U Sports has posted only once to Facebook since October. It hasn’t posted to Instagram since the Vanier Cup eight weeks ago. If U Sports has any hope of growing university sports in Canada, it must step up its promotion of athletes and their accomplishments.
While game action has been understandably missing over the past month and a half, as three of the four U Sports conferences shut down due to the spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, U Sports has still failed to promote its athletes and their successes.
Take men’s hockey, for example. Since December, 64 U Sports players have signed professionally, including five Ravens. Seven of the 64 players signed in the American Hockey League (AHL), just one level below the National Hockey League (NHL).
U Sports athletes are succeeding in men’s soccer. The Canadian Premier League (CPL) U Sports draft was held on Jan. 20, with 16 U Sports players drafted into the league.
U Sports alumni are also featured at the Olympics. Carleton Ravens football alumnus Jay Dearborn is on Canada’s bobsled team at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, along with six other U Sports alumni.
Despite these accomplishments, U Sports is basically silent on Facebook and Instagram. As a result, the growth of U Sports—which already lags significantly behind its counterpart in the United States, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)—is suffering.
This is not to say other organizations within Canadian university sport are not marketing athletes successfully. The Carleton Ravens social media team, for one, has posted 48 times on Instagram since Dec. 4, 2021, which is the last time U Sports posted. Ontario University Athletics (OUA) has posted 21 times on its Facebook page in January alone.
By standing idly by as its athletes achieve incredible feats, U Sports is passing up golden opportunities to expand the reach of university sports in Canada. In addition to creating a competitive environment for sports, expanding its reach should be U Sports’ biggest goal.
Featured graphic from file.
