CBC makes case for amateur sports

When the Canadian Olympic Committee sounded off recently about the lack of amateur sports on television, CBC Sports boss Scott Moore was a tad irritated.

While he understood that the COC wasn't pleased that its application for an amateur sports channel is still collecting dust two years after it was filed, he felt that his network's contributions to amateur sports were being ignored. 

He has a point. Nobody does more amateur sports than CBC.

``We continue to be the only major broadcaster that consistently schedules amateur sports and we're proud of that," he says. But Moore's not sure there's a case for the kind of blanket coverage the COC is proposing.

 ``Generally, I agree there isn't enough amateur sports on TV," Moore says. ``Is there enough demand? That's the question.

``Can there be more? Yes, but we and the private networks have to look at the investment, the return and the audience numbers. It's easy to say there should be more, but there's got to be a return."

In other words, unless these sports can draw a large enough audience to justify the rights' costs, they're not going to get much more exposure.

Take the case of skier Erik Guay. Barely two weeks after Canadians went ga-ga over our Olympic athletes in Vancouver, Guay won a World Cup championship. The event was shown on CBC the same day.

You'd have thought the country would be captivated by such an event. But fewer than 100,000 viewers -- 5 per cent of your average Hockey Night In Canada broadcast -- bothered to watch. World Cup races last weekend did even worse.

``Every Olympics without fail people talk about how exciting amateur sports are and that there should be more of it on television," Moore says. ``But they don't seek them out in big numbers.

``Every other year, we in the broadcasting industry think this is the year there will be a bigger holdover effect. But it doesn't happen and that's disappointing."

The fact is that amateur sports tend to get lost in the shuffle, unless the Olympics are on when huge dollars are at stake.

``It's a crowded marketplace," says Moore. ``It's tough to compete with all the major league sports on TV. Amateur sport has to compete with that and it's tough to compete with the big promotional push coming across the border.  It's tough to build a profile."

Part of the problem does lie with CBC. Because little of its prime-time programming draws huge audiences, the network doesn't have much opportunity to promote amateur sports coverage.

When CTV runs a sports promo during Canadian Idol, it speaks to millions. CBC doesn't have that kind of clout.

Then there's the Bold problem. CBC runs a lot of amateur sports live on its oddly named digital channel. But because it has so few subscribers, much of that is wasted. That's why CBC wants another sports-specific channel, but that's another matter.

The fact is that amateur sports' only hope for exposure is the CBC. The private networks simply aren't interested in most amateur sports because they either lose money or barely break even.

If it hadn't been for the CBC, Canadian figure skating fans would be out of  luck next week when the world figure skating championships start. Nobody else wanted the skating package.

It would be great to see more exposure for our amateur athletes. But the sad truth is that the public has to demand it first. Outside of the Olympics, that's not happening.

STARS ON ICE: CBC Bold and the CBC Sports website will have complete coverage of the world figure skating championships from Turin starting Tuesday at 7 a.m.  As for the main channel, it will have coverage every weekday afternoon starting at 3 and live coverage on the weekend.

MORE MADNESS: The Score is offering more coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament than ever. In addition to carrying all the games on The Score, it will also offer coverage and highlights on its website, Score mobile and on its Sirius Hard Core Sports satellite radio station.  Games will also be available on demand on Rogers and Shaw cable systems.

PARALYMPIC PARADOX: CTV is saying it was so encouraged by ratings for the Paralympics opening ceremonies that it has changed its mind and will show Sunday's closing ceremonies live across the country. But there's no doubt that criticism of the network's earlier decision to show the opening ceremonies a day after the fact to most Canadians had something to do with this move. While the CTV-Rogers Olympic consortium is carrying more Paralympic coverage than ever, the fact is that there's an appetite for more. CTV, which had not planned to carry the closing ceremonies,  drew a combined audience of 1.4 million for last Friday's opening show. It was aired live only in B.C. Sunday's finale begins at 10 p.m. EDT.

TFC BETTER DEFINED: Once again, all Toronto FC games will be carried on Canadian television. But there is an improvement this season: all games will be in HD. CBC is carrying the bulk of the games with 13, starting April 25 against Seattle. Rogers Sportsnet has 10, beginning with the May 1 game against Real Salt Lake. MLSE-owned GolTV has the other seven, including the season opener March 27 in Columbus.

Comments

[Kbone]

Um, Chris, "all games will be in HD" & "MLSE-owned GolTV has the other seven", but GolTV doesn't have a HD channel????????

[Josh]

Gol TV plans to make the games available free of charge in HD to all digital cable and satellite providers. So Rogers would put it on their sports preview channel (the one that used to house TSN Alternate programming) and Shaw Direct would put it on their HD Sports channel. Others providers would do the same. They also did this for a TFC-Real Madrid exhibition last summer.

[John McCain]

CBC should do more with amateur sports than other networks - its a massively publicly funded entity. Isn't this kind of cultural Canadiana its mandate?
Or is that Dragon's Den?

[David Hyndman]

This is an example of the chicken or the egg debate. If you want more people watching amateur sports you need someone to broadcast it but networks won't broadcast it if people don't watch. I really feel that one reason that Olympic ratings are so high is that there is a demand to see these sports and this is the only time in four years that people get a chance. I give credit for CBC for trying (and Sportsnet to a degree as well) but they can't do it all. Saturday afternoon's may not be the best time as I like to be out doing some these sports myself. We need this amateur sports network and we need it on basic cable so everyone has access. I certainly would appreciate having some alternative real sports to watch during the week when everyone else is ramming this over rated American professional crap down our throats. Poker and Darts are not a suitable alternative.

[Primitive]

Canadian Idol hasn't been on the air since 2008, so I don't think CTV would do well to promote anything during a program that doesn't exist.

[Peter Brown]

Chris,

You write: "[NCAA] Games will also be available on demand on Rogers and Shaw cable systems." Is that the official word from Rogers? I checked Rogers On Demand and they only have highlights at this point.

PB

[Mullah_Kintyre]

The Canadian Olympic Committee's bid should, and hopefully will, be rejected as long as they insist it must be a mandatory channel that every single satellite and cable subscriber across the country must be forced to pay for. Obviously they know few of us would voluntarily pay to receive this channel. If it is accepted, I want to set up a webcam in someone's basement and point it at a ping-pong table, and call it an amateur sports channel if I will receive part of everyone's cable bill each month.