CFL on US TV.

It seems that a deal is in the works ,that will show the last half of the season plus live playoffs and grey cup.

While I appreciate having the ability to watch the games in the US, it seems beyond silly to show the second half of the season when the premise is for U.S. college players to be viewing. Seems to me these games will be shown while lots of colleges are playing on Saturdays.

I was hoping ESPN 2

ESPN2 would surprise me, for ESPN basically bought up the NCAA packages a few years ago and screwed up, like everything else they touch, the crown jewel not in their possession formerly – the SEC. CBS still has some SEC rights and does a way better job on coverage. ESPN basically just hypes up any given NCAA player so they can attempt to latch onto the player when he goes to the NFL like Cam Newton and so forth. It’s great that Tebow has kept his distance from those jerks even now in New York.

For Saturdays in the second half of the season, I cannot see ESPN wanting to compete with itself for gridiron football. During the day they put on crap games also to still attempt sway folks to buy expensive game packages so they can access a better game.

That’s why I think it will NBC, with only Notre Dame for NCAA football for the most part, or Fox Sports Network, with no longer any meaningful NCAA rights of which I am aware and with its Fridays and Saturdays totally open, to compete with common nemesis ESPN.

I know that Fox has the NFL package, but I doubt for games on Sundays that Fox will be concerned with CFL viewership down here on the other channels. Consider what they air already that no one south of the border is watching during NFL games.

For the few diehards for a good game in either league like me down here if watching games on a Sunday, I’ll flip to the better game on TV of course or head online to pick the game I want to watch anyway. On Saturdays now I’ll be watching the CFL most of the time when not out during the day.

Huh? CFL games have been on NFL Network the past two years. I saw plenty of ads for CFL games when I was watching NFL Network. I thought when they signed a deal in 2010 that it was to protect themselves in case the pending lockout in 2011 caused the league to miss games. They could put CFL games on the network in lieu of NFL games to keep fans tuning in to the channel.

To be honest it's too bad they lost the deal with the NFL Network, gave then GREAT exposure.

No doubt that’s true, for the CFL also had the implicit endorsement of the NFL that way in front of the common unwitting American viewer with regard to all things CFL.

At least now though the games on Sundays and the playoffs will be on more TVs than ever.

I say no way will they be on any of the ESPN platforms other than ESPN3 via the internet. My best guesses:

  1. NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus)
  2. Fox Sports Networks
  3. CBS Sports Network (although I believe they show plenty of college football)

AFter making my previous post and giving it some thought I would say my #1 selection should be where the CFL lands in the US. Why? NBC has the summer Olympics and NBC Sports Network will have some of that coverage. So it makes sense that they would hold off any CFL broadcasts until the 2nd half of the season begins. Guess we'll find out something soon enough.

AFter making my previous post and giving it some thought I would say my #1 selection should be where the CFL lands in the US. Why? NBC has the summer Olympics and NBC Sports Network will have some of that coverage. So it makes sense that they would hold off any CFL broadcasts until the 2nd half of the season begins. Guess we'll find out something soon enough.
NBCSN makes the most sense but there's a new channel that just started in the US called BeIN Sports, owned by Al-Jazeera and its Qatari billionaire owners. People expected them to be aggressive and try to take on ESPN like NBCSN has planned to. But according to the network executive they'll just specialize on foreign and niche sports/leagues, at least for now. They've already bought Italian and Spanish soccer league rights for $20-$25 mil each, about 3 times the price their last deals were worth (both leagues average less than 200k viewers). They also hinted they're willing to pay big money to get the English Premier league rights away from ESPN and Fox. In my opinion, BeIN Sports is more likely to get the CFL games than Fox Sports and CBSSN, if not now in the future, and likely to give them the most money as well. They'll need contents and variety (diverse viewership) that badly. Plus money is not a big issue for them at this point they are making it clear.

They have the viewers believing it was much more than two years, when in fact that was not the case.

I just hope that whomever gets the deal does a good job of it. The one thing I hated about the NFL Network simulcast is that they cut out the entire half-time show. Instead, they would talk up their "Top Ten" programs. If NBCSN does wind up with the games, they hire some ex-CFLers as studio analysts and game commentators.

Both Dave Naylor and Dave Randorff use “couple” to describe how long CFL games were on NFL Network. Couple, last I checked, meant two. They never used the word “several” and since the games were on NFL Network for two years (or, you know, a couple of years), they didn’t mislead people at all.

Where's the announcement?

It's unlikely there would be an announcement on a weekend. If past experience holds true, we won't hear until just before the start of the season. Which means an announcement is imminent in the next three business days.

Another Link

[url=http://uflaccess.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27358&page=2]http://uflaccess.com/forums/showthread. ... 358&page=2[/url]

I'd say the two front runners are NBCSN and CBSSN... NBCSN will be carrying the olympics this summer and given the CFL's track record of doing last minute deals with US Television networks (Gotta love America One...lol), it wouldn't surprise me to see them pop up on on a channel that no one can get. IE A1... CBSSN is a fine network but not a lot of systems carry it yet. Right now they're showing all replays of NCAA basketball and wall to wall coverage of the PBR... (professional bull riders boys... not pabst blue ribbon...ugh!) They carry Lacrosse also and had the Calder Cup final from the AHL. They are woefully thin on live content and in the fall usually carry the US armed forces football games and other really small school games of NCAA pigskin. The CFL would be ideal for them if they were carried on more cablesystems and satellite packages. But I have to agree with most of you fine people here. I think it'll probably end up on NBCSN. The Olympics are why I would think that they'd only be carrying the 2nd half of the season. But then the other part of me says "wait a minute... CBC used to do the same dang thing! Back when Scott Oake used to host it and Mark Lee and Chris Cuthbert and the late great Don Whittman called the games. And don't forget NBCSN is the NHL's flagship station here in the States. There would be some scheduling conflicts I'm sure. I wish CBSSN or heck, even A1 would do the first half of the season so we could get it somewhere... I might be off my rocker, but something is a little weird here with only half a season. Maybe a trial run? What do you guys think?

CFL games and even a half-hour highlight show sure could replace an abundance of the following lame sports programming down here on any given one or more of the sports networks:

  1. NASCAR
  2. MMA at least weekly
  3. Poker daily
  4. Baseball daily during its season
  5. Various Olympic sports no one cares about as shown before the Olympics
  6. MLS weekly
  7. Lacrosse
    8 ) Arena football

As far as I'm concerned Nascar could never run another race and I'd scarcely notice, but some people like it and it does seem to have some giant corporate sponsors. All the others are up for grabs though.

I just wish the CFL could get a 5 year contract or something so that folks can expect to see it on a specific channel. It could then grow an audience. This hit and miss approach is death for ratings as people have no idea where the games are, or even if they're on at all.

I’m not a fan of any style of racing, whether it involves both left and right turns or just left, but one of my brothers is a huge fan of NASCAR. He and I are often visiting our mom at the same time, and if there’s a race on, that’s what we watch (they’re usually on Sunday afternoons, so they mostly don’t interfere with anything worthwhile anyway). Although no amount of watching is going to turn me into a fan, I’ve learned a lot about it from talking with him while we watch. There’s a lot more going on in these races than just driving around in circles for 4 hours, and a lot more strategy to winning a race than the casual observer might realize (and a lot more athletic ability). Among the different styles of racing, NASCAR seems the most comparable to football, whereas other forms of racing seem more comparable to sports like hockey and soccer (to the extent that team sports and automobile racing are comparable at all). It’s not my cup of tea, but I can understand why people find it entertaining.

I just wish the CFL could get a 5 year contract or something so that folks can expect to see it on a specific channel. It could then grow an audience. This hit and miss approach is death for ratings as people have no idea where the games are, or even if they're on at all.
And if they can't secure a multi-year deal with some network, at least it would help if they could secure and announce each year's deal more than just a few days before the season starts. The way they do it now, the network that's broadcasting the games doesn't really have the chance to promote the game. It matters less this year, I suppose, if they'll only be showing the second half of the season.