Sporting Madness

The English Premier League kicked off this weekend, but if you're a Canadian without an extensive sports television package, you can be forgiven for not noticing. Of the 10 Premier League fixtures this weekend, exactly one was available on one of the three basic Canadian sports channels (TSN, Rogers Sportsnet and The Score). That was today's 4-0 win by Blackpool over Wigan, which was certainly thrilling, but hardly the most anticipated matchup of the weekend. What about those other nine games? Well, two of them (Tottenham - Manchester City today and Manchester United - Newcastle on Monday) are available on TSN 2 . You can make an argument that that's reasonable, as TSN 2 has a fair bit of quality content these days, but it is still an extra cost ($5 per month with one other channel on Shaw). Six of the games are on Setanta Sports, with two being carried live (Aston Villa - West Ham today and Liverpool - Arsenal tomorrow) and the other four as same-day replays today. That...

It's almost a full week since the Olympics wrapped up, so I thought now would be a good time to look back at them. The emotions have faded, allowing for more logical analysis, but the implications of the Games—both positive and negative—will still be felt for some time to come. Ever since the Olympics were given to Vancouver, I've been juggling excitement and loathing. As I wrote in my initial piece , the Olympics are an interesting topic to write about, because they present such crass commercialism, excess and corruption alongside such genuine moments of inspiration. They bring highs and lows, and they come as a group package. I'm not a fan of those who fall head over heels in love with the Games while ignoring the very real issues and problems they present, but I'm also not a fan of those who lose track of the positives in their rush to condemn and criticize, especially when they hurt their own cause with senseless violence [ Doug Ward , The Vancouver Sun ]. The Ol...

(This is part of my ongoing series exploring the different sides of the Olympics; see this post for an explanation. I would have used "hoserism" instead of "jingoism", but I prefer to associate that with things I like . ). One of my central issues with the Olympics is the difference between what they are and what they claim to be. This shows up in almost every arena imaginable; the Olympics are supposed to be a celebration of sports at their purest, but the omnipresent corporate tie-ins detract from that a bit. They're supposed to be run by an international body that has the good of athletes as its top goal; in reality, they're run by an incredibly corrupt organization* that sees nothing wrong with blaming the victim to cover up its own flawed decisions. They're supposed to be an international gathering to promote peace and goodwill, but quite often, it seems that what they're really promoting is national chest-thumping. *You can read Andrew Jen...

William Houston reported the other day that the long-anticipated CBC Sports Plus digital sports channel not only won't be launching this year, it may not launch at all. Houston cites carriage issues as one of the major problems, which makes sense considering the difficulties TSN ran into trying to get Rogers to carry TSN2 (and TSN2 had much more high-demand programming when it started than CBC Sports Plus was anticipated to have). This is disappointing news for Canadian sports fans as a whole, as more channels tend to mean more sports events are available. However, it may be particularly damaging to CIS fans hoping to see more televised university sports content. I've been following the CBC Sports Plus saga for several years now, and first spoke to CBC Sports head Scott Moore on the subject for a Queen's Journal piece on CIS TV coverage in March 2008 . At that time, he seemed quite optimistic that the CIS might have a plcae on the new channel, commenting, "I thin...

Things aren't looking too good for Setanta, one of the primary worldwide broadcasters of the English Premier League. According to The Times , the company may go off the air "at any moment" after fellow broadcaster BSkyB declined to provide them with a £50 million [ BBC News ] loan in exchange for access to their live EPL rights. They've also apparently suspended new subscriptions [ Ireland Online , found via Brian Zygo ]. Founders Leonard Ryan and Michael O'Rourke are reportedly trying to find a new source of financing, but that isn't easy these days. This could have profound implications for soccer across the globe. Some of the most drastic effects will likely take place in the Scottish Premier League. Check out this passage from the Times article: "The worst effects of a Setanta collapse, though, would be felt in Scotland. Payments currently due to the individual SPL clubs range in size from £70,000 to nearly £750,000, with the Old Firm obviously ...

Two stories on the Globe and Mail 's website only hours apart give rather different takes on this year's Grey Cup viewership. The headline for the story from The Canadian Press is "Cup audience increases five per cent", while the headline for William Houston 's column is "Small audience tunes in to Grey Cup Game" (game really shouldn't be capitalized, but so be it). The ledes are also rather different, as shown below: CP: "An average of 3.65 million people tuned in to watch the first-ever Grey Cup broadcast on TSN and RDS on Sunday, according to numbers released by the network. The total audience for Calgary's win over Montreal in the 96th Grey Cup represented a five per cent increase over the viewership for last year's game, which Saskatchewan won over Winnipeg. That game was aired on CBC." Houston: "TSN's first Grey Cup telecast drew one of the lowest television audiences in the history of the CFL championship game. Th...

I should preface this by stating that I respect the Globe and Mail's William Houston as a writer who's been doing a tough job for a long time, and I frequently read his columns. He does a fantastic job as a reporter who digs up interesting details on media coverage of Canadian sports, and his takes on the competition among the various channels and the TV ratings of different events are always worth a look. However, his analysis of networks' on-air coverage is much more hit-and-miss. Some of it is bang-on, such as his analysis of the different networks' trade deadline shows. I don't agree with many of his other ideas, particularly about what makes good and bad commentary, but I can usually at least understand where he's coming from. On occasion though, he'll drop in something that's so absurdly out-of-the-blue that I can't even begin to fathom the thought process he went through in constructing it. A great example of the latter is his column from ye...

I've been meaning to put this up for a while, but just didn't have the time. A couple weeks ago, I wrote a story for the Journal about two new proposed TV networks the CRTC is looking at. The first application is an initiative of the Canadian Olympic Committee, which wants to launch English and French channels focusing on amateur sports, called the Canadian Amateur Sports Network and Réseau des sports amateur canadiens respectively. The second application is from the CBC for its own sports channel, which would also include an amateur sports component. Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports, told me that their application proposed 35 per cent amateur content. Both applications are currently before the CRTC, and should soon enter the "gazetting" period, where the public and other companies can intervene for or against the new channels. These applications are interesting because they may very well lead to more televised coverage of CIS sports. CIS Director o...