-By Stuart Miller-Davis, Timothy Austen and Michael Sun
While the Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team celebrated their 14th national championship with much fanfare, the U Sports and Sportsnet streaming partnership ended quietly. Seven months later, the 2019 Vanier Cup was fast approaching on Nov. 24, and questions were swirling around where the game would be broadcast.
Jim Mullin, Football Canada president and host of Krown Gridiron Nation on TSN, a show that describes itself as Canada’s source for college football news, tweeted out a statement on Oct. 31.
While we are three weeks away from Vanier Cup, numerous sources are telling me that there *should* be an agreement in place for an English broadcast of the game. Candidly, I can’t imagine a national championship without one.
— Jim Mullin (@Jim_MullinTSN) October 31, 2019
This left many wondering what was going to happen with the broadcast of one of the premier U Sports events of the year.
That’s when CBC stepped in. On Nov. 13, U Sports posted a release on its website announcing the national broadcaster would return to broadcast the Vanier Cup for the first time since 1979.
TVA Sports holds the French-language streaming right, renewing its commitment to broadcasting the Vanier Cup, as well as the national semifinal Uteck and Mitchell Bowls and regular season football games in the Réseau du Sport Étudiant du Québec (RSEQ), the university sporting conference in Quebec in November 2018 through to 2023.
“I was really thrilled with the job that our production team did. I thought it looked great and sounded good. We’re proud of the broadcast that came out, and we were really thrilled with sort of the feedback that we received from Canadians,” said Chris Wilson, executive director of CBC Sports and Olympics.
“I was really happy with the production they did and the effort they put into it. And I am waiting for the numbers to come in, but I’m assuming the numbers will be okay,” said U Sports president Graham Brown. “The only difference with CBC, is it was on in every household in Canada. As opposed to when you’re on Sportsnet, you’re with a subscription base.”
Even without audience numbers, initial reaction to the broadcast was positive.
This is an improvement from the sliding ratings of years past.
In March 2017, the Charlatan reported a drop off of nearly 800,000 viewers from the previous year across 15 national broadcasts on Sportsnet. The original deal signed with Sportsnet in 2013 said The Score network would continue to be one of the main hubs for then CIS (now U Sports) coverage, which it had been covering since 2002. The Score was rebranded in 2013 as Sportsnet 360 and requires a subscription beyond the normal Sportsnet package.
“I think what happened when we arrived at that deal, it was prior to them (Sportsnet) successfully getting the rights to the NHL,” said Jennifer Brenning, assistant vice-president of Athletics and Recreation at Carleton University.
“I think there was a lot of thinking that this would really help elevate U Sports and we would be able to build on that. What happened is obviously their energies went into the NHL.”
Jordan Henry, a former broadcaster at Ryerson University, and now a basketball editor at the now defunct Canadian University Sports Network and co-host of the Muted Madness podcast on U Sports basketball, wouldn’t go as far as pointing at the NHL deal as the main problem.
“I think that if you really wanted to break it down, not enough university fans watched and that’s why it’s not on TV,” he said.
“You’re not going to get your 40, 50, 60 year olds flipping on university basketball more so than the 20-year-olds, and 20-year-olds are scared of the word cable, but are willing to spend just as much on streaming services.”
Henry said getting the Vanier Cup on CBC looks like a good start to rebuild, after U Sports took a hit with the Sportsnet deal.
“The fact that your content is now less accessible than it was when that deal started is not a great look,” he said. “Getting the Vanier (Cup) on CBC is a great first start in the future of making their content more accessible.”
The future of the U Sports and CBC is still yet to be seen, but a tweet from Wilson has U Sports fans hopeful.
https://twitter.com/chriswilsoncbc/status/1198689400122757121
Back in August, Ontario University Athletics (OUA) put out a press release on its website announcing that in 2019-20 they would be starting a multi-year agreement with Yare.tv for the streaming of the conference’s sports.
This ended a four-year streaming agreement with American based streaming service Stretch Internet, which began in the 2014-15 season.
Yare.tv is a streaming media company headquartered in Vancouver, and have deals stretching across Canadian sports, with the Canada West conference and Concordia University, to Grand Slam Curling and CFL international.
Yare.tv founder and CEO Hugh Dobbie is a streaming veteran, having started in the business in 1999 with Interactive Net Casting Systems, a company which will eventually be absorbed by streaming giant Endeavour Streaming.
“The focus was to bring some of that high-level streaming experience to minor pro, amateur, and collegiate sports,” Dobbie said of the vision to start Yare.tv.
“How can we bring a platform to other sports properties that they just couldn’t afford before? It’s a very tough model for universities like Carleton and what they have to pay to stream.”
Brenning said Carleton paid to have the game broadcast on Hamilton-based TV channel CHCH for two years. The game had also been on City TV as a ‘game of the week’ in 2016. The Charlatan reported in 2017 the game drew an average of 48,000 viewers. But, Brenning said there are challenges with these broadcasts.
“We did that because we felt it was important to profile university sports, especially the biggest event in U Sports, the Panda Game with 24,000 people (in attendance),” she said about the decision to pay. “But CHCH isn’t known to be a sports platform. So, there was very little lead-up, as well as it’s a one-off and I think it doesn’t work.”
The 2019 broadcast appeared on the local Rogers TV network and OUA.tv which Brenning said was due to the last-minute change of the game from 1 p.m. to 12 p.m.
Brenning said streaming is incredibly important for U Sports without consistent national broadcasts.
“This is a way we can get student athlete recognition,” she said of streaming. “People can see the product, see the level of talent. I think it’s really important that we have a platform that’s accessible to our fans, our alumni, and our families.”
Henry, though, critiqued the OUA model of streaming, noting its lack of consistency.
“Every school is doing it differently,” he said. “Nothing looks the same. Some graphics look good, some look bad. Some quality is good, some are not. Some are on one camera and some are on five.”
The Canada West conference implemented a pay-per-view streaming service for the 2015-16 season and has seen the quality of broadcasts improve across the conference.
“Shortly after we started with them they had an 80 per cent increase in revenues compared with the same period,” Dobbie said of the Yare.tv and Canada West partnership. “The quality of their offering helped them to attract a major sponsor this year.”
He told the Charlatan that Canada West’s subscription revenues have continued to increase quite substantially in the last three years.
U Sports followed the model set by Canada West when they switched to a pay-per-view model for all their national championships starting in 2018 with the help of SportsCanada TV. Although, Sportsnet broadcasted the men’s and women’s basketball, and men’s hockey semifinals and finals on Sportsnet 360 last season.
The decision to charge for the stream was controversial at the time, and some remain opposed, Henry among them.
“Charging for streaming doesn’t make sense for U Sports because it’s going to deter people from watching, but it does make money for U Sports because then you’re not losing money to make something available, ” Henry said about the change.
“I don’t think that pay-per-view is the long term method. I don’t think they (U Sports) want that and I don’t think fans want that.”
When the OUA made the switch over to Yare.tv, many wondered if a Canada West style subscription fee was coming. Currently, the streaming service is still free, but requires users to create an account.
Brenning confirmed there have been discussions, but she isn’t sure it’s the best option.
“I’m not convinced that’s the way to go,” she said. “I think we need to build our audience and expand our reach, certainly there’s an expense to doing that.”
She said she understands why U Sports and Canada West charge for their streams with the costs of broadcasting talents, hardware required, as well as uploading and streaming costs, but that the OUA needs to do their own research before charging.
“I think there may be other ways we can offset those costs,” she said. “And we need to look at those other ways before I think we start charging.”
“Anytime you can put something not behind a paywall (is positive), but you still have to recover your costs. The members are not going to pay to have their content on TV without any return on it,” Brown said.
It would seem then that CBC and their online platform Gem holds a unique advantage.
“The only TV channel in the entire country that is not behind a paywall is the CBC. If you’re on Sportsnet, you’re paying $100 a month subscription for your cable. You’re behind a paywall,” Brown added.
Negotiations are ongoing with both sides trying to reach an agreement “before Christmas,” according to Brown and Wilson.
The process is not straightforward. The Vanier Cup is looking to align schedules with the Grey Cup, to have both games in the same stadium, on the same weekend. The broadcasting rights for the Grey Cup belong to TSN. It is “yet to be determined” how this will impact CBC’s broadcasting of the Vanier Cup.
“Ultimately it’s the cost of production, if it’s $100,000, it’s $100,000. And no one wants to pay $100,000, not the schools, not the conferences, not U Sports. If someone wants to do it, we’d be doing it.”
Wilson sees other advantages to a CBC-U Sports partnership.
“U Sports, being largely Olympic sports, the fact that they’re gender balanced … Those are things that are appealing to us.”
CBC sports’ “strategic pillars” dictate the sports they broadcast. These include gender equality, promotion of Olympic and amateur sports and serving local communities.
Both sides are optimistic that the deal will go through. The process for the Vanier Cup occurred at the last minute, but negotiations went smoothly. Wilson sees the partnership continuing into the future.
“So we do think it’s space that we should be in. But we don’t have specifics yet as to what that might look like if we were to do it.”
Brown echoed those feelings.
“CBC – the perfect place for U Sports, national broadcaster, across Canada, French, English, every household.”
Feature image By Tim Austen | The University of Calgary.
