Canadian university athletics will be coming to national television after Sportsnet and Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) announced a six-year broadcasting agreement on May 8.
The deal begins this fall, running through the 2018-19 academic year.
Coverage will include the Vanier Cup, the CIS football national championship game, and its two semifinal matchups, known as the Mitchell and Uteck Bowls, according to a Sportsnet press realease.
Sportsnet will also annually broadcast the semifinal and final games of hockey and basketball for both the men’s and women’s national championships.
Games will be carried on television, online, and mobile devices, according to the agreement.
Ontario University Athletics (OUA) football games will continue to be shown weekly on The Score, a channel recently purchased by Rogers Media, which also owns Sportsnet.
“CIS athletes have proven they can compete at world-class levels, and now they will receive the world-class coverage they deserve,” Navaid Mansuri, Sportsnet’s vice-president of programming, said in the press release.
“The CIS is a highly-valued, long-term partner, and we look forward to working with them to significantly increase the profile of Canadian university sports and expose the country to some of our best athletes and stars in the making – along with sharing the game-day excitement from campuses across Canada. The sky is the limit from here.”
Pierre Lafontaine, Chief Executive Officer of the CIS, called the announcement “historic.”
“This expanded, long-term partnership with Sportsnet will help elevate the CIS brand and provide our 11,000 student athletes, 700 coaches and 54 member institutions the recognition they deserve,” Lafontaine said in the press release.
CIS president-elect Gord Grace said more sports will be added throughout the duration of contract.
“By year six, we could have as many as 27 to 28 broadcast CIS championships,” Grace said, noting this would require reaching audience targets.
He added that increased CIS sponsorship revenues will benefit student-athletes in all sports.
Grace said one of the deal’s key aspects includes a significant increase in the number of female sports being broadcast.
“That was one thing we insisted on in the deal,” he said.
Bob Rumscheidt, manager of interuniversity programs at Carleton University, said the new agreement with Sportsnet is “easily the biggest coup” for the CIS.
“I think it’s tremendously exciting,” he said. “When sporting events are on television they tend to give it a sense of ‘oh, it must be good’ to the general public.”
However, Rumscheidt pointed out a possible snag in the deal—broadcasters like Sportsnet sometimes push to get their way in terms of scheduling.
“They’ve got their own TV schedules to balance,” he said. “If the CIS and the membership understand that, and have some proactive conversations about that, it can only be advantageous. If we don’t . . . it could be a challenge.”
Rumscheidt said the deal could help Carleton as it attempts to attract potential athletes, while giving its current athletes national exposure.
The television contract could also help the university attract sponsors as it prepares to host the 2014 CIS Final 8 Men’s Basketball Championship, according to Rumscheidt.
With the Ravens football team set to return this fall, Rumscheidt said television coverage will not likely be given to the team throughout its first couple of seasons, due to a lack of competitiveness.
“But by broadcasting OUA football across the country every week, that only helps the overall product, which by default helps us,” he said.
