The Grey Cup continues to be one of the biggest celebrations and television events in Canada, with Sunday night’s 101st Grey Cup attracting an average audience of 4.5 million viewers on TSN. This ranks as the most-watched sports program of the broadcast year and the fourth most-watched Grey Cup on record, according to preliminary overnight data from BBM Canada. Overall, more than 11.5 million viewers, or approximately one in three Canadians, watched some part of the 2013 CFL championship on TSN and in French on RDS.
The 101st Grey Cup saw the Saskatchewan Roughriders defeat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 45-23 in front of a sea of green-clad Rider fans at Mosaic Stadium in Regina. Audience levels for the 101st Grey Cup peaked late in the second quarter, as 5.5 million viewers watched the Roughriders take a convincing 25-point lead over the Tiger-Cats.
The stunt-filled performance by Canadian multi-platinum pop group Hedley during the SiriusXM Grey Cup Half-Time Show attracted an average audience of 4.2 million viewers.
An average audience of 2 million viewers stayed to watch TSN’s extensive post-game coverage.
TSN’ s 101st Grey Cup pre-game broadcast also featured a sit-down interview between Brian Williams and surprise guests Tom Hanks and Martin Short.
Good peaks, I guess many people turned off into the third quarter and brought down the average number.
Still though I would have thought 5M would have been reached.
When you consider that the game wasn't a close exciting affair, those are really good numbers. Obviously the best news for the CFL would be a back and forth down to the wire game, but it didn't happen this year.
Keep in mind, the last time the Riders were in the Grey Cup they had 1.5 million MORE viewers. So what happened this time?
Personally, I would have expected at least the same 6 million the other Grey Cups they were in drew.
I suspect it was Ontario not paying as much attention as last year because Toronto was not in it and therefore completely off the radar in the biggest city.
I was at the beer store at 12pm on Sunday, and it was packed. This was in Brantford, one person was wearing a ticat scarf, the rest didn't even know there was a game on or who was playing, as people asked about the Ticat gear I was wearing.
Seems about right to me, the past 3 or 4 years it’s bounced between 4.3 to 5.4 million. Last year the numbers were probably up because of Bieber. 6 Million in 2009, because of Montreal and RDS. RDS doesn’t register at all when Montreal is not there
Vanier Cup Ratings Drop 67% on Sportsnet
Here are last week’s sports ratings. The Vanier Cup ratings dropped 67% with the switch to Sportsnet (301,000) from TSN (910,000) in 2012, featuring the same two teams, I believe.
CFL, Grey Cup, Ticats vs. Riders, Sunday, TSN: 4,495,000
Probably 200000 k at best. Without the Als… RDS has miniscule numbers. Atlantic Canada has next to no viewes of CFL games irreguardless of how is playing. This is why it is so important to get a team in Quebec city and in the Maritimes
I watched the Vanier Cup production was as good as something on an access channel, something I expect to see happen to NHL hockey on Rogers sadly. Production value on Sportsnet has always been second rate, and its their choice to do so, throwing billions to the NHL proves that. They have the money to give a good product on TV they just choose not to.
What was Sportnet showing on its main network that was so important that the Vanier had to be shuffled off to The Score/ Sportsnet 360. God do I ever hate Rogers. Remember that Sportsnet wanted to put one game a week on this network...lmao