Probably not the TSN feed, which is yet another thing for the CFL to fix on this front, but it’s worth giving it a shot plus I do think the pregame is available on Pirate Sports Network as well
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ofbg makes a very important point. I’ve known about the CFL for decades, but I didn’t go looking for it. When I got cable TV for the first time ten years ago I happened upon some games on ESPN2, got interested and started looking for more, which led to ESPN+. I couldn’t get ESPNEWS where I live, but found I could get those games on Youtube a few days after they were played.
Our point is that when it was on ESPN we could happen upon it and then get hooked. I don’t see many people in the US finding CFL+ by accident, and this is a big issue in growing a US following. I hope the League can figure out an effective way to attract more US viewers.
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And you gloss over much of ESPN’s FAILED history with the league as have others, and as I have outlined above remembering that entire experience since 2011 when ESPN picked up coverage again after a short run at NBC after a short run via The NFL Network.
Though having a few CFL games on somewhere was better than only Pirate Sports Network all the time, no matter the future and the solution DOES NOT ever run through the crappy likes of ESPN with their spotty coverage, crappy app, and inexistent promotion but for Chris Berman, again.
ESPN certainly did not pay the CFL much so as to cover the league.
As I had posted several months ago even before ESPN was finally shown the door, I think the ESPN deal via 30% ownership of TSN was more an executive favour to MLSE via Bell and TSN for perks off-the-books.
On the CFL has started with CBS or with somebody else now for more exposure on TV to go with preferably a simulcast to streaming. And then also there is that part you and others also have overlooked of far more money that has been paid to the CFL for those rights already.
Of course you also overlook that ESPN was NOT free and far from it, as is CFL+.
And don’t give a pass to those who don’t know simply to look on the CFL website to find CFL+. It’s been there all along AND it was announced in this forum as well!
Just because YOU did not read that thread or care and just because YOU could not find it with a few stragglers showing up here months later only to complain because they did not ever stream anything before or fix their TV to do so, which is NOT a CFL issue it’s a YOU issue, does not mean that multiples more did not do so and are quite happy enjoying the CFL free on CFL+ in the meantime.
We sure don’t hear enough from them unlike your cohort stragglers who don’t even follow our assistance on here and just complain, which clearly you are still doing to beat your drum there.
One does NOT have to find CFL+ by “accident,” which you also falsely claim in your post lauding ESPN and that TRASH.
Now you and everybody else still complaining have until next season to fix your set-up as well if you still are not getting the games as you want them via streaming or cable TV.
There’s no sense popping in here midseason to chime in as if all of a sudden the situation that is YOUR failure is the CFL’s fault or anybody elses!
I am NOT saying that ESPN did a good job. I got kicked off ESPN+ and had to log back in many times. I would have really liked to see more games than I did. But by putting SOME CFL football on a cable channel that I could access I got hooked on the CFL and now spend a lot of my free time on it.
With the current setup, a prospective new fan would have to learn about Canadian football and come to understand that it’s not the same game as is played in the US, and want to see more to look for it.
Without that cable access or something similar, the League would need to devise another way to attract US fans. I have no idea what that will be, but I hope they will come up with something to make it happen. Sometimes it’s awfully lonely for a CFL fan down here.
You may think that I seem pretty silly complaining about a free service, but I realize that the CFL and its teams do not have the revenue streams available to them that other major sports enjoy. I can’t afford much, but if there were a modest fee for streaming I and enough others down here would be able make a small contribution to the league other than a lot of positive chin music.
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Here I agree with you in great part. But you are overlooking something.
Certainly the CFL can do more to promote and establish viewing on ALL fronts much as is doing the NFL and now to a greater degree also MLB.
But you overlook that those younger interested in the CFL have ZERO issue finding the website or CFL+, which clearly many of those posting midseason do as admitted after they come here to complain about things that are NOT the CFL’s fault.
It’s very basic sort of like checking texts, which I notice some of those same people forget though checking texts and visiting the website for a league to START to get information is the FIRST step not complaining to other people. We all have some of these relatives mind you, and it’s not like they have not been reminded before to check their texts or go to the website FIRST instead of whatever they did before (i.e. television schedules, some drawer in the kitchen where they wrote it down, et cetera).
And yes to your point, for beyond streaming for a simulcast I do agree that people would pay for it and guess what?
For example, they already do for Paramount+ like for CBS’s other leagues, which they cover via simulcast to streaming.
One reason that did not happen for the CFL is, as I have suspected and commented, that Genius Sports wanted to gather the data on the baseline streaming viewer DIRECTLY for sake of future plans.
Now that Genius Sports and the CFL obviously have that data on US viewers via CBS Sports Network in the summer and CFL+ internationally otherwise, the programming is far more valuable to prospective advertisers and the CFL can expand their international programming options.
I’m fine with much that is stated in this thread, but I am NOT fine with the following stated dominantly by people who quite simply are not paying attention to basics on the CFL if not much else in life:
- People, especially newcomers or those who have not been here in years, putting down the CFL when they themselves have not done their part to set themselves up for success to view ANY sports at all,
- People who complain but who did not simply go to the CFL homepage, like the rest of the world just for everything else in life for anything else, to get a start on their questions, AND
- As if we are still in 2015 and they are stuck there or in increments of 10 years further back, because they choose to be stuck beyond there mentally and well beyond their TV set-up, when they come here and spread falsehoods about ESPN’s FORMER coverage that overall was absolutely not great or consistent and also not free. These people were not even here much of the time when the games were on ESPN when we discussed on a frequent basis how bad that exposure was more often than not with all the scheduling hijinks on ESPN channels.
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