Interesting article on the CFL and the final year before the TV contract expires. Hopefully there will be some interest from Sportsnet and the CBC
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/football/with-television-rights-to-be-negotiated-cfl-faces-critical-season/article4372991/]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/f ... le4372991/[/url]To my recollection, Rogers/Sportsnet stated earlier this year that they will not enter the bid process for the upcoming CFL broadcast rights, which is astonishing considering the CFL ratings numbers, especially compared to other Sportsnet properties.
The CFL has been a very lucrative property for TSN, thus you would think other broadcasters would crave a piece of that pie, but...
......and yet, the Bills series is extended after tens of millions in losses.
Something is definitely amiss here....and the answer may be lack of common sense.
The problem is that the Jays have most of their games on Sportsnet. If they won the CFL contract there would be a lot of juggling and the CFL would be a low priority. I can imagine what will happen if a football game follows a Jays game, the baseball games are ALWAYS going over their 3 hours time and the CFL game would "joined in progress"
CFL has a good deal going with TSN. The product is growing and so will their tv revenues. Now if TSN could cut down on the cardboard cutouts things would be perfect. They badly need a new crew.
From that Globe and Mail article pointed to by MikeM...
"While executives at CBC and Rogers Communications Inc. have both hinted they are interested in broadcasting football games, TSN president Stewart Johnson doesn’t sound willing to risk having the league’s games on another network after relentlessly promoting the game for five years"
We already know what kind of job CBC did and got a sample of Roger's (Sportsnet) handy work broadcasting CFL games. Here's hoping TSN will continue to be the host carrier. The alternatives are just too awful to contemplate.
Agree old fan. TSN really does a super job and I can't imagine any other network matching this at all, or able to match it.
agreed Earl and OF.
TSN has superb production values and marketing acumen. No doubt about it.
That being said, for league health and progression, it is imperative to secure as many competitive tenders as possible, to maintain these values and instill broadcast awareness.
and it wouldn't hurt to have carrier co-op for playoff/Grey Cup games.
just get 1 game a week, plus CFL playoffs and the Grey Cup on CTV. the rest can stay on TSN.
( for those who don't know, CTV and TSN are sister stations )
they may be sister stations, but they don't like to share with each other. 
As far as ratings and access It wouldn't make a difference if it was broadcast on CTV. TSN is on basic cable and basic satellite and the Internet - most Canadian households either have access to cable, satellite and or the internet. Last season I had to watch quite a few games on the Internet because we were at our home in Florida.
The small number of households that do not have access to cable/satellite or the internet probably can't pick up over the air signal either and I doubt these few people would be interested in CFL football anyway.
Keep it on TSN
TSN is awful. The sound levels for the games have been off for at least a year, and the entire crew, as Hfx said, needs to be replaced. Stale, content-free cutouts saying nothing 100 different ways (Dunigan is the only exception).
Then from the past CBC and the few games Sportsnet did that I saw were whatever is worse than awful. 
They will only replace the on-air people if ratings are falling. If we accept that ratings for CFL football have been huge the past few years then we can say that this could partially be due to the on air guys. I wish that Glen Suitor would just shut up and go away, he never shuts up and I don't need to hear all of his chatter, so when he is on the play by play I just put it on Mute.
But when I think back to the CBC coverage when they had the big ex-Winnipeg lineman that was brutal.
Watching CBC's coverage of the CFL was embarrassing. Between the players on the panel and Chris Walby, none of them could even construct a reasonably correct sentence. Their communication skills were dreadful. The only saving grace were the play by play staff.
There's homerism issues on the TSN panel, but what people like or dislike between the colour and play by play people is somewhat subjective.
TSN's work is certainly not perfect, but compared to the CBC and Sportsnet, they're a considerable upgrade.
Best commentator I have seen was Ron Lancaster. Incredibly intelligent guy who could put what was going on into words better than anyone.
I enjoyed Ron Lancaster’s work as a colour commentator as well, HfxTC.
I learned so much in my early football watching years from him. And his flat out honesty was so refreshing, especially by today’s standards.
I wish Ron was still with us. I would love to sit and listen to his commentary on the games and players we’re seeing now.
This from the morning’s Globe and Mail…
All looks right in the three-down football world. Yet industry sources believe the league could again consider a second broadcaster early in 2013, when the next TV rights contract is likely negotiated. When asked this week if the CFL would entertain the notion of dividing its rights – as happens with the NHL, NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball – Cohon was lavish in his praise of TSN, but he wouldn’t rule out letting a competitor such as the CBC back in.
“We have a great partnership with TSN,? Cohon said during a conference call. “They’ve done a great job promoting our game, bringing in younger viewers. … We know that others are interested. We’ll see what happens.?
For its part, CTV president of sports and programming Phil King tells Usual Suspects that, “depending on the circumstances, splitting the package is something TSN could live with.?
TSN has an exclusive window to negotiate another contract through January of 2013. If TSN’s parent company, BCE Inc. (which recently stepped back from bidding on the 2014 and 2016 Olympics) writes the cheque the CFL wants, it can keep its monopoly position.
The CFL is looking for a hike in rights payments, but if weak teams tank the ratings in 2012, TSN might balk at a hefty raise. If the two sides can’t find a satisfactory price, the league will explore secondary options.
In a major slap at a long-time partner, CBC was not given an opportunity to bid on the CFL rights in 2007, after broadcasting the league for 55 years.
“We didn’t get a chance to come to the table at all,? a CBC spokesman said at the time.
The national broadcaster would love to rebuild its sports portfolio by getting back a piece of the league’s TV package. CBC’s liability is, with no national TV sports desk and negligible local TV/radio coverage of sports, it can’t deliver the promotion TSN/CTV provides on its multiple SportsCentre shows and on its radio network.
For those who wish to read the remainder of the article…
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/cfl-eying-up-new-dance-partner/article4378339/]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/c ... le4378339/[/url]And we need more cameras like in the grey cup, more cameras the better.
If TSN and CTV are both entities of BCE (Bell Media) why do not both broadcasters carry CFL games? Or at least divvy the games in order to accrue non-cable subscribers and maximize total viewership?
This is especially pertinent for playoff series games.
That being said, all broadcast players should be invited to the table for true market value purposes.
The CBC shouldn't be allowed to bid, what are they going to do? go back to the government and ask for more of our Tax Dollars because they want to bid on Football and Hockey? The CBC is the most inefficient network out there, if we cut their funding and they relied on ratings and advertising then maybe they should try to outbid TSN.
The drama shows they put together are laughable and their comedy shows are just not funny, the CBC attitude is "we have to have Canadian content and ratings don't matter so let's save money and hire bad actors, bad writers and put anything on that has Canadian content!
I don't want the CBC putting together a CFL broadcast, I want to see a professional sports network like TSN or Sportsnet.