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USports hockey is dead space because it's the end of the line for a lot of the players' developmental progress. People would, presumably, want to watch NCAA hockey over USports hockey because NCAA players are more likely to go on to play in the NHL (and are younger on the whole). Unless you're selling some sort of developmental path for these players to major sports it's a tough sell. CHL is an easy sell for Sportsnet because a lot of them are going to be future NHLers in 3-5 years. There's also plenty of Canadians in NCAA hockey...
theScore years ago poured a ton of money and effort into USports football with very limited success. Carleton and uOttawa have tremendous basketball programs but get essentially zero coverage in-and-around Ottawa for the casual sports fan. etc. etc. You can go to most USports events and sit amongst a handful of people. Just not appealing for most people for whatever reason. :shrug: Quote:
In the 15-16 season in 45 games the NCAA teams went 34-10-1. [Source] |
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NCAA hockey would be out of sight and out of mind if Canadian sports networks weren't publicizing them over USports, why? No production costs, and a beholding to shareholders and profit. But these companies also have to listen to stakeholders. If a sizeable women's contingent went to Rogers and said you don't employ enough women sportscasters you can be damn sure there'd be a stampede of hiring. How is it when something has a little TLC and some bucks thrown at it that good things often result. ie Laval football I'm naive, I just can't see how some can support another country's culture over there own or worse work to help kill their own. |
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TheScore attempted to make a focus of USports football and it went nowhere. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario. It takes interest to develop a sport but it takes development in a sport to generate interest. Quote:
If USports had any broad appeal you can bet that TSN/SN would be all over it, and you would bet they would be filling stands. Neither is happening. |
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I agree with your first few sentences but if you think a high profile and large attendances have to be the prerequisite for televised success, I suggest you Google a little thing called Pot Black and the impact it had on its sport. |
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The continued disinterest in university football is bizarre considering football owes its existence to these schools. Interest was decent right up to the 1950s and then it fell off a cliff. Laval has shown that it can become more than it was. I suppose we just don't have the population base to support it elsewhere. We have no jurisdictions (Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Nebraska, etc.) with millions of people devoid of pro football. University basketball probably has the best chance of gaining traction. Basketball is booming and the talent level at Canadian schools is far higher than it used to be. It doesn't hurt that schools like Duke are venturing north each year to play our schools. Canadians who have never thought of watching Canadian university basketball attended that Duke series in large numbers. Ryerson, Toronto, and McGill all lost by double digits but they didn't embarrass themselves either. I think it surprised a lot of people who watched those games. Canada used to have no AAU basketball at all. Now we have many of them and more are sprouting up every year. It shows that it can be done from Canada. These programs are very competitive with their US counterparts. Going up against US AAU basketball programs is one thing but going up against NCAA D1 basketball is another. Can programs like Carleton and Ryerson get there? |
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This is not to say that Carleton would make the NCAA Final Four, but they're not at the level of a couple of teenagers from the hood playing 21 on an asphalt court, which is how Canadian USport teams are often portrayed and treated. |
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On a broader level, we all like to see ourselves as masters of our own domain in terms of our cultural preferences (including sports) but the truth there is a little bit or a lot of "lemming" in all of us. What we're interested in is hugely related to conditioning, marketing and peer pressure. Your average kid in Corner Brook, Nfld. who's never played basketball except in phys ed class doesn't have an intergenerational family history with NCAA March Madness. It's clearly been *sold* to him and millions of other Canadians as a sports property they should absolutely be paying attention to. |
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They might be the most attended but only because there's 50+ teams of varying size split amongst three leagues. All other leagues are operating below ten Canadian teams. Obviously this is a caveat. Quote:
If you aren't paying full attention the CHL Top Prospects game is on SN tonight, broadcasting from Red Deer. Quote:
I agree that the CHL should have way more coverage than it otherwise gets in Canada but if you're looking for SN/TSN to be the leaders in developing sports in Canada you're looking in the wrong direction. Their motives are strictly financial, and there's more to be made off of NCAA/NFL/whatever. This isn't just a TV avenue like it was forty years ago - SN/TSN can't control trends on Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat but they can control how their viewers view them through a Canadian/broadcasting lens. They show what they think is popular to maximize viewership. That's it. If that means it's football then it's football, if that means it's Mexican bull dancing then it's that. If they want to stay relevant then eventually it'll be eSports or whatever other trend arrives in the next decade. |
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That was the same Wisconsin team that lost by one point in the MM semi final. And for our folks still living the myth both NCAA teams played their best players. Interesting to see that Wisconsin missed the NCAA final by one point and articles are popping up with them crediting the whippin' they got from Carleton as a change for their season. |
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As for basketball... Canadian coach turning heads in NBA circles His aspirations in the game are large, stating that his two goals are to coach in the NBA, and for Canada at the Olympics. “Even when I’m working with the junior national team, I get a sense of pride when I pull that maple leaf on my chest. It means as much to me— if not more— than anything I’m doing [at Summer League]. In fact everything I’m doing here I’m trying to represent Canada.” “Success breeds success,” Morrison says. “Canada has great coaches—not just great players. As the players have success people down south will start to wonder who are training these guys. As guys like me have success hopefully I can help inspire the guys coming up behind me. If we keep knocking on the door we can break it down together”. |
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Yes, the Q in spite of being the weakest of the three CHL leagues gets the best media coverage of all three. Especially from RDS which has a dedicated reporter Stéphane Leroux who is on Sports30 (equivalent to SportsCentre) regularly with highlights and scores, and also appears on magazine-type shows alongside guys who talk Habs and the NHL. |
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------------- In CPL news: Peter Schaad @PeteSchaad I’ve heard rumblings from a few avenues that the CPL may be on the verge of a rather significant broadcast/media rights deal. If true, what a fantastic achievement for the League & CSB leadership. The chain reaction from that kind of deal would be immense. #CanPL Schaad covers the Whitecaps for TSN so there's likely something to it. I've been under the assumption that Sportsnet will be going after the CPL after losing EPL and for featuring CPL in articles lately so we'll see. TSN still has rights to the Canadian MLS teams so running those and CPL could work, I suppose, but the rights make more sense with Sportsnet. |
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BTW, I think they should change the name of the league to the Quebec and Maritime Junior Hockey League - they wouldn't even have to change the league acronym!! :) |
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