Sportsnet One's debut shuts out Jays fans

It probably doesn't happen that often, but I  understated the case in my Monday column when I knocked Rogers for shutting out tens of thousands of Blue Jays fans by putting Saturday's game on Sportsnet One.

The Jays two games on the West Coast scored more than 480,000 viewers apiece on Rogers Sportsnet. Saturday's game, available only on Sportsnet One to Rogers customers, drew substantially less than that. BBM Canada originally reported the audience at 31,000, but admitted today that there were errorrs in its calculations.

Suffice to say, though, that it didn't make enough mistakes to drive up that number to 400,000.

It should be noted that any numbers for Sportsnet One right now are not national because Rogers sphere of cable influence doesn't extend to the West and many parts east of Ontamrio.

In addition, most viewers were probably unaware that Sportsnet Junior even existed. One reader tells of calling Rogers in Toronto and finding that even some of their employees didn't know what Sportsnet One was or what channels it was on.

This will eventually change. After all, TSN2 scored some pretty dismal ratings in the early going and is doing just fine now. But in the meantime there are legions of irate Blue Jays fans wondering what they did to deserve this treatment.

Here are the weekend's most-watched sports events on English-language television, according to BBM Canada ratings:

1. CFL, Alouettes at Argos, Saturday, TSN: 829,000

2. CFL, Tiger-Cats at Blue Bombers, Friday, TSN: 817,000

3. CFL, Eskimos at Stampeders, Sunday, TSN: 768,000

4. Golf, PGA Championship final round, Sunday, TSN: 530,000*

5. MLB, Blue Jays at Angels, Sunday, Sportsnet: 484,000

6. MLB: Blue Jays at Angels, Friday, Sportsnet: 481,000

7. Golf, PGA Championship third round, Saturday, TSN: 427,000*

8. Tennis, Rogers Cup second semifinal, Saturday, CBC: 364,000

9. Golf, PGA Championship second round, Friday, TSN: 314,000

10. Tennis, Rogers Cup first final, Sunday, CBC: 299,000

11. Track and Field, Diamond League London, Saturday, CBC: 224,000

12. Tennis, Rogers Cup first semifinal, Saturday, CBC: 221,000

13. Auto racing, NASCAR Sprint Cup, Sunday, TSN2: 217,000

14. Soccer, West Brom at Chelsea, Saturday, Sportnset: 130,000

* Viewers for CBS not calculated

Comments

[Rick Grace]

Enough of glorifying the Blue Jays
They;re on 5 nights a week.
CFL is on 3-4 nights a week.
CFL is averaging close to 900,000.
Blue Jays around 450-500,000.
Add in Sunday night baseball ratings, and that number falls to around 350,000.
Blue Jays still have fans in Toronot.
I admit that.
But its the same people who wached 20 years ago.
Baseball is not a growth sport.
And Rogers is desperate to stop that trend.
But I doubt they can.

[Mike]

Enough of the Ricky Palin nonsense.
The Blue Jays are on 6 or 7 days of the week.
CFL is on 3 or 4 days.
The Blue Jays are on 50% more.
The Blue Jays have 162 games a season
CFL has 72.
The Blue Jays are 1 team.
CFL is 8.
Blue Jays have fans outside of Toronto.
Sportsnet One has proven that.
You are desperate to stop that trend.
But its been proven you can't.

[Joel]

Jays are playing 28/31 days this month. All CFL teams are playing 12. It's funny how you and Dave resort to insults while me and some others use FACTS.

[Joel]

10 days, 12 games

[Canadiansportsfan]

Are you sure that the Premier League game that got 130,000 was Chelsea-West Brom? It aired on Sportsnet One. The game that Sportsnet aired was Blackpool-Wigan Athletic.

And to everyone who hates soccer, Blackpool and Wigan are two of the worst teams in the Premier League and neither has a tradition of being great. Them playing each other is the equivalent to the Blue Jackets-Panthers in the NHL. Plus it was a blowout and many hardcore fans would have watched Aston Villa-West Ham on Setanta. This makes me think that the Premier League should be considered to be right there with the NBA and MLB as far as Canadian ratings go because it gets as good as, if not better, ratings then all-US matchups get in those leagues. This makes me rank the pro sports as, NHL, NFL, CFL, MLB, Premier League, NBA.

[Industry]

I guess there's no room in Daves world for basketball, soccer, golf, olympics, curling or any of other sports out there.... How about we ignore his comments?

[Jesse Alexander]

Rogers sucks for doing this, I'm not buying their service so I can watch the last twenty five games of the season. I can watch the games online through MLB. I'd rather give them the money than Rogers, and I'll never use rogers services ever again. No cell or internet or TV. I'll always remember they did this and I'll forever try to convince everyone I know to boycott all their services. They made a huge mistake trying to cash in on these last games. It's too bad the Jays can't cancel their attachment to Rogers and go with TSN or The Score. Everyone needs to boycott this new channel and not watch their channel for awhile so they see their mistake and by doing this maybe we can get baseball back for next season.

[Doug Mitchell]

I am in Alberta and have the MLB Extra Innings package thru Bell. Yesterday I wanted to watch the Yankees and Tigers and since it was on Sportsnet One it was blacked out from MLB Extra Innings. Rogers somehow managed to blackout a Yankees game I paid for and wanted to watch. I see from the schedule thats going to happen today and Sunday as well!

[Rick Grace]

Mike you always insult but have nothing to back up your claims.
The Blue jays for every game average around 250,000 to high of-600,000.
Other baseball does between 80-150,000.
The CFL for every game averages around 800,000 to highs of 1,000,000.
Those numbers are consistent for every game.
Logic dictates. that iF the CFL were on 6 days a week they would average the same nubmers.
Thing is every year CFL TV ratings are increasing.
While Blue Jays ratings remain stagnant.
Baseball is not a growth sport.
Its fan base is aging in Toronto.
And heaven help this team if they revert back to form next year.
It could kill the franchise.

[Dave]

The reality of the situation is the CFL weather they play 1 game or 400 games is the second highest TV property in Canada. I guess the truth just hurts some people. Only in Canada would a nations own league take shots for being popular from other Canadians

[LionsBacker]

The riders/als game was 1,042,000 on thursday - english only (not counting RDS).

[Steve G]

If I were a Chelsea supporter (unlikely, given I've followed the sport for more than 25 years now), I'd find more important things to be unhappy about, likely starting with the chap who wears the armband.

[Brett S]

Though I disagree with people that put down the CFL (I am a HUGE Riders fan), I don't get why Rick feels the need to put down MLB and the Jays (I'm also a big Jays fan). People no matter which side of the argument they are on will try to skew facts in their favour, and neither of the sides will ever really win this argument. I'm watching Hamilton and Toronto right now, tommorow I might watch Jays and Red Sox and on Sunday I'm planning on watching Bears/49ers on TSN. I try not to pick favourites like you guys, I watch all sports I can. Why some people feel the need to hate on the CFL, or baseball, or whatever makes no sense to me. Will putting down these sports make your favourite sport more popular? No. So grow up and have some common sense when you post on here for the sake of all of us

[Chris]

Rick, if any sport in Canada has an aging fan base it would be the Cfl. It's everyone's Dad's league. Younger demographics definitely trend towards US sports. That's not just an opinion, it's fact .. One one of the CFL marketing challenges/objectives too. And you've got to stop comparing a whole league to one team.

[Basshat]

I know that Thursday isn't considered part of the "weekend" but surely the weekly list could be expanded to include them?

[Jay fan]

I get shaw cable every summer just for the Jays and cancel out in the winter. Where I am we don't even have the choice to get rogers cable - i have resorted to private iks server and stealling american sattelite just to see most of the 25 SPN-1 games- ---- cable altogether.

[Mike]

Ricky Palin, that's more nonsense.
You underrate the Blue Jays (when has the games got 250,000, highs are 800,000) and overrate the CFL (just last week a game drew 650,000) intentionally.
Actual logic in NO WAY dictates that fans don't have lives or interests other than watching all 6 or 7 hypothetical games in a week. Maybe yours does and that explains a lot.
All TV ratings have increased, not just the CFL. It's called the PPM.

[Rick Grace]

Hey Mike.
First off I don't know why they CFL's success bugs you so much?
What has it done to you?
And second, you have no facts to back up your ridiculous claims.
CFL was on 4 nights last week and every game did nice numbers, with the Lions-Riders game on Thursday doing over one million.
Jays were on those same days and couldn't even draw half a million.
Pretty sad when you look at Tranna's population
I don't care about baseball.
But I don't get why people like yourself are so upset that we have a national football league that is popular from coast to coast.?