Sports in Canadian culture

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by elly63

Look how TSN benefitted from giving just a tad of meaningful coverage to the CFL, same with curling. Canadians want to see Canadians, people they know from places they know.
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Imagine how TSN would have been up Schitt's Creek without the CFL and curling when they lost the NHL rights...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by elly63

It's especially irksome when they publicize NCAA teams that aren't even as good as CIS schools. I'd be curious to find out how many people could point out where Clemson is without looking it up. Not too darn many.

.

Not sure if this is even what you are saying, but Clemson are pretty darn good.

[esquire]

I guess if NCAA and CIS draw similar amounts of viewers in Canada then NCAA is the one you want if you're a broadcaster because you can get the canned product dirt cheap from US networks vs. having to produce and promote it yourself, which costs big bucks.

But I take Zelkovich's point. Notwithstanding the broad similarities between the US and Canadian sports markets, there are a couple of big differences. One of them is auto racing, namely NASCAR, and the other is NCAA sports. Outside of a handful of intensely devoted fans of certain individual sports who follow the NCAA generally, I can't really think of many people here in Canada who follow NCAA sports, and certainly not along the US model of "I live near _____ State University so I cheer for _____ State University in everything".

It's a real eye opener for Canadians not fully accustomed to this... I remember some years ago visiting a Target store in Raleigh, NC. Vast amounts of UNC and NCSU merch. A bunch of Duke and Wake Forest. And then languishing over by the end of the aisle, the poor forlorn Carolina Hurricanes with a few measly t-shirts.... the area's only "major league" team but effectively a niche interest next to the all-consuming college basketball scene.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

I guess if NCAA and CIS draw similar amounts of viewers in Canada then NCAA is the one you want if you're a broadcaster because you can get the canned product dirt cheap from US networks vs. having to produce and promote it yourself, which costs big bucks.
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And that's why you get all the syndicated non-game programming around the NFL and shows like Jim Rome broadcast all over Canada too: it's relatively cheap filler. Or at least a lot cheaper than producing your own stuff.

Though of course there are still tons of Canadian-made programs masquerading as American ones out there too...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

But I take Zelkovich's point. Notwithstanding the broad similarities between the US and Canadian sports markets, there are a couple of big differences. One of them is auto racing, namely NASCAR, and the other is NCAA sports.

Auto racing is actually pretty big in Quebec. But it's Formula 1.

The Montreal Grand Prix gets between 1 and 1.5 million TV viewers on RDS alone.

Grand Prix races in other countries get between 300,000 and 500,000 viewers on RDS. And they are often in crappy time slots like early Sunday mornings.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Not sure if this is even what you are saying, but Clemson are pretty darn good.

No I was trying to point out how unrelateable they are aside from having a good football team. Where the hell is it? Don't look it up.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by elly63

No I was trying to point out how unrelateable they are aside from having a good football team. Where the hell is it? Don't look it up.

I guess they're in one of the states in the southeastern US, somewhere between Washington DC and the Florida border... Virginia? Georgia? North Carolina? South Carolina? Something like that. Alabama? Maybe not...

[Acajack]

OK so Clemson is in a small city in South Carolina by the same name. Part of the Greenville metro area.

There are a bunch of sports-famous US colleges like this that I have no idea where they are located: Wake Forest, Rutgers, Purdue, William and Mary, Tulane, Auburn, etc.

Though I do know without checking that Notre-Dame is in South Bend, Indiana.

[Acajack]

I'll take "Cryptic NCAA College Locations" for 100, Alex!

[elly63]

Originally Posted by esquire

I guess if NCAA and CIS draw similar amounts of viewers in Canada then NCAA is the one you want if you're a broadcaster because you can get the canned product dirt cheap from US networks vs. having to produce and promote it yourself, which costs big bucks.

Outside of a handful of intensely devoted fans of certain individual sports who follow the NCAA generally, I can't really think of many people here in Canada who follow NCAA sports, and certainly not along the US model of "I live near _____ State University so I cheer for _____ State University in everything".

And therein lies the problem. By airing it, they are helping to build an audience for it, basically shoving it down our throats whether people want it or not. That eventually will build an audience who believe that by it being on TV it is relevant, vs CIS not being on TV much makes it irrelevant.

Some of the younger people here may not know how irrelevant the NFL was in Canada not long ago. I believe it may only be the last 10 years or so where the Super Bowl has out rated the Grey Cup. Before that it wasn't even close.

In the 70s/80s the NFL had a small Canadian audience in border areas where signals could be received OTA (or later cable) but even just a few years ago before CTV started promoting games on the full network, NFL Canadian ratings were very poor.

We're just giving up the shop and I don't know why. We built a world renowned TV industry and a music industry why won't we do this?

Few people know this but 10 years ago or so we were the second biggest producer and exporter of television programs (behind the US and ahead of the UK and Japan). I don't know if that is still true but we can do this, I don't know why we are letting our culture be dominated by a foreign one. Damn money grubbing conglomerates.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I guess they're in one of the states in the southeastern US, somewhere between Washington DC and the Florida border... Virginia? Georgia? North Carolina? South Carolina? Something like that. Alabama? Maybe not...

I did know they were in South Carolina because I have a brain full of useless knowledge like that but pointing it out on a map, forget about it.

I have absolutely no relateability to Clemson which makes it such bullshit. At least Wilfrid Laurier (random example) is in Canada and I know where it is and a few people who went there.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by elly63

Some of the younger people here may not know how irrelevant the NFL was in Canada not long ago. I believe it may only be the last 10 years or so where the Super Bowl has out rated the Grey Cup. Before that it wasn't even close.

In the 70s/80s the NFL had a small Canadian audience in border areas where signals could be received OTA (or later cable) but even just a few years ago before CTV started promoting games on the full network, NFL Canadian ratings were very poor.

We're just giving up the shop and I don't know why. We built a world renowned TV industry and a music industry why won't we do this?

Few people know this but 10 years ago or so we were the second biggest producer and exporter of television programs (behind the US and ahead of the UK and Japan). I don't know if that is still true but we can do this, I don't know why we are letting our culture be dominated by a foreign one. Damn money grubbing conglomerates.

Here is my take on it.

I was a kid in the 70s and I loved all sports. Pro football was CFL. I lived in various places in Ontario and Atlantic Canada. I distinctly remember as a 10-year-old occasionally talking CFL with other boys in the schoolyard in the Maritimes. In my memory, things started to take off for the NFL in Canada around the mid-80s. I remember for the first time guys in my high school talking with a teacher about the Super Bowl, and Joe Theismann, Marcus Allen, etc.

To me, it's around that time that the NFL really "arrived". Almost immediately a bunch of people I knew switched the CFL off completely and only swore by the NFL from then on.

My closest circle of friends were big sports fans, and we basically gobbled up anything. We didn't turn off the CFL - we just added the NFL to our interests.

So in my view the NFL and the Super Bowl have been a big deal in Canada for a lot longer than 10 years. Probably closer to 25, although it seems to get bigger and bigger every year.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Acajack

OK so Clemson is in a small city in South Carolina by the same name. Part of the Greenville metro area.

There are a bunch of sports-famous US colleges like this that I have no idea where they are located: Wake Forest, Rutgers, Purdue, William and Mary, Tulane, Auburn, etc.

Though I do know without checking that Notre-Dame is in South Bend, Indiana.

For those curious:

Wake Forest - Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Rutgers - New Brunswick, New Jersey
Purdue - West Lafayette, Indiana
William & Mary - Williamsburg, Virginia
Tulane - New Orleans, Louisiana
Auburn - Auburn, Alabama

Some others:
Georgetown - Washington, DC
Old Dominion - Norfolk, Virginia
Quinnipiac - Hamden, Connecticut
Marquette - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Seton Hall - South Orange, New Jersey
St. John's - New York City, New York
Temple - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Vanderbilt - Nashville, Tennessee
Villanova - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Xavier - Cincinnati, Ohio

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Acajack

So in my view the NFL and the Super Bowl have been a big deal in Canada for a lot longer than 10 years. Probably closer to 25, although it seems to get bigger and bigger every year.

It may have been talked about but the only comparative source we have for measuring popularity, TV ratings, back then it was not very good.

Even Raptor basketball last time I looked was only getting 150k for a regular season game. That is not even a good GTA rating, so unless they are on a playoff run, I think we can assume their popularity in Canada among those who closely follow them is not very good.

The facts just don't seem to follow the myths but if something is jammed down your throat often enough myth will become fact.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by JHikka

For those curious:
Old Dominion - Norfolk, Virginia

I know of a nun who played basketball at Old Dominion (one of the best women's schools historically)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by elly63

And therein lies the problem. By airing it, they are helping to build an audience for it, basically shoving it down our throats whether people want it or not. That eventually will build an audience who believe that by it being on TV it is relevant, vs CIS not being on TV much makes it irrelevant.
.

And part of the decent NCAA championship audience in Canada this past January is the result of that "building" by the media over the past couple of decades.

NCAA football also became quite popular in my circle of acquaintances in the 80s, as we all had cable TV and the American networks broadcast tons of games.

You could barely find CIS (they were called CIAU then I think) games anywhere on TV even if you looked for them. OK, I think CHCH out of Hamilton had an OUAA game of the week. And the Vanier Cup was televised.

I didn't know anyone who followed CIAU football (or any CIAU sport in fact) except for a few friends who went to the U of Ottawa and attended the Panda Game annually. Other Ottawa U and Carleton games apparently drew flies, the big Panda drunkfest drew 20,000.

NCAA basketball and March Madness started to pick up when I was in university (early 90s). Prior to that as a sports junkie I barely knew it existed. But all of a sudden I had dudes in my classes and at the campus bar talking about the Duke Blue Devils and Villanova...

No one paid attention to my university's basketball team, even though they had a borderline superstar player - or so I found out some years after I graduated.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Tulane - New Orleans, Louisiana

I would have guessed Philadelphia for Tulane.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Vanderbilt - Nashville, Tennessee
Villanova - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I would have guessed these two were in NYC!

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by elly63

Even Raptor basketball last time I looked was only getting 150k for a regular season game. That is not even a good GTA rating, so unless they are on a playoff run, I think we can assume their popularity in Canada among those who closely follow them is not very good.

"Viewership of NBA games in Canada has doubled on average across all networks since 2012-13 — an average of 54 per cent per season, The Canadian Press reported.

The Raptors' own TV ratings have also more doubled over five years, from 108,000 in 2010-11 to 246,000 in 2014-15. Ratings have gone down to 217,000 in 2015-16, but end-of-season audiences should drive that number up, according to the Raptors' broadcast department. "

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/basket...bers-1.3438486

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Marquette - Milwaukee, Wisconsin

This one made me scratch my head in my youth. In the days before the Internet information was not as easily available, and so you had to figure things out by yourself a lot of the time.

I knew from atlases that there was a town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with about 10,000 people called Marquette.

But for the life of me I couldn't understand why such a small town had a really good college basketball team playing in front of huge NHL-sized crowds in a spiffy state-of-the-art big city arena...