Whenever I watch him on Prime Time Sports he seems like a nice man but…
Is it just me or does Steven Brunt come across as smug and smarmy whenever he write/discusses the future of the CFL in Southern Ontario? It is almost likes he wants them to fail.
I understand he is a TC Season Ticket holder but… support like him we do not need.
I actually find him very interesting and a bit more academic than some others, which I very much like. Like most in the TV business, he has to be a bit controversial and who is the real Stephen Brunt? Who knows but I don't think he wants the CFL to fail at all, quite the opposite, he is frustrated I think with a product and league he enjoys but is frustrated, like berezin, the league can't get the London's or Moncton's in the league and make it more inclusive. Also, he is frustrated that he sees a team in Toronto can't make money while in little ol Saskatchewan, they can. etc.
IMO Brunt is one of the few sports reporters that could be called a journalist. And he's actually a fan of the CFL which isn't very common among Southern Ontario sports reporters.
If you think he isn't positive enough, it probably has more to do with being a Ti-Cat fan than anything else. 
It has been a rough few years in the Hammer.
After reading the posts here and the ones in the CFL forum I have changed my mind.
Perhaps he is one of the few reporters calling it like it is.
Regret the initial post. Apologies all around.
While Brunt may be a good journalist, it’s his choice of topics which shows his anti-CFL bias. Instead of writing about the big games and outstanding players, his CFL columns amount to the perceived scandals, false accusations and belittling comments about the CFL littered throughout his columns (often in brackets, like, “you’d never see this in the NFL” or “the CFL has never been accused of being a professionally-run league”, etc.) This is consistent with the other Globe & Mail football writers like Naylor and Skeres, who always have a keen eye towards anything which can bring the CFL’s image into disreput…then play it up big. But their daily Bills coverage is full of optimism, with puff pieces on Owens ('he’s really not as big of jerk as everyone says!") But they can turn nasty when the topics come up relating to the Bills move to Toronto, then Buffalo is all bad, bad, bad!
You don’t have to read between the lines to see Brunts and the G & M’s pro-NFL agenda. Their problem is, according to any survey, rating or measure you care to use, the Argos and the CFL are more popular than the NFL in southern Ontario. An NFL team will never be successful in Toronto when 50% of the football fans support another home team. That is what this is all about.
Why do Brunt and the G & M continually smear the CFL? Perhaps they are being secretly funded by the pro-NFL billionaires in Toronto? Perhaps Brunt is angling for a lucrative “PR Director” position for the Bills? Perhaps they are trying to curry favour from the NFL so they could become the lead NFL columnist and publication in Toronto? Since MLSE apparently hates the Argos, will the G & M now get preferred access to the Leafs?
Even the Leafs know that a Toronto NFL team will be more popular than they are.
No it’s not just you Kevin, as some of us have been posting for years how Brunt has changed his tune.
From once being totally pro CFL, it is now evident he is NFL friendly at the expense of our league and most articles written have a largely negative spin.
Sad for a guy out of Hamilton who grew up on the Cats and is a season ticket holder.
The thing is guys, Brunt knows that the politics of the CFL is interesting to a lot of us since it is a bit like Canada in some ways, I can't see him writing pieces about players and that. I think he is interested in the league from that standpoint and while it might look like he's slagging the league, I don't take it that way. He cares about the league and wants the best but at the same time, he has to have a storyline. He's ok by me. A season ticket holder for the Cats from what I've heard and that's good for me as well.
It is not the media's job to be cheerleaders for the league. Simple solution: quit giving them negative stories to write about. The Argos' front office is a mess right now. Really, while some stories may be perceived as having an anti-CFL slant, can anything the Globe and Mail's columnists have written lately be counted as fiction? I know for a fact that the G&M's Vancouver correspondent Matt Sekeres is a passionate CFL fan - and a very knowledgeable one at that.
It seems to be that way when the media is cheerleading everything NFL!!! Case and point if the CFL had a crap game like the Bill and the Browns, every “I wanna be American” reporter like Brunt, would be raking the CFL over the proverbial coals! When it happens in the (now all media bow when I say the magic word) N…F…L…, nothing is said!! It’s just like FOX news (fair and balanced ???)!!!
Meh not a huge fan of Brunt, but he’s probably better then the other clowns at primetime.
Bob Mclown, Jim Kelly etc…they’re so “Toronto-Media-types” it’s not funny. They bug me.
Right on rcon.
The southern Ontario media is by en large pro No Fun League big time.
I would estimate in the 90% range or higher. Pathetic numbers.
Brunt is a journalist. His job is not to be a cheerleader but to publish articles that people will want to read and to stimulate discussion. He obviously is doing his job very well. The best way to silence his criticisms is to prove him wrong - a game such as the Stamps-Riders clash goes a long way to doing just that.
You obviously have not read many of his articles nor have heard him when he co-hosts with Bob McCown on Sportsnet-Fan 590.
The man is a ridiculous cheerleader of the No Fun League.
It is so blatantly pro NFL and or a franchise coming to Toronto that one wonders if Brunt had a in body transformation or some one slipped him a NFL kool aid concoction?