’s maybe where there’s the most competition.

On a zero-dollar rights fee for those particular sports, that’s much more well-known than even “open secret” suggests, and it’s not a scandal. That’s the maximize exposure versus maximize rights revenue dilemma that’s constantly seen, and there are plenty of different approaches to it, from streaming-exclusive NFL games at a premium rights fee to NBA and NHL teams moving games from cable regional sports networks to over-the-air broadcasts.

In this specific case, Canada Soccer went with a rights fee from former OneSoccer parent MediaPro (indirectly, through the Canadian Soccer Business arrangement). That wound up in a messy court battle in January, including allegations of unpaid rights fees from MediaPro and unfulfilled obligations from Canada Soccer, and resulted in a settlement in June that saw OneSoccer and these rights transferred to a different ownership group called Timeless. But anyway, they didn’t choose TSN, so that removes the “monopoly” argument. (The more compelling complaint there  is that TSN parent Bell doesn’t carry OneSoccer; Rogers doesn’t either, though, and neither do most Canadian providers, with Telus the only exception.)

The second comical claim here is that destroying the value of Canadian soccer rights would somehow be good for TSN, letting them get them more cheaply down the road. That makes no economic sense, as the actually-valuable rights here are for the World Cup and the Olympics. TSN holds the former through 2026 (including the men’s tournament that year that will be partly held in Canada), while CBC holds the Olympics rights through 2032 (but may continue to sublicense some rights to the cable networks), so the key rights are either Bell-owned or locked up elsewhere.

Even presuming it was possible for one network’s reporting to drive down the value of the other Canada Soccer rights (a massive and flawed assumption) currently with OneSoccer (CONCACAF matches like World Cup qualifying and the Gold Cup, friendlies, etc), that wouldn’t guarantee Bell would get them. And it probably wouldn’t counteract the lost value from any declining interest in the events they already do hold like the World Cup. (Indeed, if there was an economic argument to be made here, it would be “Rightsholder TSN might not want to report things that could damage those 2026 rights.” And the men’s team reporting here absolutely has the chance to do that, although it’s far from clear what that may lead to right now.)

All of that aside, the wildest claim here is that Westhead would attack Canada Soccer to try and boost TSN’s economic interests. Westhead has decades of experience as a prominent investigative journalist, at The Toronto Star and then TSN, and he’s broken and played key roles in many crucial and difficult stories, including around sexual assault and cover-ups in the National Hockey League. His reputation speaks for itself.

The “he only started covering Canada Soccer when there was bad news” take on Westhead is also strange. He did some notable Canada Soccer coverage more than a decade ago at the Star. And yes, he’s not writing game recaps or puffy profiles. But there are plenty of people who do that. And that’s not his job.

It seems highly unlikely there’s any journalist who would specifically report bad things on a league or organization to drive down their rights fees. That theory gets thrown out from time to time, but it’s never been adequately proven anywhere. But even if evidence was found of such unethical behavior by someone, Westhead would be one of the last names you’d expect to see there. So this is a wild accusation to make (and potentially a defamatory one), especially without evidence. (And the claims that TSN is a Mafia outlet, or a “Madurista” (a supporter of Nicolas Maduro), are also ludicrous.)

It also should be noted that Westhead is far from the only person reporting on this saga. Yes, his reporting has broken much of the news. But most of the details he has reported have been backed up by other people at other outlets. He’s getting scoops because he’s very good at his job, not because he’s fabricating evidence with an intent to damage a program.

Anyway, this was only one of the many criticisms out there for Westhead and TSN. Those range from blasting the timing of their reports (“News should wait until the team isn’t playing!”) to accusing them of a lack of patriotism (not actually the job of a reporter) to insisting everyone spies like this in violation of FIFA rules (Priestman claimed “The top 10 all do it,” but no evidence has yet been found linking any other country to anything this blatant).

That’s all been seen in many other sign-stealing scandals over the last century-plus. Those include the actual NFL Spygate, the Houston Astros’ garbage can (and other teams’ actions around that point), and the Michigan Wolverines and Connor Stalions (who was brought up here by many). In each case, there have been attacks on reporters and outlets and claims everyone else does it. But the “Mafia sports media” claim here was a remarkable new level.