The CIS might be Canada's best-kept sporting secret
Andrew Bucholtz Eh Game 3 May, 2016
Canada has devoted fans for sports from hockey to football to basketball to curling and well beyond, but all of those sports are contested at a high level nationally where they don't draw much attention.
That would be Canadian Interuniversity Sport, which has 56 member universities from coast to coast with 11,500 athletes, and regulates national competition in 12 different sports (men's football, women's rugby and field hockey, and men's and women's basketball, cross-country, curling, hockey, soccer, swimming, track and field, volleyball and wrestling; many universities also compete in other sports on more regional levels). CIS has produced countless highly-successful Olympians and other professional athletes, and its competitions make for great viewing at a cheap price, but they're off the radar for many Canadian sports fans.
That's why there's something to be said for University of Calgary Dinos' quarterback Andrew Buckley's comments Monday (after being honoured as Canada's top male university athlete at the BLG Awards; Olympic-bound swimmer Kylie Masse from the University of Toronto Varsity Blues was named the top female athlete) about how CIS deserves more attention:
Buckley is right; CIS is remarkably and consistently underrated on the Canadian sports landscape, and that's unfortunate. The quality of play in a wide variety of sports is incredibly high; football turns out vast numbers of CFL prospects (and a few NFL prospects and draftees, like the Manitoba Bisons' David Onyemata, picked by the New Orleans Saints in the fourth round this year) year after year (Buckley himself is an impressive prospect, too; he was drafted by the CFL's Calgary Stampeders last year, and now will have
the rare chance to make that league as a Canadian quarterback), while men's hockey is full of ex-major junior players (and has perhaps a better level of play across the board than junior, as those players now have more experience than they did in the junior ranks) and has produced NHLers like Joel Ward.
Men's volleyball is one of the few sports where top CIS teams often beat top NCAA teams, but that's happened in men's basketball too (especially when it comes to the Carleton Ravens' dynasty), and both produce countless players who go on to professional careers in Europe. Women's rugby, soccer, hockey, basketball and more produce numerous Canadian Olympians and some professional athletes, and plenty of other Olympians come through CIS schools in sports like swimming and track and field. Despite all this, CIS doesn't draw a lot of attention.
The interesting thing about Buckley's comments is that he comes from a sport (football) that draws far more attention than anything else in CIS, and he played at a school where football regularly draws a big audience. Even there, though, things are far from perfect. The national championship, the Vanier Cup, has seen some fantastic games and some great attention for them over the last few years, particularly for the Vanier Cup-Grey Cup pairing in 2011 and 2012, but that pairing isn't returning any time soon thanks to CIS' desire to hold their championship separately from the CFL's and their decision to sign a TV deal with Sportsnet rather than with CFL partner TSN.
An ambitious and promising privately-funded 2015 plan to create a national schedule for the top teams and generate more television exposure was approved by Canada West, but vetoed by Ontario and Quebec, so that fell apart. Meanwhile, national TV coverage of CIS football has decreased, especially after Sportsnet (which took over previous CIS broadcaster The Score in 2012) decided to stop showing OUA regular-season games in 2014. There's still weekly Canada West coverage on Shaw TV and Access, and there are streaming options for many games, but it's tough for many to regularly watch CIS football.
Things are mostly worse if you're a fan of other CIS sports. Yes, there's some TV coverage around the championships, but hockey, basketball and other sports get very little attention during the season. Technology helps here, as CIS has generally done a good job of embracing streaming and webcasts, but those are only going to draw in those who are already passionate about the sport. Buckley's comments are particularly illustrative of where things are at; he played for one of the highest-profile teams in what's probably CIS' highest-profile sport, he's received a rare shot to try and make the CFL as a Canadian quarterback, he was just named Canada's top male athlete at the university level, and he's still largely anonymous to many. It's great to see him speaking out like this about the value of Canadian university sports, though, and hopefully other prominent CIS alumni will add their voices to his.
There does appear to be some hope for CIS. New CEO Graham Brown, who took over last fall, left a very good job as Rugby Canada's CEO in order to do so, and it seems unlikely he'd do that if he didn't believe in the organization's potential. Brown's background is highly promising, as he did an excellent job of raising rugby to greater prominence on the Canadian scene, and he may be able to do some of the same at the CIS level.
There are numerous challenges with CIS, particularly with balancing different regions, different schools, different sports and their differing goals, but some of the schools and regional federations seem to be coming around to the idea that they're going to have to work together to grow the whole pie and that they're going to have to market their sports in order to succeed in the long run. They're also looking hard for sponsors, and if they can find some good ones, that could help these sports gain higher prominence and larger audiences. It might even help convince TV networks that they deserve to be aired.
Whether CIS succeeds or fails with its marketing initiatives, though, its sports can still be an incredible opportunity for sports fans. There's a tremendously high level of competition in most of these sports, and tickets to anything from a regular-season game to a regional or national championship are generally very cheap. It's worth taking a look at nearby universities to see if they compete in any sports you're interested in, and if so, checking out a game; you'll probably be impressed.
Beyond the level of play, there's also the fun of cheering for a school you went to or a local school, something that's helped NCAA sports rise to their staggering level of popularity. CIS has its issues on the marketing and television sides, and isn't anywhere close to the NCAA's profile, but it's already got an excellent product in a wide variety of sports. That makes it underrated, as Buckley said, but it also makes it perhaps Canadian sports' best-kept secret.
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