The Great Canadian Sports Attendance, Marketing and TV Ratings Thread

[Djeffery]

I was surprised to see US ratings down. I figured with the pandemic that parties and bar viewing would be lower and more people would be watching at home. I'm guessing that is in part why Canadian ratings were up.

Originally Posted by JHikka

Speaking of Bell cutting talent:

https://www.bellmedia.ca/the-lede/pr...tv-tsn-and-rds

SUPER BOWL LV Becomes Third-Biggest on Record, with 8.8 Million Viewers on CTV, TSN, and RDS

"TORONTO (February 8, 2021) – After a dominant performance led by the legendary Tom Brady, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ victory in SUPER BOWL LV is the third-most-watched SUPER BOWL ever in Canada, attracting an average audience of 8.8 million viewers on CTV, TSN, and RDS, according to preliminary data from Numeris. The game attracted significant engagement across the networks’ digital platforms, with SUPER BOWL live streaming on CTV, TSN, and RDS growing by 108% compared to last year.

17.6 million unique Canadian viewers, accounting for 47% of Canada’s population, tuned in to watch some part of the NFL’s iconic championship game. Audiences peaked at 11 million viewers at 8:38 p.m. ET during the Pepsi Super Bowl LV Halftime Show headlined by Canadian superstar The Weeknd.

SUPER BOWL LV ranks as Canada’s most-watched broadcast of the 2020/21 broadcast season. CTV and TSN were the first and second most-watched networks in Canada on Sunday."

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Bell is classless in the way they let their talent go in salary dumps though they don't even give them 2 weeks notice so they can say goodbye on air. There is an article in the Winnipeg Free Press this week of how 25 year veteran lead anchor man on the CTV Winnipeg 6 o'clock news Gord Leclerc was summoned abruptly on a friday and told he would no longer be with the company immediately and walked him out the door like he stole something not even letting him say goodbye on air and within a week his mother died. Bell are so cutthroat its really tacky not sure who their HR manager is but its really dumb the way they do their salary dumps.

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ar...573730242.html

It's pretty standard in media to let people go like that. It's the ultimate in cancel culture, it's like you never existed. I'm actually surprised the few times I hear of someone being let go and they get to have a final show. Bob McCown, who reportedly was the highest paid radio host in the country when he was let go in the summer of 2019, was allowed to finish out his week on Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet and Fan590. And he handled it like a pro, didn't talk about himself at all, which was rare for him. He probably had a clause in his contract that if he went out in a blaze of glory, he wasn't going to get any money after. You'd think that would be a thing for all of them, really. Most of them aren't exactly wealthy and don't want to blow a nice severance package just to shit talk the station.

I remember one talk show host in London about 15 years ago, the news came out in May that his contract wasn't being renewed and he would be leaving the air at the end of June. The deal was he wasn't allowed to talk about his status at all on the air. And sure enough, every time a caller said something about it he shut them down and said he appreciated it but he wasn't allowed to talk about it. Finally, a few weeks goes by, and he's had enough of shutting everyone down, so he basically says "Fine, the situation sucks, I hate that I'm losing my job and I hate even more that I can't talk about it whenever a caller says something. So I'm not shutting anyone down, what are they gonna do to me anyway?", and that was his last show lol. I don't know if it cost him his package, if he even had one.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by LakeLocker

Download the podcast version. Mind you the CFL is shit out of luck if its fans can't figure out the technology.

CFL has a radical amount of potential, the American potential for the CFL in this day and age is huge.

If you focus more on streaming etc, I'm sure you could crack into football fans wanting something different during the summer.

The CFL if serious could be exactly what the XFL was trying to be. A faster spring league alternate to the NFL.

I take it as a point of interest that Dwayne the Rock Johnson an exCFL player bought the XFL.


Any CFL fan should be wondering the Rock didn't have his own CFL team.

What podcast is going to have three hours of content posted at 7am the day after a night game?

What about the day after that?

What about the day after that?

TSN1150 obviously isn't all-Ticats all the time, but in season it dominates the conversation. And it's not just the CFL-focused segments, references are made throughout the show to Ticats/other Hamilton things in a way that some Toronto or American show never will. Hell, TSN1150 covered the rest of the CFL more than probably any other station out there. Same goes for the Bulldogs during hockey season.

What about college sports? Regular updates on Mac football during their season. "Players of the week" throughout the year based on local college and amateur sports

All of these things are not able to be replicated by very specific podcasts, that at best come out once a week.

And for the record, I don't download shit. I buy CD's for my truck, or listen to the radio. If I'm at my computer for work, then I can find podcasts and listen to them - I'm already consuming all that content the CFL offers, so, I gotta spend time downloading a non-existent podcast late at night or early in the morning before my drive.... only to now have a hole in my listening content later in the day?

Don't spin this any other way, this absolutely sucks for the CFL, its fans, college sports, and other local sports.

As for all that American focused nonsense. The CFL doesn't need to be "a faster spring league alternate to the NFL" It's already a faster, summer+fall alternate to NFL. You know, when it's actual fans want to watch football, not changing its identity to be be non-fans second (more like 4th or fifth) favourite league, if that.

[jonny24]

Like many other Canadian teams, the Toronto Arrows will begin their season playing home games in Atlanta. Training camp will happen in Toronto before the season kicks off on March 20th. Hopefully we'll be allowed border crossings and fans in stands by the end of the season - the final is August 1st.

https://torontoarrows.com/news/toron...f-2021-season/

[LakeLocker]

Originally Posted by jonny24

What podcast is going to have three hours of content posted at 7am the day after a night game?

What about the day after that?

What about the day after that?

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

TSN1150 obviously isn't all-Ticats all the time, but in season it dominates the conversation. And it's not just the CFL-focused segments, references are made throughout the show to Ticats/other Hamilton things in a way that some Toronto or American show never will. Hell, TSN1150 covered the rest of the CFL more than probably any other station out there. Same goes for the Bulldogs during hockey season.

Radio is a dying medium, this lack of a replacement is a problem for the league.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

What about college sports? Regular updates on Mac football during their season. "Players of the week" throughout the year based on local college and amateur sports

All of these things are not able to be replicated by very specific podcasts, that at best come out once a week.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And for the record, I don't download shit. I buy CD's for my truck, or listen to the radio. If I'm at my computer for work, then I can find podcasts and listen to them - I'm already consuming all that content the CFL offers, so, I gotta spend time downloading a non-existent podcast late at night or early in the morning before my drive.... only to now have a hole in my listening content later in the day?

Don't spin this any other way, this absolutely sucks for the CFL, its fans, college sports, and other local sports.

It's a far bigger issue if the CFL can't generate online content. Podcasting etc isn't a fringe idea. It's dominating growth is radically outstripping radio.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

As for all that American focused nonsense. The CFL doesn't need to be "a faster spring league alternate to the NFL" It's already a faster, summer+fall alternate to NFL. You know, when it's actual fans want to watch football, not changing its identity to be be non-fans second (more like 4th or fifth) favourite league, if that.

"actual fans" are aging out.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by LakeLocker

"actual fans" are aging out.

You've misquoted, I said the part about actual fans, not TrueNorth00




I'm 27. I've been a season ticket holder since I was 23. I sure as fuck hope I'm not "aging out" anytime soon. There is a huge young crowd at THF.

[JHikka]

https://twitter.com/SportsnetPR/stat...91189272428549

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by jonny24

You've misquoted, I said the part about actual fans, not TrueNorth00




I'm 27. I've been a season ticket holder since I was 23. I sure as fuck hope I'm not "aging out" anytime soon. There is a huge young crowd at THF.

Lots of young fans at Redblacks games in Ottawa as well.

I think the average age of the crowd might be as young or younger than at Senators games.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Lots of young fans at Redblacks games in Ottawa as well.

I think the average age of the crowd might be as young or younger than at Senators games.

Similar to what we see in Winnipeg too. There is pretty broad age representation at Blue Bombers games. It's not that unlike Jets games where the prime seats are taken up by older long-time season ticket holders and then you have a lot of younger people in the less expensive seats.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Lots of young fans at Redblacks games in Ottawa as well.

I think the average age of the crowd might be as young or younger than at Senators games.

You need a car to get to Sens games, so between that and being unable to drink and get safely home that bumps the age up a bit. Not so much that young people don't go to Sens games and more that it leans older crowds by default due to location.

RB tickets can be gotten pretty cheap, surrounded by bars and restos, and is in a central enough part of the city that grabbing an Uber home isn't $40. OSEG was actively aiming for university-aged consumers for all of their teams pre-COVID.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

You need a car to get to Sens games, so between that and being unable to drink and get safely home that bumps the age up a bit. Not so much that young people don't go to Sens games and more that it leans older crowds by default due to location.

RB tickets can be gotten pretty cheap, surrounded by bars and restos, and is in a central enough part of the city that grabbing an Uber home isn't $40. OSEG was actively aiming for university-aged consumers for all of their teams pre-COVID.

All good reasons.

Sens games have lots of younger kids, with their parents. So do the RBs.

The 20-something and university crowd as you say seems slightly more represented at RBs games though.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by JHikka

You need a car to get to Sens games, so between that and being unable to drink and get safely home that bumps the age up a bit. Not so much that young people don't go to Sens games and more that it leans older crowds by default due to location.

RB tickets can be gotten pretty cheap, surrounded by bars and restos, and is in a central enough part of the city that grabbing an Uber home isn't $40. OSEG was actively aiming for university-aged consumers for all of their teams pre-COVID.

Its almost as if a centrally-placed arena might help the Senators and their attendance issues.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by wave46

Its almost as if a centrally-placed arena might help the Senators and their attendance issues.

It's almost as if all NHL teams with bad attendance issues play outside of urban downtowns.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by JHikka

You need a car to get to Sens games, so between that and being unable to drink and get safely home that bumps the age up a bit. Not so much that young people don't go to Sens games and more that it leans older crowds by default due to location.

RB tickets can be gotten pretty cheap, surrounded by bars and restos, and is in a central enough part of the city that grabbing an Uber home isn't $40. OSEG was actively aiming for university-aged consumers for all of their teams pre-COVID.

When I was in Ottawa, I rode my bike or just walked to the games. The free bike valet was a great perk!

[esquire]

In the wake of the TSN radio closures across Canada, the most prominent host at TSN 1290 in Winnipeg has started up his own daily Youtube show with one of his cohorts, and it's called Winnipeg Sports Talk. Today was day one and they had a large number of listeners with subscribers into the thousands. It was a great start for them.

As I've mentioned, I have been listening to the Rod Pedersen Show out of Regina which is on TV (Game+), but I'd imagine that their bread and butter is Facebook/Youtube views. It must be working out for him because he's been running the show for months with a pretty good roster of sponsors and a steady stream of interesting guests.

I really don't get how the economics of this works... I don't know how the Youtube views and ad dollars for something that is of fairly narrow interest (a sports show centred on a Canadian city that isn't Toronto or Montreal) can earn you enough to make a living, but apparently it can?

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by esquire

In the wake of the TSN radio closures across Canada, the most prominent host at TSN 1290 in Winnipeg has started up his own daily Youtube show with one of his cohorts, and it's called Winnipeg Sports Talk. Today was day one and they had a large number of listeners with subscribers into the thousands. It was a great start for them.

As I've mentioned, I have been listening to the Rod Pedersen Show out of Regina which is on TV (Game+), but I'd imagine that their bread and butter is Facebook/Youtube views. It must be working out for him because he's been running the show for months with a pretty good roster of sponsors and a steady stream of interesting guests.

I really don't get how the economics of this works... I don't know how the Youtube views and ad dollars for something that is of fairly narrow interest (a sports show centred on a Canadian city that isn't Toronto or Montreal) can earn you enough to make a living, but apparently it can?

I've watched Rod's show both on FB Live and YouTube and I find the FB live show more interactive but that's just me. His advertisers are 100% local businesses. But I think the secret sauce is talking sports or levels of sports that the suits in Toronto dismiss as bush. Yes he talks NFL and NHL, but also has Jr Hockey, CFL, USports (once it gets back up) and curling. He gets lots of former players on there and they let their hair down and really open up.

The other day I watched the Jets - Canadians game. I tried to watch the intermission show but switched channels after about 20 seconds because it was absolutely fucking horrible! Cliché after cliché.

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

I've watched Rod's show both on FB Live and YouTube and I find the FB live show more interactive but that's just me. His advertisers are 100% local businesses. But I think the secret sauce is talking sports or levels of sports that the suits in Toronto dismiss as bush. Yes he talks NFL and NHL, but also has Jr Hockey, CFL, USports (once it gets back up) and curling. He gets lots of former players on there and they let their hair down and really open up.

The other day I watched the Jets - Canadians game. I tried to watch the intermission show but switched channels after about 20 seconds because it was absolutely fucking horrible! Cliché after cliché.

Bingo the sports fans in the West here are very underserved from what TSN and Spotsnet feed us as we don't care as much about tennis or the raptors and jays but like to get some more focus on curling, Usports, WHL hockey paired with the big 4 leagues sports talk.

[JHikka]

TORONTO ARROWS ANNOUNCE TSN AS 2021 EXCLUSIVE CANADIAN MEDIA PARTNER

TORONTO, ON – The Toronto Arrows Rugby Football Club is pleased to announce that TSN will return as the team’s exclusive Canadian media partner for the 2021 Major League Rugby season.

The partnership will see Canada’s Sports Leader deliver the club’s 16 regular season games in 2021, as well as potential post-season matches, to TSN and TSN Direct subscribers through the network’s suite of linear and digital platforms, including its national television feeds, TSN.ca, and the TSN app.

Mark Winokur, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of the Toronto Arrows, stated: “We are very excited to have TSN back as our broadcast partner for 2021. This is a critical piece of our fan engagement strategy as we navigate being out of the country for the start of the season. Having our matches delivered to national audiences on TSN will be a key driver in ensuring fans can remain connected with us throughout the season.”

https://torontoarrows.com/news/tsn-2021/

[JHikka]

Tangentially related

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article...roadcast-deal/

Sources: NHL, ESPN reach seven-year U.S. broadcast deal

Significant murmurs surfaced Tuesday that the NHL has sewn up one-half of its new U.S. media rights package.

ESPN is believed to have reached a seven-year deal to become one of the league's media partners starting next season, according to multiple league and industry sources.

There was no confirmation from the NHL on an agreement that is expected to see ESPN get the rights to broadcast four Stanley Cup Finals between 2022 and 2028, plus streaming rights for Disney.

Financial terms of the deal weren't immediately available, nor was it clear which other media company would split the package with ESPN.

NBC currently pays $200 million annually for exclusive U.S. media rights that expire after this season.

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by JHikka

TORONTO ARROWS ANNOUNCE TSN AS 2021 EXCLUSIVE CANADIAN MEDIA PARTNER

TORONTO, ON – The Toronto Arrows Rugby Football Club is pleased to announce that TSN will return as the team’s exclusive Canadian media partner for the 2021 Major League Rugby season.

The partnership will see Canada’s Sports Leader deliver the club’s 16 regular season games in 2021, as well as potential post-season matches, to TSN and TSN Direct subscribers through the network’s suite of linear and digital platforms, including its national television feeds, TSN.ca, and the TSN app.

Mark Winokur, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of the Toronto Arrows, stated: “We are very excited to have TSN back as our broadcast partner for 2021. This is a critical piece of our fan engagement strategy as we navigate being out of the country for the start of the season. Having our matches delivered to national audiences on TSN will be a key driver in ensuring fans can remain connected with us throughout the season.”

https://torontoarrows.com/news/tsn-2021/

who are the arrows what happened to the wolfpack?