CFL re-ups rights deal with ESPN

Nothing silly 'bout it.

thats probably why he wants to start selling the game globally now.

Still salty that we deal with TSN exclusively, instead of with Bell…

Yes it is - It’s a ‘rumour’ with no attributed sources. I too heard a rumour that the next TV deal will be for significantly more.

You’re right, it is hearsay. I heard it from someone else on another platform, with no way to substantive it. But it would be foolish to ignore the signs. After all it has happened before.

I hope you’re right. Both could be true. It may be only the television deal with TSN goes down, but streaming picks up the slack ie. cord cutters/changing technology.

Bell owns TSN … the CFL is a cornerstone of TSN’s summer/early fall programming and Bell would hurt themselves if they put games on CTV/CTV2 to program against TSN … putting them on TSN and CTV and/or CTV2 would offer no real benefit.

That was just Pete Axthelm doing his shtick. The play-by-play and colour guys were respectful, and in fact Merlin Olsen had tons of praise for what he saw in Edmonton.

It wouldnt be against them, it could be a simsub. You see how Rogers does hometown hockey?
It’s because rogers bid for the rights, not sportsnet

Or at least a figure on how many housholds have tsn

There is no way it makes sense for Bell to simulcast CFL games on both CTV and TSN. Doing so would likely increase the size of the CFL’s overall audience slightly, but the combined audience on both networks would almost certainly be lower than what the combined audience is now with two separate programs on those stations, thereby reducing Bell’s ad revenue. The Rogers example is not really applicable because HNIC is shown on Saturday nights, which is a viewing and ratings wasteland, and the simulcasts are on stations that don’t have the ratings that CTV generally has. CFL plays mostly on Thursday and Friday nights, when there are good-sized audiences watching CTV entertainment programs.

If CTV took over broadcast of the CFL and major curling events, without remorse I could cancel my $25.00 /month Rogers TSN subscription.

Im not talking about hnic, im talking about hometown hockey. Thats an investment that rogers is making to bolster matchups that arent marquee. But it creates fans out of local feeds.
It always goes down to how much exposure we are willing to ask for, and how much theyre willing to give.

So explain why it’s no issue to have ctv and tsn simsub nfl? Because it’s sunday?
If that’s the case, we should at the very least be simsubing all playoff games. And our schedule could easily accomodate sunday games in the summer if we arent looking to compete directly with the nfl

TSN and CTV both show the Super Bowl because it is a gigantic TV property (more attractive to advertisers than any CFL game, including the Grey Cup) and because there is no serious competition for “entertainment” programming up against the Super Bowl on U.S. networks. Whereas the Grey Cup is played at a time when the U.S. nets – whose programming CTV simulcasts – are putting up big programming in competition with one another. If CTV showed the Grey Cup in prime time on a Sunday, it would lose the audience for shows like the Amazing Race, which have a large following in Canada. It would make no business sense for them to do that.

I’m fairly sure that CTV does not simulcast NBC’s Sunday Night Football. TSN has that to itself. Because in evening prime time – not Sunday afternoons – Bell can draw much bigger combined ratings by showing football on TSN and entertainment programming on CTV.

I can recall trying to find a buffalo vs ny jets game on a sunday afternoon and seeing that three channels (including a US network) were showing the same game. None had the one my friend wanted to watch.

If that is True ( and i have no evidence to directly argue) then we should try a double up partnership with another broadcaster for at least playoffs. A cbc and tsn Grey Cup? The point is to be in as many households as possible, especially if what the league needs is young fans, but seems content with minimal increases.

CTV2 and TSN both carried Sunday night football now so that the NBC channel is simsubbed by the CTV2 signal and the games are also carried at least some of the main TSN channels.

Same with Thursday night football where the CTV2 signal simsubs over the FOX channel but the games were also on TSN.

Eg. Here a link to a typical weekend TV schedule for this past NFL season.

[b][u]Thursday Night Football[/u][/b] [b][u]-[/u][/b]7:30 p.m. ET – Thursday Night Football Pre-Game (CTV2 and TSN1/3/4) - 8 p.m. ET –[b]Green Bay @ Seattle[/b] CTV2 and TSN1/3/4 [b][u]Sunday Night Football[/u][/b] -7 p.m. ET – NFL Football Night in America (TSN3) -[b]Game 8 – Minnesota @ Chicago – Kickoff 8:30 p.m. ET[/b] CTV2, TSN, and RDS
Monday night games were only on TSN and that would be because there is not an American station that we can get covering those games since those are only on ESPN - so no need to also be on CTV or CTV2 to capture viewers of the American channel via simsub like they started to do on Sunday nights and Thursday nights.

ESPN+ subscriptions have surpassed 2 million. This will be expose far more US fans to the CFL this season:

Before 2018, those 60 games not on linear television were available on ESPN3/WatchESPN which could be accessed by about 40 times more people than ESPN+. If exposure was the goal, the CFL would have stayed on ESPN3. Obviously, the objective is to get money from the relatively small but loyal CFL followers in America.

I think the goal is cross platforming the content that they can so people move to both. CFL is not going to sell a lot of people on a new platform in the states…they watched it because it was on…they didn’t go get ESPN because the CFL was on it, and this would be the same. Just one more spoke in the wheel…enough things cross platformed and people will get it.

I did. I can’t be the only one. I’m just not that unique.

Someone here is trying to make a case for ESPN+ when reality is that millions more just avoid that scam altogether by just locating a pirate feed, which many did last night even for the PPV offering?

If ESPN had their business model better, they’d bundle all their channels affordably into ONE cable package.

Having overpaid for the NBA and having bet the rest of their farm on college football, which has been their most successful offering, perhaps they still are aligned with older thinking.

ESPN is still recovering organizationally after years of mismanagement at the helm of John Skipper who left for reasons that can’t be described on this forum though you can look them up.

That’s more like it. ESPN+ is a scam of sorts. I won’t even pay more for the regular ESPN crap, for that’s what it’s been for the most part since at least 2006 when they lost the Sunday night NFL highlights and took over Monday Night Football. All they’ve had that is good is 30 for 30. Even their coverage of NCAA football and the NBA sucks too.