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Originally Posted by esquire
I stand to be corrected but I'm convinced that most people, including young ones, are watching sports mainly on TV.
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I'd take this bet. I'd say the vast, vast majority of younger viewers stream, and of those a good chunk are illegal streams. Older diehead CMNT fans will find a way to watch regardless, and getting younger fans on board is easier with streaming than traditional.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
Locking away this event to an app that almost no one has is a great way to ensure continued obscurity.
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We need to get over this notion that, in 2021, a streaming service is any more of a paywall than traditional TV (cable) is. Plenty of young people are willing to pay for things like Netflix and Amazon Prime - they also pay for things like DAZN and OneSoccer. These days i'd say it's more of a hassle to set up cable than streaming. If people are hesitant to sign up for a streaming service then I say
'tough', I guess, because things won't be getting any easier for you in the future as traditional tv is slowly phased out entirely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
I mean, I realize Canada Soccer has to take what it gets to a certain extent and it can't call the shots, but surely it can do better than this?!
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I think Canada Soccer played its cards right when it reorganized its rights into a single streaming package. It's essentially taken the initiative from two different sports bodies (MLS and F1) and combined it into one.
- MLS rights are packaged under SUM, meaning that all marketing, TV rights, etc. are in-house. If MLS plays a game SUM is a part of it, if USMNT plays a game SUM is a part of it. MLS owners get a chunk, revenues are shared, and everything is consolidated under one roof.
- F1 rights are increasingly moving online after their purchase by Liberty. Until a few years ago F1 had literally no online presence - no social channels, no streaming, no youtube - nothing. They went on to build F1TV, a dedicated streaming platform and service for all things F1, available around the world including in countries that already have TV deals (TSN's deal ends at the end of this year). It's a more immersive package and i'm giving my money directly to F1 instead of to TSN.
The issue that the CPL faced upon startup was deciding whether or not they wanted to depend on broadcasters to get their product to market or if they would be better off partnering with a video/streaming company, creating and owning that product directly, and then selling it off that way. It was a choice between seeing if a broadcaster would show interest or simply creating the broadcast themselves. When CPL rights began to be packaged together with CMNT/CWNT rights it became obvious that Canada Soccer Business (CSB) was attempted to emulate what was happened in the US with SUM. Every time there's a game on OneSoccer, Canada Soccer gets some sort of piece of it, and when i'm paying for OneSoccer my money is going to MediaPro/Canada Soccer instead of being filtered through TSN. You're essentially cutting out the middle man in the entire exercise.
If TSN/CBC wants to cover games then OS can provide them the feed as they did during Nations League, but as it stands the streaming platform that can be controlled in-house was the wiser decision to make instead of hoping and praying that a broadcaster stepped forward. It gives CPL/Canada Soccer creative control over broadcasts and doesn't mean they're waiting around for broadcasters they can't control to show their product. Combine this with audiences shifting more to streaming and voila.
Like, yes, i'm not ignorant to the fact that traditional TV still has a big audience, but once you start looking at market share trending, audience makeup (demos), and the hurdles of partnering with broadcasters it becomes plainly obvious why OneSoccer exists as it does today and why it wouldn't have made sense for CPL/CMNT to sell their soul and, for the sake of CMNT, get down on their knees and beg for their games to be broadcast as was the case in the past.
tl;dr Canadian broadcasters are shit at covering Canadian sports so CPL/CMNT became their own broadcaster instead.
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As for the match itself last night, Canada did...fine in the first half? Shaky, could have had better distribution, but on the whole definitely looked stronger than the depleted Haiti team. We actually have a pretty good shot at qualifying for 2022 if things align well in the Ocho. We need to confirm results against Honduras, Panama, and El Salvador, we need wins against Costa Rica and Jamaica, and we need draws against Mexico and the US. It's
possible to finish third in this group with the players we have at the moment, but either way playing fourteen meaningful games against strong opponents will be nothing but good for the program.
Now the fun of people arguing that games should be played outside of Toronto and Vancouver.
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