Why the CFL must love the new ratings system

Week three of the new ratings system continues to produce good news for the Canadian Football League. The only sports broadcast that topped 1 million over the past weekend was Sunday afternoon's Edmonton-Saskatchewan game.

TSN says it was an all-time record for a regular-season game on the specialty channel, but with this new system we're going to see a lot of records. 

Note, that was a Sunday afternoon game, head to head against the The Mighty NFL. All the NFL could do up against the three-down game was 532,000 on City and Sportsnet. Note again that in the Toronto region, that was the Buffalo-Tampa Bay game.

In fact, CFL games took four of the top seven spots, though it must be noted that the Sunday night NFL game that drew 647,000 on TSN probably closer to 800,000 or 900,000 because it was also on NBC.

It was also a good weekend for NASCAR, which attracted 243,000 to TSN2. That race was also on ABC, which means at least 500,000 Canadians tuned in to that race.

Here are the overnight ratings for English Canada, as supplied by BBM Research:

1. CFL, Eskimos at Roughriders, Sunday, TSN: 1,127,000

2.  CFL, Stampeders at Tiger-Cats, Friday, TSN: 863,000

3. NFL, Patriots at Jets, Sunday, CTV: 852,000

4. NFL, Colts at Dolphins, Monday, TSN: 741,000

5. CFL, Blue Bombers at Alouettes, Sunday, TSN: 687,000

6. NFL, Giants at Cowboys, Sunday, TSN: 647,000*

7. CFL, Argonauts at Lions, Saturday, TSN: 634,000

8. NFL, Late afternoon games, Sunday, Sportsnet/City: 532,000

9. Equestrian, Show jumping, Saturday, CBC: 361,000

10. Baseball, Blue Jays at Rays, Friday, Sportsnet: 327,000

11. Baseball, Blue Jays at Rays, Saturday, Sportsnet: 297,000

12. Auto racing, NASCAR Sylvania 300, Sunday, TSN2: 243,000**

13. Soccer, Portsmouth at Aston Villa, Saturday, Sportsnet: 175,000

14. Auto racing, IRL Japan, Sunday, TSN: 142,000

* Viewers for NBC not calculated

** Viewers for ABC not calculated.

OTHER STUFF: Worst sound on radio, television or possibly anything else in the universe: The FAN 590's new theme music for its news breaks. Where did they find that and why didn't they leave it where it was? ... The CTV Olympic consortium has added diver Alexandre Despatie to its French-language coverage for Vancouver. Maybe he'll have some insights into ski jumping, since it's sort of diving.  

Comments

[LionsFan]

The ratings for the Esks/Riders game on Sunday had the highest ratings in the history of Canadian television for a regular season game...not just on a "specialty channel".

[Mike]

"Note again that in the Toronto region, that was the Buffalo-Tampa Bay game"

Chris, that doesn't matter because Buffalo is not Toronto's team, no matter how much some people want it to be. I'm not a Bills fans and most people I know are not Bills fans. And because of that, people aren't going to watch a Bills-Bucs game when both teams are bad.

The other 3 times did much better than the 4pm slot not because of where the teams are based, but because all 6 of them had winning records last year and are still good so people will watch the game even if they aren't rooting for a team.

Also, Rogers decided to make the other game at 4 Seattle-San Fransisco instead of either Pitt-Chicago or Baltimore-San Diego, both of which again are a much better match up. I guess they didn't want to take viewers away from their precious Bills by showing a better game but all it did was drive them away to TSN or Sunday Ticket.

The only way Buffalo will draw big numbers on their own is if 1) the team actually wins something and fans of other teams will watch because they are good while the usual sports band wagoners move from the latest trend to follow them or 2) the team does move to Toronto on a full time basis and they can convince the majority of fans here to give up their current allegiances and support the local team. But 1 game a year isn't going to do that.

[Rick Grace]

And baseball falls further and further into irrelevancy.

[SportsFan]

243,000 watching digital channel TSN2? Wow. What's the record for sports on a digital channel?

[Ray]

So true about the new fan music

[willy]

chris, do you know what the ratings were for the tfc game?

[chris]

Well Rick, when a team sucks as badly as the Blue Jays do, then it's no suprise people will stay away from them.

[Destroyer]

the Alouetts-Winnipeg game probably had a few hundred thousand more from RDS

[Rick Grace]

Sure Chris.
But what about Sunday night baseball on Sportsnet? It didn't even make the top 14. Meaning it didn't even reach 100,000 viewers nationally. Like I said. Baseball has become totally insignificant in this country.

[Peter Brown]

Chris, as a Canadian reporter, you seem to be compelled to always underscore high ratings for Canadian sports and come up with excuses that explain away highly rated U.S. sports. This overly sensitive defence of Canadiana is really getting tiresome. This week, you've repeated the "argument" that the vast majority of Canadian NFL viewers watched Sunday Night Football on TSN instead of on NBC. Last week, you posited that this was because Sunday Night Football had only been available on TSN in Canada for several years and that therefore Canadian fans will be creatures of habit who will be too stupid to notice that another network is showing the game. You have absolutely no logical or empirical basis upon which to base this claim.

I know that U.S. and Canadian viewers often do not have the same tastes, but a little piece of information for you. According to the Sports Business Journal (http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2009/09/giants-cowboys-is-sunday-night.html), Sunday night's Giants/Dallas game scored the highest rating in the history of Sunday Night Football with about 25 million viewers (not terribly surprising, since it's on broadcast TV now instead of cable). As well, it was "the most-watched NFL regular-season primetime game since Broncos-49ers earned 27 million viewers in December '97."

You write: "In fact, CFL games took four of the top seven spots, though it must be noted that the Sunday night NFL game that drew 647,000 on TSN probably closer to 800,000 or 900,000 because it was also on NBC."

Well, since we're making educated guesses, or pulling numbers out of our behinds, a pursuit that I'm just as qualified to do, I'd say your estimate is garbage. 25 million Americans watch the game, but only 800,000 Canadians watch it? Ridiculous. I'd be willing to bet that the number of Canadians watching on NBC is equal to that of TSN, putting the number closer to 1.3 million, which would make it the highest rated sports broadcast on your list.

Further, in response to "mike", I only reiterate your point from last week: that Buffalo home games can be watched by Canadians on over-the-air Buffalo-based broadcasts from most of the Golden Horseshoe without being accounted for in the BBM ratings.

Basically, every post about ratings should include these caveats.

[doug]

I agree wholeheartedly with what "Peter Brown" states...to take the canadian NFl ratings solely from Tsn, City or whover else is just absurd....I always watch NBC, as well as the fact many I know watch on satellite, the american one....and on the internet on numerous sites on there....plus if anyone actually believes over a million people watched the Eskies-Roughrider game I have some prime swampland id FLorida for sale...coem on lets get real...your the media guy just don't pick up a set of "ratings" and take them as fact, this is not 30 years ago, the ways in which to watch a NFl are numerous, and thats why this continued "blackout" policy by the NFL when teams don't sell out is asinine. Welcome to the new millenium...

[Mike]

Peter, last week was a special case with the game being on ESPN in the states and not available OTA nationally. NFL rules allow the teams playing to show the game on a network affiliate in their home market. So CBS in Buffalo preempted whatever the national programming was for that game and everyone who gets that channel on tv could watch the game there instead of TSN. Same for anyone who gets Boston affiliates.

This week the game wasn't on ESPN and TSN it was on CBS and CityTV. The case from last week doesn't apply as City gets to have sim-sub privileges. The problem with that game isn't that people weren't counted, it's that Buffalo and Tampa both suck and there were better games to watch for the majority who aren't bills fans.

[Daniel]

Well, there's one MLB team in the country, and it's terrible. So yeah, right now MLB interest in Canada is probably pretty insignificant. But I think you could make the argument that it's still the second most popular team in Toronto, a city of 5 million. And, if the team actually got good again, I don't think anyone could seriously believe they wouldn't be huge.

[John Richardson]

I always love it when the NFL sheep come out of the woodwork and start bashing the CFL, a product which is infinitely more exciting than that of the No Fun League. If there was no betting on the NFL, viewership would drop by probably 40%.

[Christopher Jones]

300,000 for a meaningless baseball game in September seems pretty good to me.

Interest in the Jays and MLB might be low in Canada but it is not as bad as the interest in the NHL in the States.

[justin]

Peter, the Monday night games are only on TSN and last week, the got just below Sunday's match. Second, assuming Sunday's night got Hockey Night in Canda type ratings is ridiculous. A top 10 rated TV show of any type only gets between 1.8m & 1m. You're telling us an NFL match had more viewers than Big Brother or You Think You Can Dance?

You made the mistake of assuming that football & NFL interest is the same in Canada as in the US.

[Stan Kozinar]

WHERE'S JOE BOWEN???????????????????????????????????

[Peter Brown]

Justin,
I didn't say that NFL is equally popular in U.S. and Canada. If I had thought that, I would have estimated a Canadian audience of 2.5 million (approx 1/10th of the U.S. audience). (Just an aside: in recent years, the Super Bowl viewership in Canada has been equal to or higher than that of the Grey Cup, so the difference in popularity is probably shrinking.)

My only point was that Chris and many other Canadian sports nationalists continually trot out the assumption that the vast majority of Canadian viewers choose the Canadian carrier for an event and therefore discount the total audience. My argument is that we have no evidence to support that claim. Until BBM starts to measure Canadians watching programs only U.S. stations (which they do not currently), then it's all idle speculation.

As far as CFL vs. NFL, I prefer the NFL, but still enjoy CFL and CIS football (I was at Warrior Field for my alma mater University of Waterloo's 49-0 win over Windsor on Saturday, and at Ralph Wilson on Sunday for Saints/Bills, so I feel I'm an equal opportunity football supporter.). The CFL supporters' argument that CFL is more exciting than NFL is not really born out, IMHO. Over the 10 years or so, we've seen a spike in scoring in the NFL, with the single-season touchdown pass record that stood for 20 years being broken twice in four years.

[Rick Grace]

Why do you people want these American sports to be so popular up here? While it seems you don't want Canadian sports to be popular for some reason. Like don't you realize they could care less if you watched their leagues or not? Its a league for them, not us. How some up here get the idea we're involved is something I will never understand. But the worship of all things US of A by some up here is bloody embarassing.

[Mike]

Some people's ignorance never ceases to amaze me.

[James]

I don't think people like MLB or NBA because they 'want American sports to be popular up here'.

I think that it's silly when some Canadians seem to hope for the demise of the Raptors and Blue Jays etc because they 'aren't Canadian'. Toronto is the 5th largest city in North America - it's extremely big and extremely diverse. There's more than enough room for baseball fans and basketball fans to enjoy their teams in addition to NHL and CFL folks. So why not relax and let them enjoy it? It should have nothing to do with politics!

I'm a huge Jays and Raptors fan and I don't care much for hockey. Just my preference. It has nothing to do with Canada or the U.S.

Incidentally, I'm not really sure how the NHL could be considered a Canadian league in any way really. The headquarters are based in NYC, 24/30 teams are in the States, the commissioner is American, and they clearly pander far more to the American audience.

[Vince]

Chris, the worst thing on the air on the FAN590 is the instant tune-out, Erik Thomas. As for their update bumpers, am I the only one that thinks the Solid Gold Dancers from the 70's are going to jump out of my radio every time there's a sports newsflash ? Both old and new are horrible.

[Brian]

Chris - Did you notice the FAN changed back to the original update tune? I felt the same way about the "New, Old" one, it was horrible.