"Rogers Sportsnet has carried only a handful of Canadian Football League games in its history, but despite that is giving increased exposure to the league this season. Starting with a one-hour preview show Sunday (8 p.m.), Sportsnet will play up the CFL throughout the year. Recently retired Montreal Alouettes lineman Bryan Chiu will join former CFLers Willie Pless, Sandy Annunziata on a weekly panel to analyze and preview games."
Nice to see Sportsnet seeing the light, but seeing as how they are wall to wall Blow Jays I just wounder how serious they are going to get. Until the Jays are gone, I can't see them being a future serious bidder for TV rights.
i thought sportsnet is all NFL they do not even support the CFL because of Mr Rodgers and his idea of bringing an NFL team to toronto. He was the one that pulled out of being the sponsor for the CFL awards . Why would they want anything to do with the CFL.
I’m sure someone at Rogers is looking at the TV ratings that TSN gets for the CFL and decided that like it or not popularity for the CFL is on the rise and it is in Sportsnet’s best interest to try and get on the band wagon. It’s just too bad the powers that be over at Sportsnet wouldn’t just forget about this NFL in Toronto pipe dream and get on board and help promote our own Canadian brand of football. This is the CFL and It’s Our League!!
Common sense does prevail. The CFL is incredibly popular and everyone who doesn't live under a rock can see this league is stronger then ever. Sportsnet wants in on the action. Maybe now people will finally realize that the CFL will get a massive increase in their new tv deal. Guarantee 100%.
About friggin time for Sportsnet to do a CFL preview show (or anything else having to do with the CFL). They have ignored a pretty big part of the national sporting landscape for far too long just so they can show things like an exciting Reds-Astros match-up on a Tuesday night or the 200 poker or poker related shows they carry.
14 million Canadians watched the Grey Cup last year. It would be pretty stupid for a national sports network to ignore that market even if they'd prefer the CFL went out of business.
I realize they don't carry games, but I don't get all the negative comments about Sportsnet and the CFL. :? Didn't they have a panel at the past few Grey Cups, filing daily segments throughout Grey Cup week?
They are also my favourite source for Lions news. Nearly every day throughout the season on Sportsnet Pacific, reporter Craig MacEwen covers the team with great stories, player interviews etc. They also tape separate weekly in-studio segments with radio colour analyst Giulio Caravatta and DE Brent Johnson.
I think they cover mostly the western teams very well as my brother who lives in Alberta says they do a good job covering the stampede rs and Eskimos, i think in the east they ignore mostly.
I see it like the world cup. Many old-timers in the media/networks don’t like soccer but after seeing the increasing trend in TV ratings for the tournament they are starting to give it great coverage, even if begrudgingly. Same with CFL; it saw a pretty big ratings increase last year, even bigger for the GC. If they don’t give it the coverage it deserves someone else will and they’ll lose all those interested followers to other networks that do.
Sportsnet won't be a serious bidder on CFL games until they get a national channel, or they'll end up playing the games on all the regional channels at the same time. Either way, it's good for them to increase their exposure of the CFL.