EXCLUSIVE: CBC shelves proposed sports channel
January 20, 2010 · 9 Comments
When the CBC acquired a license for CBC SportsPlus, the plan was to launch the sports channel in 2010, perhaps in time for the network’s World Cup coverage in June.
That won’t happen. For several reasons, SportsPlus has been delayed indefinitely.
Content issues as well as the potential difficulty of receiving cable and satellite carriage seem to be the main reasons for the change of plans.
Rogers Cable, in particular, would probably be reluctant to carry the sports service given that it backs away from anything that would compete with the Rogers-owned Sportsnet.
Without carriage on Rogers, which is the dominant cable distributor in Toronto, southern and central Ontario, as well as in Ottawa and regions of Atlantic Canada, a new cable channel starts off deeply in the hole.
TSN2 discovered the Rogers problem, when it launched in August, 2008, with U.S. Open tennis coverage plus a CFL game. Canadian cable distributors moved quickly to add TSN2 to their sports packages. Rogers did not.
By refusing to carry TSN2, Rogers was appearing to protect Sportsnet, but its negotiation with TSN2’s owner CTV was all-encompassing, involving the entire group of CTV specialty channels. Rogers might also have been using TSN2’s request for carriage as leverage for telecasts involving its baseball team, Toronto Blue Jays.
Despite a strong menu of programming that included NHL, NBA and Raptors games, TSN2 was kept out of the Rogers markets for nine months. Demonstrations by Toronto fans unable able to access the Raptors telecasts on TSN2 failed move the decision makers at Rogers.
The company finally agreed to provide carriage in May, 2009, just before TSN2 was scheduled to air its first Jays telecast.
In addition to Rogers, other distributors might reject SportsPlus citing thin content. The CBC, at this point, does not own NHL, NBA or Raptors cable rights, and it doesn’t air Jays games. It could provide a large amount of amateur sports programming, but that may not be enough to move the distributors.
SportsPlus could launch in the future, of course. The CBC, in the next NHL rights negotiation, could acquire some cable rights. It could eventually buy rights to NBA and Raptors games. For now, however, the options are limited.
For World Cup coverage, the CBC will basically give over its main network to the sports department from June 11 to July 11. The CBC’s cable channel, Bold, could carry replays.
Why Woods is in rehab
Tiger Woods, according to reports, has checked into the Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addication Services in Hattiesburg, Miss., to treat sex addiction. The source for this is journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author of America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life and contributor to the U.S. sports sports blog Deadspin. Here is Denizet-Lewis’s interview with ESPN.
Filed under Article Posts · · 
Email This Article
CBC buying/partnering with The Score makes a ton of sense. I've been thinking it for years.
I wonder if CBC and partner maybe interested in buying The Score and rebranding the network there. I heard rumours that the Score maybe up for sale as it is struggling to be the #3 sportsnetwork in Canada.
Sadly, Rogers runs everything, with no regard to the public at all……
This isn't really an "exclusive". When the CBC announced their World Cup plans a few months ago they said there would be no CBC SportsPlus. Bold will have a few World Cup games live, when there are two matches at the same time.
CBC Sports, in its' present state, is a joke. Why would you want to give the people who have overseen the slow degradation of what was once the greatest franchise in Canadian television sports – Hockey Night In Canada – an entire sports channel to run?
Never was sold on the idea and it's probably a good thing they shelved it. Outside of the Olympics, nobody pays attention to amatuer sports and it would have been costly to produce a whole channel around it.
What Rogers does best is raise rates fopr mediocre programming.
And the CRTC, as usual, stands by and does nothing.